In memoriam - Sparkles

 "Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just" - Marcus  Aurelius

 Our daughter's cat died suddenly yesterday.  She was about 10 years old - middle age for an indoor cat.

Sparkles was a good kitty - she always used the litter box and always used her scratching post - never the furniture.  We got her from the animal shelter in 2012 when she was already 4 months old.  She had spent all four of those months locked in a cage at the shelter, and had never known anything besides that.

She didn't have much personality when we brought her home - didn't play with toys, and didn't really interact with us very much.  Over time, she developed a sweet personality and would come around, talking and wanting to be petted.  Sparkles and our dachshund became buddies after a while.  Sparkles would often try to get the dog in trouble by instigating a chase.  Over time she learned to play, and enjoyed catnip, her toys, and chasing a laser dot around the house.

While Sparkles always used the litter box, she never did figure out how to bury a turd.  That became the job of whoever happened by after Sparkles did her business.  We never considered it to be a big deal (except for the odor), because it probably had to do with being raised in a cage early on.

On her last day she came up out of the basement and hopped over the kiddie gate.  We keep a kiddie gate at the top of the stairs leading to the basement to keep the dogs out and give her a quiet place where they won't hassle her.  She jumped over a second kiddie gate to get into our daughter's room, then laid down on her favorite blanket, and died.

 

We used two different veterinarians while Sparkles was with us, and both of them told us that she had a heart murmur.  I'm guessing her heart suddenly gave out after coming up from the basement and oofing herself over two kiddie gates.  It's not a lot of exercise, but she was an inactive big indoors cat with a heart problem.  She wasn't overweight, but she was pretty large, like a bobcat.

I was at work on night shift when it happened - not that anything could be done at that point anyway.  Our daughter was and is distraught, and of course us adults are deeply saddened by the loss of the kitty and our daughter's emotional state.  Nothing happening right now is very good, and this is the cherry on top of it all.

Today I got up very early before work, and went to the shop after taking some measurements.  I built a heavy-duty burial box out of my stash of pallet wood.  Then I had our daughter pick out a place where she would like Sparkles to rest.  She chose a shady spot between a couple of pretty fir trees.  I dug and dug and dug and dug for about an hour in 85 degree heat.  When the hole was deep and wide enough, I test fitted the box in it.

Our daughter wrapped Sparkles in her favorite blanket and placed all her favorite toys in on top of her.  Then I sealed the box up and lowered it into the hole, said a quick prayer (for us), choking up a little bit, and then covered the box.  She was a good kitty.  We miss her a lot.