It’s Sunday.
I thought I was going to get up, have my morning coffee, check Facebook, make breakfast, jump in the shower for a quick wash down, get ready and go to church.
Yeah. That’s how I thought this morning was going to go.
But it didn’t.
This morning, like every morning, I wake up to the Bott Radio Network playing on my pillow speaker. I never turn my radio off because lots of times I wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll listen until I fall asleep again. Bott is a Christian talk station that carries many good preachers and Bible teachers on it. Some mornings when I wake up and start listening to a program I fall back asleep and then I end up sleeping too late and don’t feel as well. I get a little headachy from oversleep, you know what I mean? But this morning, after being awake for only a few minutes, Mike, out in the grouse, turned the TV off.
“Grouse?” you ask. “What’s a grouse?”
I have decided to call our new home a grouse instead of shouse. Shouse doesn’t fit because it’s not a showroom and a house it’s a garage and a house, hence, grouse. In this photo I’m standing in my kitchen shooting toward the front and the great overhead door of the garage.
Our bedroom is in the back of the RV and has a big window. The grouse TV is on the back wall too. When the TV is on I see a soft glow out that window. I can tell when the TV is on yet the light is unobtrusive.
This morning, Mike turns off the TV and I can hear him shift positions in his chair. He was going to sleep a little longer. I didn’t want to get out of bed just yet anyway so it was the perfect excuse to lay in bed a little longer. After all, I didn’t want to bother him.
Dick Bott was on the radio. He was talking with his son Rich and playing snippets of his 10 great-grandchildren singing Christmas carols. I had to smile when he said, “Here we are radio guys and we don’t have any equipment! We don’t have our microphones set up! We didn’t know how good this was going to be!” Rich recorded it on his cell phone.
After hearing the kids sing and listening to two of the little girls play Silent Night, an eleven year old on the piano and an eight year old on a violin, Dick started talking about a book that they had left with him. The Nativity Collection, Six Stories That Share The Smiles, The Heart And The Hope Of Christmas and written by a pastor out of Nashville, Tennessee by the name of Robert Morgan. Dick and Rich said they just loved the first story in the book and the rest of the program is Rich reading the story.
“What’s so great about that?” you ask.
And I smile.
The story was about a man who, at the age of twelve, lived in Evergreen, Pennsylvania. It was 1942.
Guys! I couldn’t believe it! Our tiny little town of Evergreen, Pennsylvania was on my radio in Lake Ozark, Missouri!
I have to tell the Kipp’s about this! I think and I wonder how I am going to get this story to them. I try to remember the names of the people in the story because Evergreen is such a tiny town that everyone knew everyone else!
The story was a good story. A heartwarming story of an old German lady and Christmas time. Then the next program came on and it was an interview between Donald Trump and Tony Perkins of Washington Watch Weekly and I started to drift down into sleep.
Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow!
I was wide awake. What in the world is wrong with Baby Blue? I wondered but I didn’t get up right away. I knew it was Baby Blue. Just like a mother knows the cries of her children, I recognize the cries of our cats.
Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow!
Something’s wrong. I jumped out of bed and headed for the door, not bothering to stop and dress. In the doorway of the RV I lean out just as Mike snaps on the light in the grouse and there on the rug lay Baby Blue, crying. “What’s wrong with Baby Blue?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
I descended the steps, wearing nothing put a pair of panties and dropped to my knees. Mike, wearing his boxers, stood overtop us.
“What’s wrong Baby Blue?” I cooed as I reached out and stroked her fur. She laid her head in my hand, looked up at me and said, “Meow!” and purred.
“She can’t walk,” Mike said.
I lifted her back leg and looked at her butt. She was wet and had a poopy right at the doorway and her anus was protruding as if she had been straining. “Maybe she’s got a stuck poopy,” I said. Yeah, if only it were that we wouldn’t be sitting here crying tears as we type away.
As I sat there on my knees and stroked Baby Blue and watched her try to get her hind legs under her, I knew it was more than that. “She’s hurt.”
“I heard something thump,” Mike said. “Like something fell. Cats don’t get hurt if they fall, do they?”
“Not usually.” I said. “But it depends on how they land.”
“I think there were two boxes stacked on the shelves above my desk,” Mike said. “When I got up one was on the floor.”
I turned and looked and I don’t know how she could have gotten hurt even if she had fallen from there, it was only three, maybe three and a half feet to the desk top and only about six feet total to the floor, unless… “Maybe she hit the back of the chair and broke her back.” The writer in me always looks for plausible answers.
Baby Blue, bless her heart, Baby Blue was always a happy cat and even now alternated between panting, meowing and purring. But she was hurting, you could tell just by looking at her and short of keeping her quiet and talking soothingly to her, I didn’t know what else to do.
Itsy and Ginger knew something was wrong too and walked around sniffing Baby Blue.
“Let’s call the vet. They have an emergency number don’t they?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, the numbers on my phone.”
