Saying goodbye to Cleo

Writing this blip is breaking my heart.  I had asked hubbie to make a vets appointment for Cleo today and all day long I had a horrible feeling I knew what the outcome would be.  I was fighting back tears in the office all day.  Just after 5pm, hubbie phoned me to say it was bad news.  The reason Cleo wasn't walking properly was because she had broken her leg.  The vet said her bones are very brittle and that her leg would never heal properly.  That, combined with her other recent health issues, (they suspected a few months ago that she may have a nasal tumour), the vet felt it would be kinder to put her to sleep.

She is the 5th cat of mine to die, but this is the first time I've had to make a decision that now was the time.  I had a race against time to get back from the office in Edinburgh to the vets before it closed so I could say goodbye to her.  Of course, I had no fuel so had to go to a petrol station, the traffic was horrendous due to an accident on one of the roads I often use to go home.  Such a stressful journey but I made it.  I had lots of final cuddles with her and then managed to find the strength from somewhere to go in the room so I could hold her while it was done.    And I don't think I have stopped crying since.  Ethan is inconsolable too as he doted on her.

She was such an amazing cat.  She was born on 11/07/96 and we got her when she was 9 weeks old.  We had to drive to a small village near Perth to get her and I was instantly smitten.  She was the most gorgeous bundle of grey fluff and we took her everywhere with us that we could.  She had a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde personality though - loving one minute, swiping at us the next.  But I adored her.  She spent most nights curled up round my head on my pillow and I loved falling asleep with her there, athough hubbie hated it.  She used to run up the driveway to meet me when she heard my car coming round the corner and I would stop, open my door, she would jump in and I would park the car with her on my lap.  She had a knack of being able to comfort me when I was upset.  If she ever saw me crying, she would come up to me, make a funny chirping noise, and nussle me as if to ask what's wrong?  There was a lot of that during the 8 years we were trying to conceive Ethan and she was my ultimate furbaby who helped me through those difficult years.  My mother in law used to tell me that I'd need to get rid of her when I had children because she was so unpredictable.  But when Ethan was born, she (and my other cats) were amazing with him.  There was never a problem and she would tolerate him like she would no one else.

There is a big Cleo shaped hole in our lives now.  She was the first cat I got as an adult so was extra special to me and after 19 years with her in our lives, we will never forget her.