An Anniversary

Sunday, August 10 was the first anniversary of the day Mimi went to her next life. An image for my sidebar to remember her, and a few thoughts.

 

I’ve spent the past year trying to decide what image of Mimi to use for her in my sidebar, and I have so many, from so many years, I could barely narrow it down. Which one identifies the essential Mimi? Not just one single one. I really wanted to have something for this anniversary! But the image that kept coming to mind was this painting I had done of her, a spring morning in 2017 she was so inspiring with her expression, her head tilt, the sun on her fur, her expectant attitude, she knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask for it, and she knew me so well that she’d get her way. Unlike the others, I couldn’t sum her up in words, either, so I just left it at that.

As I write more about her, outlined below, I’ll add a category for her stories alone so you can reference them all together.

Mimi is still very present

I knew the date was August 1o, but lately I’ve returned to my post from August 11, 2024, when I shared her transition here, to read over and remember that day, and think over all the amazing things I’ve experienced with her presence since then. I visited the post often enough and saw the publishing date that for the past week I was convinced her date was August 11, today, and planned to write this memory post for today. Today I realized that was incorrect, but I had felt her very deeply on Saturday as I did some things in the garden and the front yard and got ready for the market on Sunday, then again this morning, so perhaps there is some significance to the day after, which is the day it usually starts to sink in. I can tell you she is on so many of my gift items that I tell stories about her all day long at the market.

Mimi has been present so much over the past year, it’s almost like she’s still here, even though I know she’s not so no painful realization. Especially when I’m out in the garden, the place I first saw her here, the place we met, the place we spent so many happy hours, and the place she coaxed me to in in July 2024, with the last of her strength, when I felt part of me was drifting without purpose without her children and with my work life dramatically changed. “Remember there’s a garden here, under all this stuff,” I imagine her saying as she drank from her wheelbarrow water bowl and wandered the old paths that weren’t too overgrown for her, “you know what to do with this.” She was so practical.

I kept a written journal from just after we lost Mewsette up to just recently, at times writing several times a day and sometimes skipping days, but trying to put voice to what I was experiencing. I read through this and also pulled together the posts I made about her visits and others’ on social media while my sites were offline, so I plan to do a separate pet loss post about each of them, and will start with Mimi since she has the most.

For now I have included the post from August 11, 2024, chronicling her last months from Mr. Sunshine’s transition on March 1, 2024, to the day after her transition. I managed to publish three posts in August 2024 about her visits before my sites went offline with the malware intrusion, not to return until June 2025, so I’ll pickup from there.

My photos of this year’s garden from a few days ago, so full of her memories and presence, are near the end of this post.

August 11, 2024

Bright red male cardinals have been flying around my house for days. I see them outside every window, I hear them singing and chipping in the cardinal call of conversation among the trees, from first light until late into dusk. I am accustomed to the habits and sounds of the cardinals who live in my yard. But this cardinal was on a mission, the special mission that cardinals undertake when a message needs to come from far far away, across many barriers, through time and space. I knew who this message was from and who it was for, and I knew the nature of that message, but I would not hear it so I turned my head and ignored the cardinal every time he flew by outside the window, landed and gave his message to the air.

Today in that time just before, I watched a cardinal flutter down from the mulberry tree to land on the arm of the wicker loveseat that holds memories of Mimi and all her children, bright red in contrast with the turquoise wicker, standing still to be sure I’d see him. His message in that place was clear. He flew from there to the branches of the mulberry closest to me and looked right at me and Mimi who was curled and resting right in front of me to make sure we noticed and heard him too. The message was for both of us. I could no longer ignore. Mimi was ready. Her children were ready to accompany her home.

~Saturday, August 10, 2024

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Following is an outline of Mimi’s condition from March, after we lost Mr. Sunshine and almost lost Mimi, to her last day, Saturday, August 10, 2024. It’s long, but as always I recount it so my readers know the story, and so that the information within it might be helpful to you in any way when you face these situations.

March: Mimi decides to stay for a while longer

Mimi was thriving and active into her twentieth year and supported each of her four adult kittens as they succumbed to their various cancers. She’d had an excellent visit and follow-up with our veterinarian in February. After we lost Mr. Sunshine on March 1 I wondered if it was her turn as she grew despondent and disinterested in the things she loved best. Mid-month she was in urgent care after days of watching her decline, struggling with appetite, nausea, renal issues and a UTI, her weight down to 4.8 lbs despite constant palliative care.

Antibiotic, slight increases in palliative measures and more time outside helped her make her own decision to return to everyday life. She had demanded her freedom around the house but I decided she needed more rest and the ease of litterbox and fountain and food within a few steps, so she spent overnights in the comfortable and familiar bathroom. I began working more outside with her at my side, and took her outside for visits more frequently.

And so started our new journey, both Mimi and me.

Lots of energy in April and May

Her vitality increased through April and May, undiminished as my own energy faltered while I unknowingly gestated my two gall stones, when our front yard began blooming with our native wildflowers and the rhododendron put on a show, the purrfect backdrop to Mimi rediscovering the bird bath right off the front porch. She could walk around the edges and drink from several spots, and also survey her domain all the better from that height.

