Life in 3D

Requiem

This morning at 3:11 am my cat Quazo passed away in my arms.  I don’t really feel like going into details right since it’s too fresh but I want to say that she was a wonderful cat.

Her favorite thing was to keep me company while I worked away at the computer.  If I was too busy to pet her she would grab my hand and pull it to the top of her head to get a scratch.  Her other favorite spot was curled up on the back of my chair and leaning against my neck. She was my very personal neck warmer.  I would call her “Quazo-bear” because she was like a big fluffy teddy bear and was always wanting to be held.  Her favorite way was to be held over one shoulder like you would if you were burping a baby, I think she like the view from up there.

She would have made a wonderful mother.  She mothered the other cats we have and often broke up the fights they would get into.  She had a mouse toy for a while that she would carry around with her, clean and then sleep with.  She loved everyone and never once hissed or tried to scratch, even when being given a bath the worst she would do is give a sad little meow to say “Why are you doing this to me?”

I wish I could have done more to save her.  I wish that somehow I could go back in time to the alley I found them in and get her and her sister before they were so malnourished that the vet was surprised they were still alive. She was so tiny that once I lost her because she had crawled under the blankets on the bed and I couldn’t tell her lump from the natural folds in the sheets.

When I found her and her sister Misto they were in an alley and Quazo came out and meowed at me.  It was almost like she was saying “You’re going to take me home now, OK?”  I picked her up but she started squirming and wanted down.  I found out why when she, a kitten only a few weeks old, led me to her sister who was hiding in the trash.  Neither of them had any fur from the neck down, they had so many fleas that they had chewed off all their fur trying to get rid of them.  I took the to the vet a few days later once they had been eating had had plenty of water.  He looked at them and declared that he had no idea how they were still alive considering how malnourished they were.

Once, when they were very young kittens, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching by the bed.  I looked down and saw Quazo’s furry little butt sticking out of my sock drawer.  I reached down, removed her and closed the drawer only to be woken again by even more frantic scratching.  Wondering why she was wanting to get to my footwear I opened the drawer again and out popped Misto.  The two of them then ran off to play in other parts of the apartment and I went back to sleep with a smile on my face.

I know that her diabetes had something to do with her all too short life and I did all that I could do to make the time she was here a wonderful time for her.  All I can do now is look at an empty chair where she would sleep and know that it will always be empty.  There will be other cats, probably dogs too, but she and Misto were my very first pets that I had on my own and that hole will never be filled.

This is how I will remember her.  Furry, rolly polly, and a bundle of love.  She was special and I thank God for giving her to me.