R.I.P., Rigby (the little one)

It's times like these that it really helps to have a blog.

Bloggers are able to go to the computer and talk about whatever is going on at the moment. It is truly therapeutic to get the words out and onto the screen , even if we can barely see the monitor as tears well up in our eyes.

Today we lost our little Rigby kitty. A sweet little cat was he.

He was acting fine earlier this morning. But as I was visiting fellow bloggers and Shadow Shot Sunday participants Ralph suddenly yelled to me that Rigby couldn't walk. Rigby was lying on our son's bedroom floor and his legs wouldn't move. And he was meowing. Loudly.

It was so difficult to see him incapacitated like that, when an hour earlier he was running with his brother, Linus, from the front window to the back window to look at an interloper cat they had spotted on the driveway.

I called the vet, expecting an answering service. Luckily someone in the office answered, and, long story short she made an appointment for me at an emergency veterinary clinic about seven miles away. I threw on my clothes, scooped Rigby into the soft cat bed to try to comfort him and put him in the back seat.

He meowed and cried all the way there. I was talking to him and I had my right hand on him about half the time I was driving, trying my best to soothe him.

The doctor explained that what had happened was he had thrown a clot, which cut off the circulation to his hind legs. It turns out Rigby had heart disease, she said, after looking at a picture of his enlarged heart.

It's so sad to say good-bye to a little guy who wasn't very old. We thought we had many more years ahead to enjoy his antics.

Ralph and I have comforted ourselves in the knowledge that we gave Rigby a wonderful life in loving home, and we did all we could to make him happy.

He occasionally enjoyed using the computer, I know that.

He may have known how to read, who really knows?

And he liked plants.

We are concerned about his brother, Linus. We adopted them together in January of 2008 and they were never far apart. They had been in a bad environment, but fortunately for them they were rescued and placed in a foster home. Their rescuer, Cindy, brought us to the foster home one Saturday where we met them, in a room full of kitties waiting for someone to take them home.

Linus, the bigger brother, was Rigby's protector, but eventually they felt safe enough here that he would leave Rigby's side and do his own thing.

By his own thing, I guess I mean nap by himself!

I took this photo during the Superbowl. I don't think they were interested in the game. But I'm glad now that I captured this pose. = ^ . ^ =