{"id":74,"date":"2012-01-12T17:51:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T17:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=74"},"modified":"2012-01-12T17:51:48","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T17:51:48","slug":"saying-good-bye-to-a-sweet-little-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=74","title":{"rendered":"Saying good-bye to a sweet, little friend."},"content":{"rendered":"

He came to our family in an ususual way.\u00a0 We had another feline friend for a few months, and that relationship didn’t fluorish.\u00a0 She needed to be wild and free (and not biting all the guests that came to our house).\u00a0 It was a \"\"<\/a>difficult decision, but our vet convinced us that Daisy Duke wasn’t the kitty for our family.\u00a0 Months went by and we didn’t desire to replace her.\u00a0 That lack of interest was probably due to the fact that our original kitties had to get a new home following the bus crash.\u00a0 It was all too much for all of us, and after much discussion, we had to find Shadow and Rescue new homes.\u00a0 It was the best decision for them, even if it meant we felt like we were losing more family members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Months have gone by and not one mention on a new kitty.\u00a0 That was until a chance encounter with our veterinarian.\u00a0 She was wondering if we would ever be interested in a little special needs kitty.\u00a0 The question caught me off-guard, because like I said, we weren’t looking.\u00a0 My curiousity piqued, I inquired as to what type of special need.\u00a0 We have experience fostering kitties (especially those abandoned by their mothers), and we have raised a few with bottles.\u00a0 That wasn’t the new kitty’s issue.\u00a0 He had experienced some kind of trauma (probably hit by a car), was dropped off at a farm, was promptly dumped at the veterinarian who tried to save his leg.\u00a0 Ultimately, the leg couldn’t be saved, and here he was a little 3-legged ball of sweetness – who nobody wanted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, my sense of cheering for the underdog (okay, undercat in this case) took over.\u00a0 I agreed to take a look – on one condition.\u00a0 This kitty would have to get along with Huck – numero uno, top dog and pet at Team Stevens Headquarters.\u00a0 I shared his story with the kids, and \u00a0just like little apples fallen off the tree, their sense of truth and justice (and the American way) kicked in, \u00a0and they were ready to save this unseen kitty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We decided that I would pick up the kitty the next day for a trial overnight.\u00a0 We all waited with fingers crossed\u00a0hoping the moment Huck laid eyes on him would be like cherubim with harps came to serenade us all.\u00a0 It was almost that perfect.\u00a0 We all watched as I placed a tiny little 2.4 lbs kitty in front of a 97 lb golden retriever.\u00a0 Instead of hissing\u00a0with an arched back,\u00a0that little ball of fluff nuzzled that big, old, wet nose and a friendship was born, not to mention the melting of\u00a0all the\u00a0human\u00a0hearts in the room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That night we decided to name kitty, Ocho, because we figured he had already lost one life\u00a0in the trauma that\u00a0took his leg.\u00a0 We promptly called the vet to say that we would\u00a0emphatically NOT\u00a0be bringing him back as he had already wrapped his\u00a0little tail around our hearts.\u00a0 Over the course of the\u00a0next months, we discovered that he loved to cuddle, he was tolerant with kids, and\u00a0he loved to wrestle with Huck which made\u00a0the old\u00a0boy\u00a0seem so much younger than his 9 years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He was carted between our house and the neighbor’s for many playdates.\u00a0 Ocho was loved by friends, family, and neighbors. He was dressed up in baby doll clothes and placed in baby doll cradles.\u00a0 He was a willing participant in many different games and activities.\u00a0 Sure he was a normal cat, and he loved to torment our preteen daughter’s toes in the middle of the night.\u00a0 He loved a good snooze on any of the beds with a good sunshine fix in the afternoon.\u00a0 Learning from the master, Huckleberry, he adapted those naps on occasion to the clean, fresh laundry piles I was folding. And of course, he intently\u00a0watched the pigeons that we raise, but he never bothered them.\u00a0\u00a0Nighttime prowls in our backyard were a staple, but he\u00a0always returned home with a purr and a cuddle.<\/p>\n

But then shortly after New Year’s we discovered our little Ocho (at 1 1\/2 years old) was very sick.\u00a0 We still don’t know yet what happened, but he developed some type of fluid in his chest cavity.\u00a0 We watched, tried everything we could afford to do, and fretted for several days.\u00a0 Deep down, we knew he wasn’t doing well. When Huck went and retrieved his beloved bone and laid it in front of his ailing friend, we simply knew it was time.\u00a0 We had one last sleepover with Ocho, and I watched him throughout the night.\u00a0 He was in so much pain that he never really rested.\u00a0 We doted, we loved, and we doctored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then we had to say good-bye.\u00a0 He laid in my arms as I sobbed and told him that he was the best cat any family could have ever asked for.\u00a0 He gave me one last nuzzle and breathed his last breath.\u00a0 The guilt of letting him down was enormous.\u00a0 Then the love of many friends reminded us that Ocho was a kitty that no one had wanted in the beginning, and that we had raised him lovingly, never letting him know that he was different from other cats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the end, he taught us a lot about ourselves.\u00a0 We will always, always, ALWAYS, root for the undercat!\u00a0 We will also remember that BIG LOVE can come in little packages.\u00a0\u00a0 We learned that friends love us when we’re down and are there for us no matter what, knowing full well\u00a0FRIENDS like that are hard to find!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that we’ve said our goodbyes, we just hope we will be able to find him in heaven because we are certain he now has 4 legs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He came to our family in an ususual way.\u00a0 We had another feline friend for a few months, and that relationship didn’t fluorish.\u00a0 She needed to be wild and free (and not biting all the guests that came to our house).\u00a0 It was a difficult decision, but our vet convinced us that Daisy Duke wasn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[87,380,454],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}