A tragedy and a triumph

This blog starts with a personal tragedy.  My two boys of 12 and 16 years died within 1 week of each other.  Jinx, the oldest, was fat, and I thought happy.  Other than being old and fat, I had no reason to think there was anything wrong with him.  He always ate, he was interested in us, he played with his brother.  He had slowed down, but he got around if a bit stiffly.  On January 17, I noticed that he was breathing weird. He didn't eat more than a bite of food (this never happened) and I could hear wheezing in his chest.  Since it was night and I had to work in the morning, I called and arranged to have my sister take him to the vet.  I assumed he had a cold or something.  Although I hoped it wasn't anything worse. 

I went to work in the morning and the vet called and asked if I approved x-rays, which of course I did.  My sister stayed with him.  Five minutes later I got a call saying he had passed.  They assumed from the x-ray it was congestive heart failure.  He never showed any symptoms before this time.  The shock was bad.  Mostly because we thought he was the healthy one.  His brother Raz, had kidney failure and had just gone in to the vet a week before this for us to be told he was in end stage, and it was a matter of days.  He was sad and looked for Jinx, but he only had a week left as things worked out and then we had no more fuzzy boys.  Our hearts were broken and a giant hole yawned open in our lives.

                                                                              RAZ

The Boys

Socks

We swore it would be a while before we could welcome a pet into our lives.  Our heats were ravaged, but a few days later a friend's dad died and she had to leave town and needed someone to watch her kitty, Socks.  Friendship and loneliness led me to volunteer. Socks was a sweet boy and he helped us see that even though we could never replace our boys, ever, we needed a kitty to fill the loneliness in our lives and hearts. 

Meanwhile, my niece was plotting to find me a kitten.  She knew we were impressed with Raz.  He was a very special kitty, and we loved his breed, which was American Bobtail. We liked his doglike personality.  He was interested in what we did, liked people and other animals, and liked to cuddle. 

That's how we got this rascal, Gus, our first ever Ragdoll.