Sadness

I'm feeling a little down right now. I realize that is one of the symptoms of my condition, but it seems to have been more pervasive lately; I guess I need to go back to my counselor for another session, and I should also be better about taking my prescription regularly.

There have been reasons for the sadness, too. Foremost: our family pet, our precious "Bijou", passed away sometime in the wee hours of the morning the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. She had hyperthyroidism and had lost a significant amount of weight, so it was not a total surprise. That does not, however, make it any less heartbreaking. To make matters worse, Tigger found her when he woke up that morning. He really loved her (probably still does); the first thing he did every morning and the last thing he did at night was to find her so he could pet her and give her hugs ... she obviously loved him, too, because she tolerated him following her around. I feel guilty because she died alone; not that I think our being with her would have stopped anything, but there is still the guilt. Also, it seems that she knew what was happening; all of us have recollections of her coming and spending at least a brief period of time with each of us, alone, that last evening. As Lumpy says, "She was saying good-bye." I think Lumpy is correct.

Here is a picture of her, before she got so sick and thin. Please excuse the quality of the photo; it was snapped with a cell phone camera.

As you can see, she was a beautiful grey tabby. What you can't see is that her fur was extremely soft and plush. She had lighter markings on her chest and belly. Aside from her physical characteristics, she was also extremely playful and an excellent mouser. Although D found her as a kitten, she was living with his parents when we met. She came to live with us after we discovered mice in our kitchen; she was barely through the front door when she saw the mouse boldly sauntering across our kitchen floor; that was his last saunter ... I had never seen a cat move so quickly. We never saw anything else of that mouse, either.

We called her our "Lion Tamer." We had an old stuffed lion that we gave to Bijou for her own; she would toss it in the air and catch it, roll on it, etc. The most memorable actions, though, was when she would grab it with her front claws, latch onto one of its ears or the scalp (for lack of a better word) between the ears with her teeth, and then rip at the rest with her hind claws. Owl still has the remains of that stuffed animal in her room ... the head, tail and paws are relatively intact, but there are only strips of fabric holding them together; the stuffing from the torso is completely gone, strewn hither and yon.

Bijou was also a bit clairvoyant ... she knew that I was pregnant with Tigger, and then again with Lumpy, before D and I even knew I was pregnant. Of course, her way of letting me know was less than pleasant - she would stand away from me and make this hissing noise deep in her throat, like she was trying to hiss past a hairball, and every time I tried to walk by her she would attack my feet. This behavior continued through to the end of both of my pregnancies, only letting up when we came home with each baby. It's not that she seemed especially interested in either one at that stage, but she was less prone to treating my feet like they were invading her territory.