For Ron

Apparently I haven't blogged in a month?! Where did June go! I had hoped to get a blog in about my awesome vacation, but instead I feel compelled to write about my devastatingly bad day yesterday.

Yesterday one of my foster kittens, I had named him Ron Weasley because he was a red & white kitten & very scrawny, died unexpectedly. I have had two sick kittens die previously, and lost a litter of tiny babies, but they were all things I could see coming. Ron's dying struck me blindsided. Anytime I get a litter of kittens, I know they haven't had a cushy life. They usually come from outdoors from undernourished moms, so I am always cautious, concerned and on the look out for red flags. Ron was scrawny and seemed fragile, but he had been given medicine for mites & worms, was eating, drinking, using the litter box, and would come out every time I came into the room to wait for me to pick him up & then start purring. Oh the purring. I would hold him upside down in my arms like a baby, and he would just purr. And he would stay there as long as I had the time to hold him. Or I would set him in my lap, and he would stretch out, never ceasing to purr.

He wasn't interested in playing, but watched his sister run around. Looking back, I could have seen these as flags of something being wrong, but I didn't think they were so abnormal as to indicate sickness. But now, all I can think is WHAT IF, or I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, even though I know I couldn't have. My husband, who was the last one to see him the morning he died, is also beating himself up that he didn't see anything wrong. And I can logically comfort him that there was nothing to see, nothing to miss, that sometimes kittens with poor starts to life just don't make it. But illogically I just want to scream, NO! NOT HIM! HE WAS MINE! HE WAS FINE THAT MORNING! I keep picturing his little body as I had to find him, and I swear I want to rip my heart out so that it stops hurting. I know its irrational, but I feel crushed that he died alone, that I wasn't there for him. I feel like I failed. I want to go back in time and get him to the vet. I know these first few days are the worst, and that with time, the pain goes from gut-wrenching, instant tear-inducing to a background wistful remembrance.

So I am torn between wishing time would fly so that I could be past this crushing grief & just remember his content purr instead picturing his little lifeless body where I found him when he didn't come out to greet me, and wishing I could turn back time so that I could have a chance to try to save him.

I know I gave him a warm place to live, with all the food he could want and the all the love I had to give. I know he was content to lay in my arms and purr, and he sought out my lap whenever I entered, meowing if i didn't notice him fast enough. I know the hurt with remembering will be raw for a few days. And I know that his little life will leave a permanent little pawprint on my heart.

But I know that I wish it could have been different, and that wish hurts.