Our Beloved Bogart Crossed the Rainbow Bridge

Bogart in 2014

After a fitful night of sleep and crying, I woke up this morning imagining that I heard Bogart’s meow from his room. The house seems oppressively quiet and empty without him. The large candle I lit yesterday is still flickering on the mantle.

I opened the windows – the sun is up and the sounds of the forest are alive with the happy chirping of birds. The resident squirrels are busily collecting acorns from the large oak tree in front of the deck. They are not alarmed, the cat is away forever. It’s been a long time since Bogart had been able to chase squirrels, snapping turtles, or raccoons. Always fearless, he encountered a few foxes and a coyote in the woods, but came away unscathed.

Bogart’s stoop is still on the deck and so is his favorite stainless steel water bowl. He enjoyed making huge splashes before he dug his paws in and licked them of water. Only then did he actually start drinking with gusto.

On a very snowy day a few years ago, Bogart was trying to dig out his water pan from underneath the frozen whiteness. It is not really a bowl; it’s an expensive cooking pan with a handle which my mom designated as a deck water bowl. Bogart seemed to like it; when I tried to replace it with a real bowl, he refused to drink out of it and the pan came back out.

We are not entirely sure how much he was able to see or hear in his last months of life. But he liked sitting on his hind legs like a majestic statue, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine. In the last few weeks, he had difficulty assuming his favorite position as his motor skills had devolved due to arthritic pain and toxins in his body.

He no longer panicked when a draft of wind shut the deck door – he probably could no longer hear well. He always hated being closed into a room without the possibility of escape. He destroyed a carpet or two by scratching and digging his way through to the floor around the door, in a vain attempt to escape.

Months ago he also stopped being afraid of the vacuum cleaner and followed Dolores around when she dusted. He had come a long way from the shy and skittish rescue cat who hid under our daughter’s bed for the first three years after he was adopted, coming out only at night to play, eat Cheetos, and drink from the commode.

Despite IV fluids twice a week for almost two years, his kidneys were on the cusp of failing in June and we increased his dose which kept him alive until October. In his struggle to stay alive, Bogart taught us important lessons about a life well-lived, unconditional love, and death. Despite the weekly fluid infusions, the built-up toxins in his body were affecting his motor skills and his brain. Kidney failure cost him the loss of almost 40 percent of his body weight.

 

Christmas 2016

 

I think he was hanging on to life to please us because he loved us so much and we adored him. I carried him to the vet even when Dave was sick and going through chemo and when I was trying to recuperate from knee surgery this year. He had become so skinny, it was hard to find a patch of fresh skin that had not been injected with IV fluids and he started to cry. I knew it was time for him to go. Throughout his illness, he remained the same sweet and loving fur baby. He had lived a long and pampered life for almost twenty years and I have been a caring and loving mother to him.

My friend Susan Soden gave me a priceless gift, a beautiful portrait of Bogart painted by Sonora. He is so life-like, from a time when he weighed 15 pounds or more. He had shrunk to a mere 8 lbs. Sonora did such a fantastic job that his beautiful blue eyes seem to follow me from every angle of the painting.

 

Our beloved Snowshoe Siamese, who was never fond of snow, taught us in his almost two decades of life with us to be better, more loving, more caring, and more patient human beings. A precious loan from God, Bogie has enriched our lives in every way.

Finding his paw tracks in the carpet behind my chair where he last slept the day he died, his often favorite and quiet spot, brought me to tears. He liked to be near me when I wrote. If he did not fit between the keyboard and my body, he was not shy about putting his paws on the keys, purring softly.

 

 

Ten years ago the vet was surprised when Bogart jumped from the examining table and got stuck behind a large cabinet and the corner wall. He had to call the maintenance guy to actually move the entire cabinet before they could extricate a much heavier Bogart out of a tight squeeze.

On the short ride to the vet, Bogart sat in my lap and was agitated, trying to look out the window to the right. He did not understand what was happening, but he knew something was not right and was making guttural and frightened sounds.

 

 

Even though we know euthanizing him was the right and humane thing to do, putting him out of pain and suffering, the grief is overwhelming, and I cannot stop crying. He was my fur baby and part of my heart crossed the Rainbow Bridge with him while part of his is in my heart.

After the first shot the vet administered, Bogart threw up, I cleaned him up, and, while the anesthesia took over, his eyes remained open and he was breathing. I showered him with more kisses and the doctor gave him the second fatal shot. His heart stopped at 6 p.m. on October 3, 2018, while I was cradling his bony and furry body.

Memory Eternal to our sweet Bogart! He was beautiful even in death.

On his stoop the day before he died