Requiem for a best friend - Cinder - June 7, 1993 to May 6, 2007

Exactly 24 hours and 30 minutes ago, we lost my best fuzzbuddy.....this is my loving memory of Cinder, my cat and the Senior Vice President of Curling Up Under The Halogen Lamp at TartanGolfGrips.com.

At 10:15PM on May 6, 2007, my feline friend Cinder slipped gently away from my tender embrace and into Heaven's...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cinder had been diagnosed with impaired kidney function by our awesome veterinary team at Oak Park Veterinary Hospital about a year ago, and her health began to decline about two months ago. We've had her on a special kidney diet for the last year or so, but her eating and drinking had become more and more sporadic, and as a result we took her back in for a check-up, and the results were sobering. As a result, we've been giving her subcutaneous fluids every morning, and unlike her usual fussy self, she holds still for EVERY single application of the fluids.

Cinder was born on Monday, June 7, 1993, exactly a week before my wife's birthday - we don't know where or to who, as my wife adopted her from the Chatsworth, CA animal shelter to give me as a birthday gift for my birthday in early September 1993, and she was exactly three months old when I first got her.

We went through the Northridge earthquake together, and I remember going back up to my apartment at the Warner Center Apartments to look for her, the smell of the ruptured gas pipes hanging heavy in the air, calling for her in the early morning light as the aftershocks rolled through, one after the other... My furniture had ALL been knocked over, and it looked like God had taken a big spoon and just mixed around every piece of furniture...we headed back up to check on her, and there was no sign or sound of her for the longest time, but I finally whistled for her with a certain whistle I used to make to call her for mealtime, and she finally 'CHIRRUP"'d the way she used to, and popped her head up from behind a pillow on my bed...perfectly fine!!! Looking like - "Well - where they hell have YOU been???"

We loaded her into a cardboard carrier to take her over to my folks house on Burbank Boulevard in Woodland Hills, and while we were there, she CHEWED the entire side of the carrying case away, rendering it COMPLETELY unusable...

She was a spirited little being, that's for sure...

When she was a kitten, she used to jump up on towels, and climb her way all the way to the top, usually leaving a trail of pulled terry-cloth threads in her wake...

In the meantime, she's basically ruled the roost in her regal style, disdainfully looking at the Cockers from the top of the stairs, occasionally high-jacking them by jumping on their backs and scaring them silly, but usually just hanging out quietly on the comforter in our bedroom.

I think we went to the vet's less than ten times in her life, usually only for a "lion cut" haircut to keep her cool and mat-free in the summertime...

Well, Cinder passed away in my arms last night at 10:15PM...I could tell Saturday evening that she was kinda fading, but she hung in there all day Sunday...enough for me to set her by her favorite window out the front kitchen to watch the trees blow in the wind, and then she stayed pretty much in the same place all afternoon yesterday...we went to the driving range, and then played two sets of tennis and went to dinner with some friends...

Got home, and my wife said "Why don't you pick her up and take her through to the living room, and we can watch a little TV?"...that was about 9...I laid down on the couch with her on my chest, stroking her head and side, and she purred quietly...At 10:15 exactly, she coughed a couple of times, retched, exhaled slowly and was gone....she just went limp in my arms...

It was a VERY powerful moment, and I just laid there on the couch with her for about an hour, thanking God for taking her peacefully at home, rather than on the exam table at the vet's, with a catheter hanging out of her forearm...

We laid her little body on her favorite blanket, and placed her body in a cardboard box, and put the box in the freezer in the garage for overnight. I took her to the Los Angeles Animal Pet Park in Calabasas the next day, and had her cremated, and had her remains placed in a pewter, cat-shaped urn that now sits on my dresser, with her collar and tags hanging around the statue's neck...

I cried quite a bit last night, and in the ensuing months I have cried several times more - she was a cute little buddy that was an important part of a great period in my life, and she is missed greatly...

Update: My Mom moved from the long-time family home on Burbank Boulevard to Thousand Oaks on my birthday last year, and we inherited her two black cats, Holly and Ivy, who we adopted at Chrstimastime from the Agoura Hills animal shelter to keep Mom company after my Dad's passing in 2003. (2003 was a LOUSY year, not just for me - I've talked to several friends and they all agreed that 2003 was a heavy, hard year for a lot of people...)

So we now have kitties in the house again...but I still miss Cinder...