The one where we grieve...

I was going to blog about the baby's birth, and I still will, but this post is what's on my mind right now. If you are not an animal lover, don't have pets or don't understand how people get so attached to their animals- you should probably stop reading right now and come back another day. This was a sad sad weekend for our furry kids.

On Friday, our old black lab, Maggie, passed quietly in her sleep. We'd known it was coming for awhile, she was sixteen years old, mostly blind and mostly deaf, but she'd still trek off with Sean around camp. She was definitely slower and couldn't go as far, but she was still a trooper. She came to our family when she was seven, she'd been one of Mike's grandpa's duck dogs. She was trained to retrieve and loved to swim. And she loved the kids, especially Sean. She followed them on all of their adventures and I always knew that she'd protect them from any harm that came their way. I remember one time, she even went down the hill on a sled with them! We are sad to see her go, but thankful for a peaceful end.

Some of you already know that Lu's cat, Sparkplug, had been having colon issues and had been in and out of the kitty hospital several times. The last time they told her that the only thing left to try was surgery. The surgery would remove part of his colon and hopefully take care of the problem. It was risky and dangerous but they had no choice. Lu had scheduled the surgery for this Wednesday. On Thursday morning Sparkplug was once again having trouble and the vet said to bring him in, they would give him meds, keep him overnight and she could pick him up on Friday. So we did. Friday they said they were going to have to keep him another night and they were moving the surgery up to Tuesday. An hour later the vet called back and said that his colon wasn't filtering the toxins from his system and it was going to start affecting his liver. And that they were already seeing neurological issues. They had to do the surgery right then, it was an emergency and his last hope. They were rushing him in right away so we didn't even get to see him one last time. They called a couple hours later- he'd made it through surgery and was resting on a heating pad and recovering from the anesthesia. They'd be keeping him the rest of the weekend.

We didn't hear from them Saturday, but I told Lu that no news is good news, they would call if there was a problem. They called Sunday. Sparkplug had passed. Lu was devastated. I honestly think if she didn't have baby Dylan, she'd still be in bed crying. I have never seen a cat and it's owner as close as she was to him. She'd had him since he was tiny and they were inseparable. He often stole items of her clothing and carried them off and hid them; socks, swimsuit tops, jewelry. He was also fond of plastic hangars. Once, he stole Sean's cell phone and hid it beneath the couch. True story- pinky swear. That cat had more personality than any cat I've ever known. And he loved his girl more than anything. He had a super loud purr that you could hear a room away. He loved to chew on her hair and he slept wrapped up in her arms at night.

He was the father of two of our other cats and he was the only male cat I've ever seen be a good daddy. He stayed with the mama cat and babies, he kept them herded in one room and taught them to use the litterbox. After they were older, he still slept with them sometimes. He had more quirky character traits than I can possibly list. But he will be missed greatly. And I'm bawling as I write this- both because I will miss him, and because Lu is still in so much pain at his loss and there's nothing I can do to ease it.

All kitties go to heaven, right?

RIP Maggie & Sparkplug- may you remain friends wherever you are.
♥Spot