Its Never Easy Barbara
Last night was difficult, one of the saddest deaths , out of so many.
For the first time in the 16 or so years since she came to live with me I cuddled Barbara.
It was I think just the fourth time I had managed to touch her.
The third time was last Friday when I finally enticed her into the kitchen and closed the door. This way , although she fought and clawed me , I got her into a box to take her to the vet.
When I first met Barbara she had been living on a piece of waste ground in Cuidadela. It was being used as a car park.
She had already had a litter of kittens.
Dick and Marilyn , a wonderful couple from Scotland used to come over to Menorca for two weeks, twice a year. They would spend all their time looking after the strays and feral around their hotel but what they could do was limited by a lack of equipment, traps and cages etc.
They contacted the local newspaper and asked them if there was anyone looking after cats.
They gave them my name and telephone number and from then on for several years we worked together until Dick died suddenly.
On one of their trips they caught Barbara and brought her to our vet to be spayed. They were very concerned about her as the plot of land was about to be built on.
What would happen to Barbara.
I offered to give her a home.
Over the years she would come in and sleep in the house, but always alert .
At night it was as if she was tapping her watch waiting for me to go to bed so that she could relax..
As nervous cats come to the end of their life they nearly always become suddenly friendly and accepting of physical contact and I assumed that this would happen with Barbara.
In itself it is heartbreaking when this happens, but as I now know it is even worse when it doesn’t.
Lately Barbara had lost a lot of weight, quickly, and given that she must have been 17 or thereabouts it wasn’t that surprising.
Then I noticed that she was only licking wet food.
That was when I decided that she needed to be caught.
Our vet said that she needed her teeth removed.
At the same time he took a blood sample and her kidneys were not that good.
Over the days she continued to lose weight.
She was on medication but even the vet found it difficult to administer it.
Yesterday we made the very sad decision to let her go.
He sedated her, then wrapped her up warmly and put her in my arms until she was completely unconscious and for the first time I could stroke her and kiss and cuddle her. So very sad.
She had in the end kidneys that had simply stopped working.
One beautiful thing happened last summer though.
Marilyn came back to Menorca for the first time without Dick and came to see me.
I was so pleased to see her and she was simply amazed to see that Barbara was still with me
Anoche fue muy muy difícil porque tuvimos k poner a dormir a Barbara, una siamesa de unos 17 años.
Viví conmigo desde hace unos 16 años pero nunca llego a fiarse ni de mi ni de nadie.
Casi siempre cuando les falta muy pocas semanas de vida se mansan k es muy triste pero ahora he descubierto k es aun mas triste cuando no se mansan.
Hace unas semanas k se estaba perdiendo peso y con mucha dificultad la cogí para llevarla al veterinario.
Ayer noche decidimos ponerla a dormir.
Sedada y envuelta en una manta por fin le podía dar caricias, porque en toda su vida no la había tocado más k 4 veces.