is gone.

He was such a sweet, loving, gentle, accommodating soul. We are so sad.

I’m going to be posting many photos of him, because i keep going through my old pictures and finding so many.

Friday night, kevin went to garrick’s house to watch a movie. almost all the time he does this, i stay home. just like, when i’m out, he usually stays home.

but friday night i went to mom’s to watch a movie. i left at seven.

right before i left, winnie was lying on my lap, purring.

kevin and i both got home at the same time, at 9:45.

He said “what’s that sound?”

it was poor sweet winnie, having a seizure on the middle of the living room floor.

he wasn’t flailing around like he’d done way back in may when he first had seizures. he was just kind of growling.

it makes me sick to think that maybe he’d been suffering all by himself for almost three hours.

one of his paws was all wet, so he’d been drooling a lot.

we laid down on the floor with him and petted him. his eyes were huge and dilated.

after a while i called the emergency clinic, explaining about the drugs he takes – i hadn’t given him his gabapentin, for his seizures, yet that night. the nice woman on the phone told me i could try to give him that, as well as a pain drug.

it was hard to get the syringe into his mouth because his jaws were tightly clenched shut, and i don’t know if any got in. i had a little more luck with the pain medicine.

but then, what could we do? there was a 100% chance of another big snowstorm, and we couldn’t bear the thought of moving him, taking him to the emergency clinic across town.

so we just laid there with him, trying to keep him comfortable.

after a while kevin suggested more pain medicine, so i quickly looked up “can you give a cat xanax?” you can. i crushed half a pill into some water and managed to get it into his mouth with the syringe.

after about a half hour he didn’t seem to be in any less pain, so i gave him the other half. online it had said that a half pill was OK, but i figured that if he OD’s on getting the whole pill, it would be a painless was to go.

i think he was a little calmer after that.

we just kept lying there with him, and his eyes were just so huge.

finally, at a little after one in the morning, kevin curled up on one part of our giant sectional sofa. i tried to close my eyes, lying there on the floor, but there was no way i could get any sleep. i was beyond exhausted and finally lied on another part of the sofa.

we both slept a little and got up at 5:30. winnie was still lying there, and we knew we had to do something right away. a few times when i’d petted him, he’d hissed at me, and he must have been suffering so much. the time had come for him to be put out of his misery.

our vet isn’t open on the weekend, but a vet we’d had in the past opened at seven, so i called them at 7:01. we couldn’t bring him in until 12:30, and of course there was nobody available to come to the house to administer the drugs.

so we took him to the emergency clinic. we’d called ahead, and headed out at 7:30. winnie didn’t put up a fuss as kevin carried him out to the truck and put him in my arms.

i held him as we went, and i feel like i’ve made that trip with an animal too many times.

the snowstorm hadn’t materialized, but it was sleeting a little as we drove, but we got there pretty quickly. nobody else was at the place, and it was all so quick. they took him to the back to put a catheter in his leg to administer the sleeping drug and the stuff to end his life, and the nurse said “he didn’t complain at all” about it.

i think at that point he wasn’t aware of anything, really. we held him as the doctor came in and told us he understood how difficult it was, and then our poor kitty was gone.

i mean, we’d known for about a month that he’d been getting worse – he didn’t have as much energy, he didn’t even seem to care so much that every night i had to clean out his ears and apply the medicine and then stick the dreaded syringe full of anti-seizure medicine into his mouth.

he was worn out, poor little guy.

Winnie was such a good kitty, ever since mom and i found him on the lake road in the summer of 2002. i’ve never had a pet that long, and i know he led a happy and long life, but it’s still just so sad.

this is the earliest photo i found right now, winnie and honey in the wheelbarrow in 2003. i must have photos from when he was a kitten, and i know i’ll find them.

Winnie and honey, 2003

I got Honey not long after winnie, and they were mostly friends.

here they are in 2004, and i like that sidelong glance that winnie is giving honey.

Winnie and Honey, November 2004

Winnie out on the deck on Christmas in 2004. it must have been pretty warm that day, i imagine.

Winnie, Christmas day, 2004

I have so many more photos, but that’s all for now.

Such a good, good boy.

g.