A week-and-a-half before Boy was born, Mally-cat started to act really funny. Like, 'bad' funny. S thought that she might be getting sick (she was, after all, approaching her octogenarian years--in cat years, of course.) After thinking long and hard about it, I decided to tell S that I thought it was time to put her down. It broke my heart, but I couldn't risk having a sick kitty in the same house as a newborn baby.
That night I went home and both cats were outside for the night (a common thing--we started letting Billy out in the evening and he wouldn't come back in until morning.) The next morning I went to let them both back in and only Billy came. I kept going outside to look for Mally but she was nowhere to be found. S looked for her for the next couple of days and nothing. I felt so bad. But I remembered a story that my mom had told me about her siamese cat named Max. She could tell he was getting towards the end of his life and he ran away, she thinks, to die. I figured this is what had happened to Mally.
Fast-forward almost 3 weeks later. Boy was a week old and I was up early in the morning. I went to let Billy back in and I heard horrendous meowing. Mally started running up onto our porch. It freaked me out! She looked Terrible. I stood there in a panic not knowing what to do. I had several hours before S would be waking up and I could hear her crying and crying outside for me to let her in. I just couldn't do it. Now I really DID have a new baby in the house and who knows what she had been exposed to. It was probably one of the worse situations I've ever had to face. I knew in my heart she still needed to be put down--I couldn't risk her harming Boy. So we put her down. It was such a sad, sad end to my little furry companion's life. Sure, unfortunately the cats have taken a back seat to our kiddos over the last few years, but Mally saw me through some hard times when I first got sick. It was not what I wanted to happen. S buried her up on the hill by our house.
Now that that sad story is out of the way...
I felt worse for Billy because I think he was mourning in a way that only animals could mourn. I could tell that he knew there was a great absence in his life. Luckily, Bean thinks he is absolutely the greatest thing and has taken on a role of a sort-of companion to him. She has also imaginatively started calling him "Black Bear." This has become a game for her: "Oh, no! Black Bear is coming, RUN!!!"
I've recently started getting and keeping Boy up for a few hours before Bean gets up. I let Billy upstairs from the basement as I go to feed Boy breakfast. Billy has taken a Great Interest in Boy this past month. He'll come start purring at his chair as Boy is eating his cereal and, though Boy is definately distracted by Billy, it almost works better to feed him this way because his interest in Billy almost overrides his disinterest in rice cereal and he ends up eating more!
While I'm eating my breakfast, I let Boy play on the floor with his toys and Billy will generally come over and keep him company.
I cracked up when I saw this picture of Boy, wearing his brown teddy bear cap, making formal introductions with Black Bear Billy:
Looks like Billy has two new companions now...
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