Life..and Death

This one's not amusing. It's not cheery, but it's real.

A little more than 2 weeks ago a friend said his son had found a pair of kittens. They were newborns, eyes closed, barely able to move. For some reason they were covered with flies and fly larvae, maggots. Maybe their mother was injured or just didn't have the instinct to clean them and nurse them after birth, it's not known.

One was a beautiful grey color with a little white bib. In fact that color grey is fairly rare. I wanted him.The other was a white with black spots. If you squinted and turned it sideways you could see a Halloween cat with it's back arched. Sort of. He had a white chin and blaze on his forehead. I think that's what a stripe on the front of the head is called.
His ears were black on the outside and white inside.

Dave's step daughter Kim is a graduate of Bristol Agricultural school and knew just how to care for the tiny orphans. They were about big as a hamster, but they had proportionately large heads. Kim got kitten formula and a tiny baby bottle from Walmart and cleaned them up as best as she could. It's touch and go with kittens this little, without their mothers milk which contains colostrum they don't have the antibodies to fight disease and infection.
The grey one had been badly affected by the fly larvae. They had burrowed into one of his ears and created an infection. The white on was a screamer and seemed stronger. When the two of them started crying, you knew it. One article on raising kittens said, "A litter of kittens will sound like a band of tiny trumpets." The author was fairly accurate.

A couple of days after seeing the kittens I ran into Dave and Dee and they told me the grey had died. The ear infection was just too far advanced for the little guy to fight. Before anyone criticises them for not taking the kittens to a vet let me say that they have rescued more than 20 kittens and raised them or found homes for them. Our own Max was one of the most beautiful cats I have ever seen, off white with ghost tiger stripes and a ringed tail and blue, blue eyes. One of a pair of twins found seperately, strangely enough.

The next day I got a call from Lianne who said Kim wanted me to have the white one. I was ecstatic. I went right over and came home with a Pampers box lined with baby blankets, a carton of formula and the bottle and own tiny little trumpeter. "Meeeee, meee, meeeee!" he seemed to cry. Kim said they called him "Flower", like the skunk from Bambi. He did look like a skunk, the little stinker. I recalled that I had said to my sister that I'd like a black and white cat. That was about a month before. Better watch what you wish for!

Kittens open their eyes at 7-10 days, unless they are long haired, which means 10-14 days. A kittens eyes are always blue when they open. Although they haven't formed a pupil, so it still takes a few days more for their eyesight to begin. This one didn't open his eyes until 4 days after getting him, and he was a long hair. So he was less than 10 days old when I got the little critter. One oddity about this kitten was his front paws, the were relatively large and long. Not double pawed, though. Kind of like a monkey paw. Cute...and creepy at the same time.

The little guy would sleep 4-8 hours and wake up crying. About an ounce of warm formula would solve that. Somewhere along I decided that his name was Gus. Gusto. Gussie. Augusto. Yeah, sounds good.

The 1 year old cat we have now is named Will. He would sit out on the gas grill in the winter and shiver, but he wanted to stay out with Max whose thick white fur was fine for the cold. Chilly Willy just fit for him. Willy. G.Willy Chill. Willby. Mr. Willouhby. Will B. Rightback. OK, enough of the nicknames. But I thought yelling out the door "Willy! Gus!", sounded better than Flower. To each his own.

Gus was thriving by the 2nd week here. His ears finally stood up, another benchmark in a kittens development I learned. When he fed on the bottle his ears would wiggle back and forth. A sure sign he was getting formula. After feeding he needed to be burped. Really! Imagine burping a big headed hamster. As you place the kitten on your shoulder you hear tiny bubbles coming up, then a teeny, tiny burp. Then he purrs. As you hold him in your hands he turns over, so you can scratch his belly I thought. Actually he needs to have his genitals stimulated so that he can pee and poop.

Gus learned to walk in short time. He'd walk, or waddle all over the living room, exploring.

Thor, our miniature Fox Terrier seemed to like him. He was about the size of a squeaky toy, and made the same noise too.

