My Sammy

Sammy last year - what a love bug!

I didn't want to start this blog off on a bad note, but I have to share, and memorialize, my cat, Sammy. He came to me when I was a student in N.C. back in 1994. He died 13.5 years later, on March 22, 2008, in our home here in Denver. He was a wonderful cat and was my "soul buddy" for all those years. I had him with me longer than anyone or anything (except perhaps my bedroom furniture that mom gave me when I was in my early 20s!) in my life. Letting him go was more difficult than I imagined, but he had had kidney problems for the past 8 years or so and his kidneys were finally failing - it was time to let him go. I did Reiki on him every day (Reiki is a type of energy work/healing) that reduced his pain and discomfort.

He had stopped eating about a week before he died and was preparing himself to go. Our vet suggested bringing him in to have him put to sleep within a couple of days, but I couldn't do it. He had been to the vet so many times and been stuck with needles so many times (we had been giving him subcutaneous fluids every other day for months) that I wanted him to leave us naturally and as peacefully as he could. (Thank you Janie for loaning me "The Zen of Living and Dying" - it actually came in handy!) ... So, I sat with him and held him when he wanted me to, and got peed on when he couldn't help it, and sent him healing energy as often as I could, and let him know how much I loved him, and have always loved him, every day.

He was still walking around the day before he died and so every day for the last week I would let him go outside and sit in the sun and lick his favorite plant - catmint, which he would end up laying on! He would lie in the sun for hours and I was so glad that he was able to enjoy that up until the day he passed. I thought he was going to die on Friday, 3/21, but I quickly realized that he might not let go if I was still sitting with him and holding him, and although I was telling him that he could go whenever he needed to, I was showing him that I wanted him to stay. So, Friday afternoon, I took him to our closet where he had made a bed for himself and I lay him down and told him I was ok with him leaving us if he had to, and I left him. I checked on him briefly several times, as did Matt, but I knew that I had to let him go, literally, before he could leave us. And so he passed away early Saturday morning. We decided to bury him with the catmint plant that he loved so much and I'm planning on planting more catmint on his grave this year, so that we'll always remember him. ... I miss him dearly, but he will always be with me, in my memories and in all the photos I have of him. He was very photogenic, as you can see. Thank you for helping me to memorialize my "baby kitty." He is loved and missed.

Sammy enjoying the sun -

several days before he died.