Purring Fox Somalis

Vanilla's Page

Vanilla came to me from a friend that took in the neighborhood strays. She had shown up on his porch one day. She was packed off to the vet for shots and spaying. I met her while visiting one day, she climbed up on my lap and never left. Not, at least for 15 years.

She was black as coal with a medium long coat. In bright sunshine she had an auburn cast to her coat and I named her Vanilla. I would tell people that vanilla beans are black. I suppose I also have an interesting turn of mind on occasion. She became my best friend. She trusted me completely. Once, when she got hurt and needed to go to the vet, the only transportation available was a motorcycle. She rode in my backpack. She did not make peep. When we returned home, I opened the pack, she looked out, saw where she was, and curled back up in the pack to sleep.

Vanilla knew my every mood. She slept with me, stayed close when I was sick, made me chase her through the house hiding behind doors. She was the only friend I had when I moved to a new city. The only problem was, as she got older, she wanted no other cats in her house. This was hard, as I dearly love cats but,I gladly abided by her wishes and bypassed those cute little kittens I would come across.

I attended cat shows as often as I could find them. I fell in love, first with Abys and then (since I have always loved long hair) Somalis. I told myself that sometime in the future when I would lose my Vanilla, I would get a Somali. I hoped that it would be a long time but Vanilla was getting older.

Several years went by and Vanilla began to lose weight. I took her to the vet, even though everyone else thought I was imagining things. We did tests and found her kidneys were starting to fail her. Not a surprising thing in a 15 year old. I had to take her into the vet every day for fluid therapy. I would take her in the morning on my way to work and pick her up on my way home. The first round of this went pretty well and she perked right up.

Months later, she started to decline we retested her blood and started fluids again. One morning when I went to put her in her carrier, she shied away from me. That day I asked the vet if he could show me what to do. I would not have Vanilla spend her last days miserable and afraid. Up until then I could not even watch the vet give vaccinations!!!! Well, I decided, I would just have to learn my best friend needed me to help her. And learn I did.

Every night when I came home from work I would heat the fluids up and she would sit on my lap purring as I put a needle under her skin to give her the fluids that would help flush her system. Of course, even this could not last forever. I eventually could see that she was not bouncing back from the fluid therapy enough to make it worth her discomfort and it was time to say goodbye to a huge part of my heart. I guess I had been grieving for the last year or so knowing the eventual outcome. I made the appointment and a good lady friend took us to the vet's office.

The vet came into the exam room and said he would take her and I could go home. No way!!!! She was my best friend and she had given me the her whole life, the least I could do was to comfort and hold her now. He ushered me into the back room and asked me to put her down on the table. As soon as I put her down she climbed back up onto my shoulder. I said he would have to do it from where she was. It was over in an instant.

I had brought a wicker basket with a lid to bury her in. I asked him to lay her in it, I could not see to do it. We took her home. Another good friend had dug a very deep hole in the garden and we prepared to bury her.

I have two nieces who were very close to Vanilla, Shannon had even slept with Vanilla when she was a young baby...holding her tail. They wanted to come and say goodbye. They brought notes they had written her and some toys for Vanilla to take with her to heaven. I put the notes and toys into the basket with her and we buried my beautiful Vanilla.

An hour or so later, the phone rang. It was a Somali breeder I had talked to for a couple of years at shows. She was going to be visiting her daughter that day and had 5 week old kittens. Her daughter lived a short distance from my home. Would I like to come see a couple? I couldn't even answer her. My friend took the phone and talked to the lady. She made arrangements to see the kittens. When she hung up I told her I could not go. She said that if Vanilla had taken the time to make the arrangements for me to see these kittens, I had better do it.

A few hours later we saw two little balls of red fur. One of them crawled up my shirt and licked my chin once, settled into the hollow of my neck and fell asleep. The breeder said the cat had made up her mind where she wanted to be. Through tears, I agreed to come to see them again in a couple of weeks and said goodbye. I agreed to purchase the little Sorrel and her Ruddy sister.

I wanted to put a tree over the spot I had buried Vanilla, I reasoned that no one would dig up a beautiful tree after I was gone. I bought a weeping birch and planted it. At this time I volunteered at the local crisis clinic and several of us got into a discussion about how, we really never have the chance to gather and say goodbye to our animals the way we do people. Having a ceremony and rituals help us to have closure and enable us to begin to heal and move forward. Being of Irish decent a 'wake' seemed 'proper'.

A number of people showed an interest in attending a a 'kitty wake' and they began to plan for it. I was amazed at how many people were invested in this. It did not take me long to realize that this 'wake' was much bigger than Vanilla and I. People called me wanting to know what to 'bring' to a kitty wake. I had no idea. I finally decided that a good thing would be bulbs, tulips or daffodils or anything else that would grow under the tree.

This wake was about all the things all of us had lost and not had a venue to mourn. It was also not just about losses, but about beginnings. We talked and told stories and laughed and cried together. I read something I had received from my vet and asked everyone to honor all the things each of us had lost, be they people, pets or relationships. I will include the words at the end of this story.

Then we went out and planted bulbs under Vanilla's tree. The wake took place 2 days after I got my my pair of Somali sisters, Marissa and Shelby. That night the kittens settled in next to me on Vanilla's pillow. The circle was complete.

It was not easy to fill the gap left by Vanilla. In my first litter was a little ruddy girl. She has some very interesting habits that I thought only Vanilla possessed. She sleeps in the hollow of my arm with her paws curled around my wrist. Cat incarnation? Perhaps, after all, Vanilla did arrange that phone call. Didn't she?

Those of us who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan....

"The Once Again Prince" by Irving Townsend

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