My heart is destroyed

What.

A.

Week.

And not a good one.

Do y'all remember just last week I told you Bailey seemed to be doing much better and had started using her litter box and all that good stuff?  She was climbing up in the dishwasher, acted interested in stuff, etc.  In fact 3 nights in a row last week she was waiting at the door when I got home from work and bolted outside to sniff stuff.  She was acting all perky and sassy and for the first time in forever she actually didn't stink so I could stand to have her near me.

When I left for work last Friday morning, she was peppy, eating, running around and seeming like she was fine.  Friday night when I got home, she wasn't waiting at the door.  I went in, turned the alarm off, I was about to pee my pants so I ran to the bathroom and she never came to greet me as she had done for almost 14.5 years.

I looked around and found her on the heat vent in my dining room.  She looked at me pitifully.  And a few minutes later she got up to come in the kitchen for some food and water and she seemed to have a slight limp and it appeared to be her right rear leg.  I checked it out and didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.  She was walking on it and she liked to drink out of the toilets (even though I gave her nice fresh water in a bowl) and she was able to jump up on the toilet seat so I didn't feel like it was broken or anything.  She wasn't crying in pain when walking, jumping or when I touched it.  So I assumed she had just bruised it or pulled a muscle or something.  And I decided to just watch her over the weekend.

At some point on Sunday night she tried to jump up on an ottoman and she fell.  But she walked off, still with only the slightest limp and wasn't moaning or crying in pain.  She later was able to jump up on the toilet seat with no problem.

On Monday, I talked to a friend/co-worker of mine who has a farm and has approximately 20 cats.  I told her the symptoms and she agreed - she said I would definitely know if it was broken because she would have been crying in pain and would not put any weight on it and probably wouldn't have let me touch her.  She suggested I just keep watching her, try to make her rest as much as possible and if it went on for a while I should probably take her to the vet and have it checked.

I came home from work Monday night and Bailey did not greet me at the door.

And she never will again.

I found her dead in the middle of my kitchen floor.

Oh, y'all.  It was just awful.  It looked like she had been standing there and just fell over on her side.  All four legs were straight out in front of her, her beautiful eyes were still open and my heart broke right in half.  I've never had an indoor pet before and so I've never been through the death of a pet that I was this attached to and spent so much time with.  I can't stand it.

When I told my co-worker/friend, she said that at least it sounds like it was instantaneous and that she would suspect it was a heart attack and I should believe that Bailey did not suffer.  I didn't even know cats could have a heart attack.  Maybe that sounds dumb, but I really didn't.  But based on the position of her body, the fact that her eyes were still open, and that she didn't crawl off somewhere and hide, she said it sounds like it was instantaneous and even Bailey didn't know it was coming.

Y'all, I am so sad.  I'm so heartbroken.  I miss her so much.

It was pitch dark when I got home Monday night so I couldn't see in my backyard to dig her a grave.  And as y'all know by now, we had that ridiculous snow/ice storm coming on Tuesday.  I placed her in a box and I went out early Tuesday morning to bury her before I went to work.

Of course this didn't go smoothly.

I was going to bury her behind my detached garage because I knew I would never do any landscaping back there and she would be undisturbed.  I started digging a hole with the shovel my dad had given me only a month or two before he died of a heart attack a year and a half ago.  And let me tell you that is the first time I've used his shovel (it was an extra so he had used it for years probably) and the tears were flowing.  I was using my dead dad's shovel to bury my dead cat.  Oh it was awful.

I dug a decently deep hole and then I ran into plumbing stuff.

I filled that hole back in and moved down a few feet and started digging again.  And I ran into plumbing stuff again.  Yes.  Seriously.

So I filled the second hole back in and moved out from behind my garage and found a special spot in my back yard and started digging a third hole.  Finally I found the right spot.  I guess Bailey didn't want to be stuck behind the garage for eternity.  I can't blame her.

Since it was the third hole I had dug and it was 7:30 a.m. and about 18 degrees outside, my back was hurting, the shoulder and elbow of the arm I broke in 4 places was killing me, and I was crying like crazy.  Honestly, I was just exhausted and I couldn't dig a very deep hole by that point.  I dug enough to get her covered and then I went in the garage and got a giant bag of soil conditioner that was left from last spring, and I poured the entire thing over her grave and I then went to work hoping like hell that nothing would come along and dig her up.

By the time I got home from work with the ice and snow and fiasco that was Atlanta that afternoon and evening (which I will blog about another time), my driveway was a solid sheet of ice so I had to park my car up at the front of my house.  I haven't even been back there to check on her since I buried her because I haven't been able to get down my driveway yet.  Hopefully it should all be melted today.

At this point, I don't feel like I can ever have another cat.  Because I never want to feel like this again.

Bailey

July, 1999 - January, 2014