Yesterday was a miserable day, as days go they don't get much worse. I had to make the decision to take our dear old cat to the vet for her last time.
We had been struggling with the decision for some time now as she had slowly become more feeble and her health problems were getting to be more debilitating. It was so hard to decide when her quality of life was such that she needed to go. It was made all the harder by the fact that she could still purr and interact with us in her usual loving way.
Roxi came to our house 20 years ago as a kitten. She was our daughter's cat and introduced to our household when our daughter was 12 and adjusting to a new school, new friends, and the little cat seemed to know that she was special. We went and saw the litter when they were tiny and had just opened their eyes and S picked her then. We returned a few weeks later to bring her home. That was 20 years ago last month.
After all our children had left home Roxi missed them terribly, husband and I were not deemed to be interesting or lively company, good for providing food but that was all. So she began her wandering circuit of the neighbours.
She adopted the family across our drive who had three teenage daughters and made herself at home there during the day. She also adopted the people in the other house down our drive, an IHC home, and likewise they made her welcome.
When the family with teenagers shifted, another family with two teenagers arrived so she just switched her attention to them. Her nose was temporarily out of joint when they got a dog but the dog didn't stay for long and she was soon back enjoying the attention and parked in front of their fire in the winter. She would arrive at the same time each day, and like clockwork jump up and leave at the same time to return home.
Unfortunately we had to introduce another cat to the household which upset her a little in the last few years, However she mostly coped with this with her usual good humour
Inbetween her wanderings she still knew that this was her home and called by several times a day for food and attention. Until the last few months, although now stone deaf, she was healthy and fit.
Little Roxi, all you ever did in your life was dispense love and good humour to others, you will be missed sorely and remembered with love by the many humans whose lives you touched.
Today we are going to bury her in the garden in one of her sunny spots she liked to sleep.