Will wanted nothing to do with the newcomer. He would sniff at him and howl disapprovingly and walk off somewhere. We can work on that I thought.

About Friday, just under two weeks of being here and when Gus hit 3 weeks old, he developed a slight cough. I thought he had swallowed his formula wrong. Something to keep and eye on I thought. Around that time Gus was strong enough to crawl out of the Pampers box. Imagine the fat little kitten making his way over the box wall and climbing up the comforter, into my bed and finding my ear to scream directly into it. "Meeeee.Meeeee!" OK, it's only 4 a.m. Time to eat. Nothing seemed to keep him in the box after that. Books placed over the box were no match for little Gus. He'd defeat every roadblock I devised. Finally it was apparent that he needed bigger digs. A moving box!

The moving box kept him in his place but without the books he ended up on top of the blankets. He wasn't getting the warmth he needed. His cough got worse and Sunday morning I found him cold and limp. I picked his lifeless body up and stroked his tiny head. Those cute little ears that wiggled when he ate. But wait, his ear moved. I could hear a faint heartbeat as I held him to my ear.

I brought Gus into my bed, under the covers and held him in my hands, stroking his chest and gently blowing my warm breath over him. Eventually his monkey paws started to move, and an occasional gasp with a kick of his back legs gave me hope. Over the next two hours Gus eventually gained his steam and was fighting himself back to life. A tiny amount of warm formula got his belly warmer. Gus is a fighter!

He bounced back stronger than ever, but the cough persisted. He definitely needed antibiotics. His nose was starting to show discharge. I was afraid of dehydration and tried giving him warm water in the bottle, but he wanted none of that and shrieked at me for the real thing. He never noticed that I watered the formula a bit and we both felt better.
Monday morning I called Capeway Veterinary hospital and couldn't get in until Tuesday afternoon. "One more day," I thought, "easy beans."

Tuesday morning I woke up to find Gus cold again. This was worse though. His gasps were infrequent. I got a heating pad and wrapped a blanket over it with Gus on top. I stroked his little head and chest but the signs of hope I got last time never appeared. After 2 hours it was apparent Gus had died.

It was all very clinical. I covered him up and placed his body in his Pampers box. I shut off the fan that I had placed next to his box to keep a familiar hum near him. Like the mothers heartbeat. But I was supposed to be the mother. He lit up when I held him, he'd struggle to climb up my arm and sit on my shoulder and purr in my ear until it tickled too much to bear any longer. Kittens faces are almost flat when they're born. Their noses are there but the bridge of their nose, the snout is flat. Kind of an alien look with those big blank eyes.

For 2 weeks I had wondered if he would be ugly or beautiful. The black on his face seemed too uneven. Symmetry. That was lacking. Humans perceive facial beauty in symmetry. If a person's eyes are uneven or too close or too far apart one is less likely to be seen as beautiful. Most of the other facial features apply. Big nose, small lips, etc.

On Sunday I had decided that he was beautiful. No matter what he looked like. If my presence made him so happy that he wanted to purr in my ear, he was beautiful to me.

I had never liked cats, until a few years ago when I realized that cats liked me. Those cats that usually disliked strangers seemed attracted to me. I don't know why. Animal magnetism?

Some guy at Stop and Shop was stocking the shelves in the cat food aisle when he saw me trying to get the "right' can of food for Willy. He laughed and said, "It always suprises me to see you big tough looking guys buying cat food. Well, I was glad to be percieved as tough, it must have been my black jeans and Hot Rod T-shirt.

We lost 2 of our cats to coyote attacks in the spring. There have been more than 16 lost in a 3 block area. Max, the 1 year old beauty king and Scoop, my 8 year old female. Losing them was terrible, but I never felt like crying. Three week old Gus has me crying. I can't remember the last time I cried. Ten or fifteen years ago, maybe.

I guess it all just built up. I didn't start tearing up until I wrote this piece. Now I can barely see the keyboard. And it seems to be getting worse. I hate it when I lose control over that lower lip, it's the giveaway you're cracking.

I hope this wasn't too long and depressing. I just needed to write it.
Thanks for reading.