My mother works at an office that's heavily infested with cats. The cats stay there, and although not the best home, they are happy and reasonably healthy. A lady comes by, and finds homes for the kittens. But the unwanted adults stayed there. Almost all were fixed...but it was an expensive process and some weren't. Or some couldn't be caught, they were wild cats.
One day, it was a saturday. August 4th, 1998. Was it really that long ago? Now as I think about it, it seems no more then a few weeks before. My mother said that there was a litter of kittens that had been abandoned. She said that we could go, down there, and feed them. So we stopped at a petshop. I already had cats, many, but had never helped raise one. They had just been born.
Our first stop was a petshop. BUt they were out of kitten milk. The lady directed us to the Safeway nearby. Saying goat's milk was the best. Saying she had raised three kittens on it. Or was it four? So we bought a bottle and goat's milk.
We went there, the kittens were in a box. Crying. I'll remember the site for my whole life, most vivid in my nightmares on worried nights. The site, was so horrible. There was, from the placentas, blood all over. The kittens had been cleaned by there mother, before being abandoned. I saw, and backed away. God help them, I thought stunned.
The kittens cried, they moved, they lived. Three of them. The last was dead, already hard and as stiff as a board. I could see, because, oh Lord, the kittens were all stuck together in a tangled mess. The dead one moved with each motion of the others. They had gotten tangled, right? No. Wrong, so very wrong.
We got one kitten out first. She looked so mall, less then half the size of my hand. I looked at her, and immediatly knew it was a her. She looked so perfect, I couldn't imagine that the others could be deformed...but as we tried to get the others, we realized they were. The two live ones were stuck, literally stuck with skin and flesh to the dead one.
As I fed the small kitten I prayed to God. Let me stop hearing the cries of those doomed kittens. I'll remember that sound for eternity and more. They were so pitiful, small, weak. And they were to die. There was nothing I or anyone could do.
We went home with that one kitten. She ate ravenously, and she looked so healthy, so perfect. We read books on it, we took care of her. My mom, one day, called her Little Orange Pom Pom Head, and it stuck, as LOPPH (lopf). She, both of us although we couldn't tell knew she was a she, although there was a bit of doubt, grew rapidly. I became worried that the small nutrition in the goat's milk wans't enough, but my mom was worried a change would upset her.
She did seem healthy though, and so sweet. Her eyes opened early to show a beautiful deep blue color. So deep, you could barely see her pupils. It was almost a black. And still, she looked so perfect.
Her umbilical cord broke off early. And it left a scab for a few days. A scab that would never have a chance to fall off. She was so perfect. One day, she didn't seem as energetic, though. She seemed dormant, and tired. I assumed, my mom assumed, that it was just because she had been particularly busy the day before. Still, my mom set up a vet appointment.
I picked her up and I held her. She seemed smaller now. More fragile. And I saw, God, there was a huge black pot on her abdomen. Like a bruise. My mother, she had noticed it and she hadn't told me. She didn't want to worry me.
We rushed her down to the vet's. But the dirve was long, she got cold. Her temperature plummeted, the most dangerous thing in the world for a kitten...too late to turn back we rushed to the vet. Nurses swept her away so soon.
And we waited.
We found out that she was a girl. And she wasn't healthy. No, she was malnutritioned and too cold. The last we knew, but they said the lamp we had used probably hadn't been enough. The milk definetly hadn't been enough.
We sat we waited. They had to do so much to the little kitten. They had to see if there was liquid in her abdomen, they said it was too swollen. I won't describe what they told me they had to do. I don't want to think about it.
Good news bad news time. There wasn't liquid floating around in the kittens stomach. But the kitten bruised when they had used a needle on her. That wasn't supposed to happen. She said there wasn't anything they could do there. The kitten would probably die, and it wasn't any different if we took her home, or if we left her there. We decided there would be the best. Or my mother did. I knew why. She didn't want to have the kitten die in our house.
They left to arrange it. The kitten was so still in her box. I could barely see her breath. I pet her and, she jumped. Or lurched rather. I called for the doctor, all along thinking in my little world that this was a good sign.
The doctor looked at her and she picked her up and ran out of the room. Me sitting there thinking this was good. Me being so stupid to believe in life and hope.
And my mom came in a few moments later. She looked at me and my heart stopped. I stopped breathing. I stopped literally. And for those few seconds it was like I was dead. I was dead. And so, was the kitten. She looked at me and I knew.
The doctor came in and she was crying as much as I was. She hugged me, and I had nothing to say. The only thing I could do was be brave, and I clung onto that as my last possession in this world of pain and hate. There was no love or hope here.
The kitten had started to bleed into her lungs. The doctor had had to put her to sleep. The doctor said there hadn't been anything else she could do. We went home and I was empty. I cried. For weeks literally. I didn't go to school. Barely slept, barely ate. Just cried. She was gone, and even as I write this I cry again.
I kept her only positions. A nursing bottle, and her box and bedding. And everytime I look at them, oh Lord I can't stop cying.
She's always there, I miss her so much. And I only wish there had been someone there to help me get through it. My mom was as weak as me, hiding it, and getting angry if ever brought up. I didn't have anyone, and so I write this. I don't have anyone, but in writing this I have myself. And I want most of all for people to know.