For the Love of a Cat

His name was Devlin …

April 5, 2005 was like any other day, mom was still “mom” and Alzheimer’s was just beginning to show it’s ugly head.  And then it happened … one of the feral cats left a newborn kitten on the back porch.  So tiny … so very helpless … so very much mine.  Up every 4 hours for feedings, burping, voiding the ol’ bladder …. Everything a momma kitty would be doing.  And talking, cuddling .. I knew he couldn’t see or hear me but I kept babbling at him anyway.  Taking him to the vet for weekly weighing, the tech would lay him on the table away from me and he would lift his nose in the air and scramble around to get to me.  He smelled me.  I was momma and he was my only baby. 

 

Fast forward to around July of that year.  We’d hit a problem, he wasn’t growing and was experiencing bowel problems.  We fought, the vet and me, and we got through it.  Close call though because money was extremely tight and we were already bursting at the seams on the budget department.

March 2006 it began … seizures.  Out of the blue he started experiencing seizures.  Running through the house at full speed, stopping to bite his tail, sometimes every hour or so, other times every fifteen minutes; and the battle began again.  Money we didn’t have went out the door.  The seizures intensified, despite anti-seizure medication.  Specialist?  No money for that. 

April 11, 2006 was like any other day, mom was a little less “mom” and Alzheimer’s was creeping up on us.  And then it happened … another seizure, this time worse than the others.  Up to the vet …. gone.  I had to let him go.  You see, mom was getting hard to handle and there were no options like a Miss Mousie page for me.  We had no money for further treatment.  I had to let my baby go. 

August 31, 2012 and I’m still bawling my eyes out over my baby.  His name was Devlin … and I vowed the day he died that I would do whatever I could to help others not lose a baby because of money.  No animal should suffer from lack of care because they don’t have the funds available.  Melissa McClone has done this wonderful thing for a foster kitty named Miss Mousie. 

Please go here to read about Miss Mousie … and please, help if you can.  Spread the word if you can’t help financially.  No animal should suffer … always remember that.

For Devlin

You came to me so small

Tiny body perfect for the palm

Of my hand

No face you saw,

No voice you heard

My touch, my smell was

All you knew

Your cries I soothed

With a calming touch

A soft nuzzle

A gentle rock

I’d speak and croon

Though you could not hear

My lullabies for you

Whimpers to mews,

Crawls and scoots

To gangly legs

You grew through struggles

Not your own but natures grip

You fought the battle and won

The round, this time the victor

But death waits for no one

And the time

Came when the fight could

No longer be fought

And our time together

Had come to an end

Too soon

So I said goodbye

A soft nuzzle

A gentle touch

And I crooned lullabies

Full of words of love

You could no longer hear

Sweet baby, goodbye.