Mike got my phone and as he flipped it open he said, “Low battery.” He scrolled through the phone book until he found the vet’s number. He dialed but was too anxious to listen through the recorded message. He traded places with me, trying to keep Baby Blue quiet, and gave me the phone. I listened as I went into the RV, pulled my charger from the cabinet and plugged it in. “…charges will apply should you chose to continue with this call. If you accept these charges, please stay on the line,” the recording said. I stayed on the line until a person answered and dummy me, I didn’t know it was an answering service.
“What’s wrong with you Peg?” you ask.
Yeah. I think I thought it was forwarded to whichever vet was on call that weekend.
“It’s Baby Blue. Something happened and she’s hurt. She can’t move her back legs!” And the tears start.
“Ma’am, hold on,” she stopped me. “There will be a $125 emergency visit, do you agree to these charges?”
I guess I had to verbally agree. “Yes.”
“And it will be a minimum of $250 if there is hospitalization involved plus whatever charges there are for services and medicines, do you agree to these charges?”
“Yes,” I agreed again. We love our pets, don’t we? What price do you put on that? Besides, we have credit cards. It’s the American way, isn’t it?
“Have you been to this vet before?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Has the pet seen this vet before?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, tell me what’s wrong.”
“We don’t know. We woke up to her meowing and she can’t walk.”
“It’s a cat?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
“Baby Blue.”
“How old is she?”
“Five.”
“And your phone number?”
I think it was at this point that I began to realize it was an answering service. I gave her my phone number.
“Okay. I’ll put a call into the vet on duty and if you don’t hear anything in ten minutes you call me back, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks,” and I hung up. “They’re going to call back,” I told Mike.
“We’d better get dressed then.” Mike dressed while I stayed with Baby Blue and then he stayed with her while I dressed.
“I better take the girls out.” Being first thing in the morning I knew they’d have to go. When I came back in we all sat with Baby Blue and waited.
Waiting is so hard!
I stroked her head and her side as she lay there on the rug watching to see if my touch was hurting her but it didn’t seem to bother her at all. But she was dying. I could tell. She was dying and she was still purring for us. Her breathing was becoming more labored, she was starting to struggle and she had a wild look in her eyes. “Mike, she’s dying,” and tears leaked out of my eyes and fell onto her fur. Even if we got her to vet I was pretty sure she would die or be euthanized. I didn’t know what was wrong, but it was bad. “We could just let her die here and not take her to the vet.”
Mike’s eyes were leaking too and he couldn’t talk.
About then my phone rang.
I got up and answered it. “Hello.”
“This is Dr. Kelly with Lake Pet Hospital,” she said. “You have an emergency?”
“Yes, it’s Baby Blue. We don’t know what happened, maybe she fell and hurt her back or something, but she can’t walk.”
“Were are you?” she asked.
“At the dam, on the Strip in Lake Ozark.”
“Okay so about twenty minutes do you think?”
“More like fifteen.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there.”
I found a pad to carry Baby Blue in and she cried and she struggled and I was as gentle with her as I could be. In the car, she continued to struggle and only quieted when Mike reached over and stroked her head. We get to the vet in Eldon and had to wait for Dr. Kelly to arrive. Baby Blue was struggling and straining harder.
“Maybe she would be more comfortable if I wasn’t holding her,” I said.
“Let’s lay her in the back of the Jeep,” Mike said. We got out and went around to the back and as gently as we could we laid her in the back on the pad.
She cried.
She purred.
She started to convulse.
Her bowels emptied (thank goodness for the pad), she arched her head back and I had a flashback of holding the baby deer as it died. She heaved a breath or two more and she was gone.
I started to walk away and see Dr. Kelly coming toward us. I walk to meet her. “She died,” I said and tears streamed down my face.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Kelly said and you could tell she meant it. She went to the back of the Jeep where Mike stood and I got in the front of the Jeep for tissues. My nose was crying too.
I got the tissues and joined them at the back of the Jeep. Dr. Kelly was listening for a heartbeat. She heard none. She very gently started to feel Baby Blue but couldn’t find anything. No broken back.
“A lot of times what happens is they have an embolism,” she said. “It’s usually because of a heart defect but it blocks the blood flow to the back legs and paralyzes them. I’m sorry.”
“What happens now?” Mike asked and I handed him a tissue.
“It depends on what you want to do. Do you want to take her and bury her? Do you want to have her cremated and have her ashes back?”
“We’ll just take her,” I said.
“Would you like me to make a print of her paw?”
That is so sweet and I know that when Kandyce and Kevin had to have their cat Eclipse put down the vet had made a print of his paw for them. “No, thanks. I have lots of pictures of her.” And to myself I was thinking I did not need one more thing to stick in a drawer.
“Okay, well, again, I’m so sorry.”
“Do we need to pay you?” I asked thinking it was the last thing to do before we could leave.
“Oh, no. I’m not going to charge anything. I have to be here anyway because I have three in-house that need to be taken care of so I was on my way in anyway.”
