Gone

My last post was written on saturday when I said Liddy only had a week or a couple days left. Truth was he only had hours left. He passed away early sunday morning. If you don't want to read on that's fine, I mostly want to write this for journaling purposes. He was a big part of our lives for 14 years.

We usually put all our cats down in the basement at night. That keeps them from sleeping on all our beds and waking us up and sometimes cats like to play in the middle of the night and aren't so quiet, plus 2 of our cats like to dispose of their food on the floor right after eating it and keeping them in the basement at night keeps most of that down there and then we don't have any surprises to step in in the morning. Anyway, since Liddy wasn't doing good he slept on a glider chair in our room saturday night.

It was crazy to see him on wednesday to still being able to eat a little and walk, to friday barely able to walk and not eat, to saturday not able to do anything but lay there. Brent took him to the vet and they said his kidneys were shutting down and he had ulcers on his tongue and most likely all down his throat. We knew it wouldn't be long.

So Saturday night I pushed the glider up to the side of our bed and I woke up at 12:00, 2:00, and 3:00, each time checking on him. I had a feeling before I went to bed that this was it. So at 3:00 I pet him for awhile and he was meowing at me, at first he had a hard time then he let out a couple loud ones, loud enough to wake up Brent a little. I also noticed his breathing had become quick and he seemed to be having a harder time. I fell back to sleep around 3:30 and then when I woke up around 4:45, he was gone. No more breathing, no more pain.

The vet had warned us that after he dies rigor will set in in about 2 hours so to curl him up the way we wanted to and that he would become pretty stiff. This was very true. I woke Brent and let him now and we laid and talked about him for awhile. Brent didn't go to Bishopric meeting that sunday morning so he could be there when we told the kids. We had told them the night before he wouldn't be with us much longer. They weren't surprised but they were still sad. Megan cried, Joseph tried not too, and I don't think it clicked with Sarah at the time.

We got ready for church and Brent took the 3 oldest to church with him since he had to be there early. I stayed at home for a little while and wrapped Liddy in a towel and put him in a box. I then put him in the garage and headed to church with Daniel. (we didn't know how quickly a he would start to stink?) We planned on burying him next to our garage in a flower bed. There were supposed to be hostas there but they never grew, come to find out there was a 2x4 board 6ft long buried in the ground there!! So we removed the board and Brent dug a hole, then it started to rain and thunder, so we stopped.

Finally on Monday Brent was able to finish the hole and bury him. Megan misses him a lot, but is comforted because we told her we could get a kitten sometime this year. It was first christmas, then her birthday, and now she is asking for this summer. Who knows, we will have to wait and see. We don't want to end up with cats like Sunny and Cleo, who run every time you go near them.

Joseph doesn't seem to be bothered much by his passing and Sarah keeps asking if he is walking again yet, or meowing or breathing, or is he still dead. Sunday night Sarah had a difficult time with it and really wanted to pet him and hold him. So we brought him back in the house and I let the kids decorate his box and they had drawn pictures for him we put in the box and they each gave him a toy ring he loved to play with. Then they were each able to pet him again and Sarah "held" him. It was a good last goodbye for them.

This has brought up good opportunities to talk to the kids about the atonement and eternal life, Sarah asks "Has Jesus come yet, so Liddy can be alive again?" It is pretty cute. We know he was just a cat, but we loved him dearly. Plus it has been a learning experience with death. I am soooo grateful for the atonement and the gospel in our lives to be able to comfort my children with this knowledge and to be able to feel the spirit and help my children to recognize the Spirit in all this too. Brent's grandmother passed away a few months ago and so the kids have had a recent experience with death and so maybe this whole thing has not been as hard. Brent and I are doing okay, we still get sad and we keep expecting to see him laying in the middle of our way. But over all we are fine. Anyway, sorry if this was boring for you to read all about the death of are Liddy-biddy-bean who will be missed!