Goodbye Little Lucky

Goodbye Little Lucky

It is always sad when a pet dies, and even more so when an old pet dies.
Lucky came to our house when she was a very small kitten. She was a foster kitten and the original intent was to find her a new home. She was a pure black kitten in a litter of many colored kittens and gradually the other kittens had found new homes and we were left with Lucky. She only had one application for a new home but that came when I was away on vacation and because I like to see where my foster pets would live, I waited until I came back to check on the applicant. As I expected the applicant had already found an another kitten.
 Time passed and Lucky quickly grew and so we decided to keep her as part of our pet family. She joined in with the other cats and was no trouble as she had grown up among them and they accepted her easily. She was a sweet, gentle cat who loved to play and love to follow you around the garden.  Her special effect was to climb the tree slightly ahead of you and then run down along the path until she came to the next tree. Quite a game.She would win every time.

Lucky like to be indoors with her family of people, dogs and cats but she also liked to explore the great outside.When she was about 6 to 7 months old she took her first traveling trip. We lived in a fairly rural area at that time so didn't worry about her for the first day or so as we knew she would come to eat but the days passed and no one had seen Lucky. I feared we had lost her. About six weeks past and one day as I was feeding the cats, who should come in but Lucky. She was quite unconcerned, a little thin, and then continued to stay around the house for at least most of the time.

The sunny spot - always a favorite place.

She went traveling again when we moved house. We thought she was pretty well established in the new house and yard before we let her out but again she disappeared for about six weeks. This time I felt she may be trying to go back to the old house but realized that was just too far. Then again just after we had almost given up on her, she came back and continued with life and being part of the family. From that time on she seemed more wary of some of the other cats.

Life continued and before we realized it 17 years had passed and little Lucky was beginning to look her age. She gradually began to lose weight and ate little. One day I noticed she was bumping into walls and chairs and was not going outside at all. I checked her eyes and the pupils were large and it was obvious that she had gone blind. Poor Lucky could not understand. We try not to move furniture and to put her food in the same place but she was clearly unhappy. She sat more and more in one spot and then a couple of days ago started having trouble with her back legs. I knew the end was not far away. She kept to her favorite spot under a chair and I put her food close to her.
I decided that I would arrange to have her put down after the weekend but on Sunday, Lucky made her own decision. She did not move from this spot, ate nothing and slept. I would give her sips of water from a syringe and I would hear a plaintiff "meow" as if she was saying thank you. I stroked her and told her we would miss her. Next time I went to give her water I realized her spirit had past on to begin another journey.

We will certainly miss this gentle little creature who gave us such pleasure during her life.
Goodbye little Lucky.