We thanked her and brought Baby Blue back to the Lake. “I can’t do it,” Mike said. “I can’t bury her.”
“I’m not going to bury her either,” I said.
“Do like we did Missy?” he asked.
“Yes, just like Missy.”
He thought about it for a few minutes as we drove in silence. “Is that disrespectful to let other animals eat her?”
“I don’t think so. It’s the cycle of life. One animal dies and another animal lives.” I was channeling my mama there because that’s what she tells me when I cry about the dead critters that litter the roadways of our country. And it was quiet for a few more minutes. “Do you think her surgery had anything to do with it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Mike answered.
Baby Blue had her claws removed and was having trouble. I took her to the vet in Pennsylvania and by the time we got back here to Missouri I thought she was better. I didn’t catch her limping at all. I thought she was fixed, but what if she wasn’t? What if it was my fault she was dead?
Sigh.
Nothing can change what has been done. It’s better to not dwell on it.
We got back to Lake Ozark, crossed the dam and took Valley Road. After you round the corner at the bottom there is a little glade (in the summer) and the place where someone had laid their pet baby goat to rest a few a years ago. Mike pulled to the side and we both got out. He opened the back door for me and I picked up our sweet girl. She sighed. I carried her in my arms and Mike closed the door. I went through the brambles of a deer path and went a little ways into the woods and as silly as it sounds, I talked to Baby Blue the whole way.
“You were such a good little girl,” I told her and looked at her sweet face. “Daddy and I are going to miss you.”
Air escaped her lungs and she sighed again.
I walked a little ways off the path and laid her at the base of a tree in a nest of leaves. I covered her with a blanket of leaves and twigs and I knew she would be found by scavengers. Cycle of life.
And we came home.
Losing a pet is hard. The same tears we cry for our people friends and family are the same tears we cry for our pets. Love is love. Our hearts are broken just the same, but maybe with our pets we have fewer regrets.
Baby Blue, who started life with three strikes against her. She was sickly from the start and we didn’t believe she would live long. She was much smaller than her litter mates and got left behind when Mama Cat moved the litter to the Kipp’s house.
At six months she was still so small that she could pass through a chain link fence.
Baby Blue who had so much fun playing in the dog food dish that it looked like it exploded all over my kitchen! Did I put the dish out of her reach? No. I would watch her run and jump and chase the pieces of dog food that skittered across the floor as she batted them around and I would smile. After a while I’d say, “Baby Blue!” and pretend to be mad.
“Meow!” she’d answer all innocent like. Baby Blue always knew her name and she always answered. And I would clean up her mess and wait until the next time it exploded.
We fell in love with Baby Blue in the summer of 2010. When it was time to leave our Mountain Home, we took Baby Blue with us and I’ve never been sorry. Well, maybe a little, but I’ll tell you about that later.
We packed our RV and loaded our pets and Baby Blue took to the travelin’ life right off. I looked back and there she lay as peaceful and contented to be with us as you please.
Baby Blue has brought so much laughter into our life and it was just Baby Blue being Baby Blue.
Anything new brought into the house she thought was hers. Most recently was Mike’s little scooty shop chair.
And if something is left out of place, she will also claim that. I was working on some crocheting projects and I left a bag of material on the floor and went someplace with Mike. When we got back and walked in the door, there was Baby Blue climbing out of my bag.
But in her defense, we found out - quite accidentally - that Baby Blue was mostly blind and had been born that way. She was probably leaving her scent on things so she knew where things were.
I am sad for our little grandson Andrew. At three he has always known Baby Blue and calls her his Baby Blue.
Baby Blue was always very tolerant of Andrew and never scratched or bit him and most times she never ran away from him even when she could have.
“Mimi, call my Baby Blue,” Andrew, tapping my leg to get my attention, asked of me.
“Baby Baby Blue where are you,” I would sing to the tune of Scooby Doo.
“Meow!” she answered and came out from under the RV.
“My Baby Blue!” Andrew exclaims joyfully and scoops her up. But Andrew is three. He thinks everything is his, and in this case, I think he’s right.
Baby Blue always tickled me with the unexpected places she would choose to lay.
Like Andrews toy box.
“Look at your Baby Blue,” I said to Andrew and grabbed my camera. Andrew looked and saw and climbed in the tub beside Baby Blue but I missed the shot.
Most recently I discovered Baby Blue had climbed into the schefflera pot and peeked out at me as I took her picture.
“What wouldn’t you miss about Baby Blue?” you ask.
She would get some sinus thing and sneeze snot all over the place. More so when she was younger and not so often these last couple of years. I would wipe her nose for her whenever I could but I wasn’t always around when she sneezed and I’d end up cleaning snot, sometimes dried! - from floors and walls. That wasn’t all that much fun, but I would do it all again for a hundred years or more to have her back. She was a good cat.
And so another day passes. This one being nothing like the one I imagined I was going to have.
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