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- May 22, 2009
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This is mostly a copy-paste from my blog, with a few things added, because I can't go through the whole story from scratch without becoming a total sobbing mess.
Born: ?????
He was already a grown cat when I got him as a stray with no history. We couldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t find any way to tell what age he might be, so I have no idea when he was born.
Became my kitty-buddy: Early 2006
My sister found him in the Wal-Mart parking lot, meowing pitifully. We strongly suspect he was dumped, because a few months later, he was missing for three weeks, for reasons unknown, and came home; any cat that remembered how to find his home after three weeks didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t get hopelessly lost on his own. One theory was that his owner had died and the heirs didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t want him, since he seemed to have been well cared for until recently–he was fixed and had what looked like old, well-healed scars from a line of stitches on his jaw. But we never figured out why anyone would not want such a sweet cat.
While he was missing for three weeks, I got Squirrel and Panther, because I thought by then (2 1/2 weeks in) that he just wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t coming back. As a result, Chilsa and the kittens didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t take to each other right away, because he thought they were the intruders (he was there months before them) and they thought he was the intruder (they were there days before him). However, he immediately started standing guard in the window and yowling at other cats to stay away. Heâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d never done that before and I had to figure that he felt protective. A week or so later, they were playing together and he was teaching them how to be cats.
Died: March 3, 2009
I knew he was starting to be an Old Cat, because he'd been slowing down in laser pointer games. How else do you tell that a cat is getting old when you don't know his age and he's already grey anyway? But nothing seemed to be wrong with him, and he still played with the (three year old) kittens, so I thought I'd have at least a few more good healthy years with him as he slowed down and settled into being an Old Cat.
He seemed completely normal and healthy all day. Looking back, he never asked to be let out, so now I wonder if he knew something was coming and wanted to spend all day with his family, but I didn't suspect anything at the time, because it wasn't completely unusual for him to stay indoors now and then.
The night before, I'd come home late, and he was waiting out by where I park my car. He spent the night before, and the early morning, curled up by my feet. He did this most nights. If he got up in the night, he must have usually come back to the same spot.
During the day, he “helped†me with a crochet project, licked my arm, chased the kittens around, curled up on my lap…did all the normal things that were part of his kitty life. He bounced around with the kittens for most of the evening, until...
I heard a thump across the room, looked up, and saw that my big grey cat was laying down funny. The thump wasn't loud enough for it to have hurt him--this is the cat who fell off my second level loft, two apartments ago, and all he got was sticky from the pitcher he knocked over with him. Taking a tumble while walking or running wouldn't have done anything to him; it had to be that whatever was wrong had also made him fall.
I went over to see if he needed help. At first he could only move his head, then not even that. I flicked his tail, petted him, rubbed his ears, trying to get a response. I talked to him, and he tried to talk back–I heard what sounded like it almost would have been a meow but his mouth wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t quite open. I think it must have been "Goodbye." One moment his eyes were looking at me; the next moment, his eyes were empty. My kitty-buddy was gone. There wouldn't even have been time to get him out to the car, let alone to a vet.
I'm sure cats go somewhere, and the Rainbow Bridge story makes as much sense as anything I've heard about how that would work. What I don't know is whether he's waiting for me, or waiting for, or even went straight to, his other special person that had him before me...because I know he must have had another special person, because how else could he have been so sociable, and how could such a sweet cat not have someone? But...I really want to see Chilsa again, so I hope he waits for me or at least visits. He was one of those cats that stand out a little more even for cat people.
Goodbye,
Chilsa
Born: ?????
He was already a grown cat when I got him as a stray with no history. We couldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t find any way to tell what age he might be, so I have no idea when he was born.
Became my kitty-buddy: Early 2006
My sister found him in the Wal-Mart parking lot, meowing pitifully. We strongly suspect he was dumped, because a few months later, he was missing for three weeks, for reasons unknown, and came home; any cat that remembered how to find his home after three weeks didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t get hopelessly lost on his own. One theory was that his owner had died and the heirs didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t want him, since he seemed to have been well cared for until recently–he was fixed and had what looked like old, well-healed scars from a line of stitches on his jaw. But we never figured out why anyone would not want such a sweet cat.
While he was missing for three weeks, I got Squirrel and Panther, because I thought by then (2 1/2 weeks in) that he just wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t coming back. As a result, Chilsa and the kittens didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t take to each other right away, because he thought they were the intruders (he was there months before them) and they thought he was the intruder (they were there days before him). However, he immediately started standing guard in the window and yowling at other cats to stay away. Heâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d never done that before and I had to figure that he felt protective. A week or so later, they were playing together and he was teaching them how to be cats.
Died: March 3, 2009
I knew he was starting to be an Old Cat, because he'd been slowing down in laser pointer games. How else do you tell that a cat is getting old when you don't know his age and he's already grey anyway? But nothing seemed to be wrong with him, and he still played with the (three year old) kittens, so I thought I'd have at least a few more good healthy years with him as he slowed down and settled into being an Old Cat.
He seemed completely normal and healthy all day. Looking back, he never asked to be let out, so now I wonder if he knew something was coming and wanted to spend all day with his family, but I didn't suspect anything at the time, because it wasn't completely unusual for him to stay indoors now and then.
The night before, I'd come home late, and he was waiting out by where I park my car. He spent the night before, and the early morning, curled up by my feet. He did this most nights. If he got up in the night, he must have usually come back to the same spot.
During the day, he “helped†me with a crochet project, licked my arm, chased the kittens around, curled up on my lap…did all the normal things that were part of his kitty life. He bounced around with the kittens for most of the evening, until...
I heard a thump across the room, looked up, and saw that my big grey cat was laying down funny. The thump wasn't loud enough for it to have hurt him--this is the cat who fell off my second level loft, two apartments ago, and all he got was sticky from the pitcher he knocked over with him. Taking a tumble while walking or running wouldn't have done anything to him; it had to be that whatever was wrong had also made him fall.
I went over to see if he needed help. At first he could only move his head, then not even that. I flicked his tail, petted him, rubbed his ears, trying to get a response. I talked to him, and he tried to talk back–I heard what sounded like it almost would have been a meow but his mouth wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t quite open. I think it must have been "Goodbye." One moment his eyes were looking at me; the next moment, his eyes were empty. My kitty-buddy was gone. There wouldn't even have been time to get him out to the car, let alone to a vet.
I'm sure cats go somewhere, and the Rainbow Bridge story makes as much sense as anything I've heard about how that would work. What I don't know is whether he's waiting for me, or waiting for, or even went straight to, his other special person that had him before me...because I know he must have had another special person, because how else could he have been so sociable, and how could such a sweet cat not have someone? But...I really want to see Chilsa again, so I hope he waits for me or at least visits. He was one of those cats that stand out a little more even for cat people.
Goodbye,
