Little Bart

I have a photo that I would very much like to post on this particular blog, but unfortunately won't be able too. It is of my cat, Bart a few years ago. He's in a tree in my front yard. The first tree he ever got to climb (they were inside cats remember). He climbed all the way to the top of the walnut tree where an empty bird's nest sat. So in the photo it looks like he might be thinking of getting into a little trouble with some baby birds (although no birdies were ever harmed). Its my favorite picture of Bart. Its the background of my home computer as a matter of fact. I've not had the heart to look at it just yet.

I lost my Bart this past Sunday. I'm not sure why. I mean, on some level I'm certain why it was. He was born with feline leukemia (he got it from his mother) and so his immune system was weak. About three weeks ago I noticed some small lumps under his skin and he was acting very lethargic. I know Bart isn't feeling well when he isn't constantly under my feet or in my lap wanting loved on. I took him to the vet and they couldn't decide what was wrong, other than his white blood cell count was a little high. So began three weeks of vet visits and eventually a solid week and a half of me feeding him baby food and chicken broth through an eyedropper because he stopped eating.

At the last vet visit (the Tuesday before he passed) he still wasn't feeling well, but he was better. He had gained weight and was more energetic and strong, but things got progressively worse from there.

I brought him home to Gray Hawk on Friday so I could keep an eye on him and because, I hoped, a little fresh air would do him good and stimulate his appetite. When we got home he was back to his old self for the first night. He still wasn't eating and he was still pretty puney acting, but he was loving on everyone like he usually does. He even got to go outside Saturday and walk around the yard a bit (no climbing trees though). Saturday night he took a turn for the worst and in my heart I knew what was happening.  I have had a steady supply of various critters as pets through the years...I know what death looks like.

Throughout the night and Sunday morning he couldn't keep anything down. He kept going to the bathroom and puking. He hid from me. He slept on my stomach for a little while Saturday night, but soon tired of that and just wanted to be left alone. By Sunday afternoon he had passed away.

What I'm most thankful for, is that he was home when he passed. Not in Richmond. Although he liked the apartment, it wasn't his home and he knew that. Home was always Nunn Road for him. A part of me believes that the reason he hang on for those three weeks is because he was waiting for me to bring him home. It seems logical to me anyway. Why else would he seem to be getting better, but within a day and a half of bringing him back to the homeplace, he passed away? Maybe its wishful thinking on my part that animals would be that smart, but I still choose to believe it. I've always been one to pay particular attention to things happening in nature and the behavior of animals, so I believe that is possible that Bart was indeed just waiting for a chance to come back to where he was raised so he could say goodbye to everyone he loved and be where he loved one last time. If people can do that, why not animals?

I'll miss Bart. Miss him terribly. I always said that my cat (Bart's sister), Poop, was "my" cat and Bart was "Dillon's cat", because Bart loved Dillon so very much. Dillon used to go get Bart from the little house my cats stayed in and sneak him over to Mom and Dad's so he could keep him in his bedroom and play with him. Back in the day, when I used to bath Bart and his siblings as kittens, Dillon would always get little wet Bart and wrap him up in a towel, take him to the bedroom, and let him sleep on his belly under the covers until he fell asleep. Bart has loved Dillon ever since. Sometimes I think Bart loved Dillon more than he loved me...and I was his Mother. :-)

Bart was in the litter of kittens I brought home from the dairy farm when their real mother abandoned them. I raised them from the time they were two weeks old. I fed them with bottles, bathed them, stimulated them to use the bathroom even, and when they were old enough I weened them and then raised them so that they "never wanted for anything" (as my Mom put it while she was comforting me after Bart's death). Last December (right before Christmas) I lost Poop to pnuemonia. All the kittens in that litter had feline leukemia, so Poop caught a cold and couldn't fight it off and she couldn't be made healthy with medicine, so I lost her first. In May, I lost Oliver to a spider bite. He wasn't a part of that litter, but I raised him with them from the time he was three months old. And now I've lost my Bart, right before Thanksgiving.

I have Emmie left. She was the runt of the litter. She has a BIG mouth and she likes to use it. She has chronic respitory problems but she survived the spider bite from this summer and she's survived multiple emergency trips to the vet for breathing problems and colds. She's a fighter. I feel sorry for Emmie. When I would let the cats outside to play on pretty days, if the other cats ran off to where she couldn't see them, she would let out panicked yells until I went to her so she could see she wasn't outside alone. Emmie does NOT like to be by herself. Emmie and Poop were great friends. They did everything together. They were as insync as to cat sisters could be. Oliver was Emmie's boyfriend (or at least that is what I called him). Oliver didn't like anybody, but he loved Emmie. They shared a bed and cuddled up next to each other every night. And after the other two were gone, Emmie and Bart were together and kept each other company. Luckily, I unintentionally ended up with a little kitten not long ago. Her name is Church and she thinks Emmie is her new Mommy. They cuddle together like Ollie and Emmie did, play together like Poop and Em, and Emmie won't be alone at the apartment now that Bart is gone. I'm thankful for that as well. I knew Emmie wouldn't like being my only furry child and although that wasn't my intention when Church came home with me (Bart was very much alive and well when I first brought Church home), I'm glad Church is there for Emmie all the same.

I told Mom after we buried Bart in my makeshift pet cemetery on a little hill beside my house, that it would do me good not to ever have another pet in my life. I can come across as being a bit mean and bitter. I'm standoffish on most things and sometimes I seem a bit heartless because I'm pretty blunt about things. However, for those that know me well enough, I'm terribly sensitive and easily heartbroken...especially when it comes to animals. When I was a tot, I watched "Where the Red Fern Grows" for the first time and cried and cried. People in the family still talk about that. Its a sad movie but I don't think anyone had seen a reaction quite so heartbreaking as mine up until that point. I cry when I read "Old Yeller" (which I do fairly often) or "The Yearling". And don't even get me started on when I went to the theater to watch "Marley & Me." That was a mistake and a half. I don't cry at movies. No matter how sad they are. Especially not in public. By the end of that movie I was wiping tears and snot off my chin from crying so hard. Maybe you aren't supposed to question God's intentions, but if there is one thing I get terribly frustrated at Him over, its the fact that He doesn't make it so that our animals get to live as long as us. Its unfair.

Regardless, I didn't want to let Bart pass away without a blog in his honor. I will miss him constantly being under my feet to the point I can't walk or get out my front door. I will miss him clawing my back trying to climb up it everytime I bend over. I will miss not being able to sit down without him climbing on my head and biting and clawing my hair (he was my little hairdresser). I will miss rubbing his belly and scratching under his chin. And I will miss him sleeping on my stomach at night. I'll even miss having to grab a ladder when he climbs too high in the trees, so I can get him safely down. He would never climb out of a tall tree unless I was under him with my arms out, telling him I would catch him if he would only get close enough for me to reach.

I am one heartbroken cat mom.

So here's to you, little Pumba Bart Fart Nunn (aka Barticus, Sir Barticus Farticus, & Bartikins), may you rest in peace and always know that your Mommy loved you.