A neighbor had given me a dozen or more large paving stones and stacked them in the ground cover under the spruce where Mimi had a game of jumping from one stack to another, rubbing her face on each stack as she went. The season was warm, I was ready to photograph everything that bloomed, and Mimi was with me, finding the first leaves of catnip along the walk. Her appetite and activities increased and we both enjoyed the freedom of just walking outside at any time during the day to enjoy some exploration, photography and naps.

I had all hopes that we could get another year, maybe even to make 22.

An odd symptom

One morning in late May I noticed that the pupil in Mimi’s left eye was larger than the right, though it still reacted to light, and her left paw was swollen. I had given her fluids the day before and I’ve seen in older cats that fluids will sometimes settle in a paw, the lowest point in the body, but they usually disperse in a day or two. This did not. I saw no changes to her habits or appetite.

I made an appointment for her in early June. Her eye appeared to be normal aging. Her paw edema might also be from aging and poor circulation and my veterinarian suggested I massage her paw and try to push the fluids back up her leg, and I added Assisi loop treatments and Dr. Elgersma another Chinese herbal combination. Her blood pressure was a little high so we started her on Mr. Sunshine’s leftover amlodipine.

Gall bladder surgery!

I ended up in the hospital mid-June for my gall bladder surgery. I was not concerned about Mimi’s energy when I was away for four days; Denise told me Mimi escaped from the bathroom and eluded her, but showed up in the kitchen in the morning for breakfast, hopping up on the cabinet and demanding her dish.

New energy out in the back yard

When I returned she stayed with me at my desk and on my slow walks as I recovered from surgery, and she rediscovered another outdoor water bowl—the red wheelbarrow I’d left in the garden in the back yard before my surgery, collecting rainwater, providing lots of inspiration and photography for me. I also sorted more of what was on the deck and cleared more space for the two of us.

She enjoyed long naps in her four favorite spots on the deck after our daily backyard tour, drinking from her water bowl, and even walking in the deck rail a few times as I renewed my limbering-up exercises outside on the deck, then added my yoga practice and then my exercise bicycle. Lots of face rubs and love bites from Mimi all through our time outside, then long naps on my desk as I worked. We were together constantly.

Mimi had loved walking around the garden area all her life with me, and even before that, but it was so overgrown she didn’t feel safe there aside from the wheelbarrow. She still followed me down the basement steps in the morning—or preceded me—with my coffee and camera and was ready when I opened the door, heading out for whatever she could sniff and grass she could nibble on before she raced to the bottom step of the deck, gave it a good scratch, ran up the steps and had a drink, sniffed around the deck, then settled in for a nap. At the same time, she began to love her afternoon and evening visits to the front porch so she could enjoy napping in the sun on the concrete walk, on the porch, and nibbling her catnip.

Keeping a visual record of Mimi

At the beginning of July I began intentionally taking photos of her activities each day as a document of how she was doing, not just the random ones I’d been taking. I had noticed she wasn’t exploring the back yard as she had been just a month or so earlier, heading for the garden chairs to walk on each one and face-rub her scent on them, scratch on the green wicker loveseat and have a quick nap there, walk through the grass and nibble and sniff, and she was heading for rest sooner than before. She was no longer racing to the steps and having a good scratch, just nipped a few blades of grass and wanted only to nap in her favorite spots on the deck. July was a very hot month and napping on the deck was probably a better idea.

Mimi’s follow-up in mid-July

She had been to see her veterinarian for a follow-up in mid-July and we tweaked a few things like fluids and added a treatment for the yeast infections in her ears, talked about her weight which kept dipping a little below five pounds, and her occasional vomiting. Dr. Elgersma also added a few extra herbs for her symptoms, anti-inflammatory and all supportive of appetite and hydration. But I could tell her health was changing, she couldn’t maintain her hydration or her weight, her appetite was often an issue.

Getting that garden started in July!

It was mid-July after a break in the heat that I finally followed through with my plan from April to actually clean up my garden, build the beds and plant things. She was outside with me for most of it, though when she wanted to nap where I couldn’t see her I took her inside for a snack and left her sleeping on my desk, sneaking back outside for more work. Exploring the changes each day, she renewed her love of walking the garden paths, climbing on her wood pile and napping on the wicker chairs and Mewsette’s garden chair.

But what she loved best about the new garden was the bird bath next to the garden with the bench set there just for her, so she could get her paws on the edge and have a good drink—no walking around the edges of this one, so that was the best I could do for her.

Changes come quickly

Even as she enjoyed the new accommodations, I could see her vitality was fading, as was her appetite. The last week of July I could see her favoring that swollen paw and often licking at it as if it was itchy or irritated her. As we moved into August she began limping, which grew progressively pronounced, and she was even less active.

The last photo I have of her drinking from the back yard bird bath was August 2, and when she walked to the bench but didn’t jump up I lifted her up; she might look at the bird bath, but she didn’t try to drink. When we went out front she only walked to a sunny spot on the walk and went to sleep, just a few nips of catnip. I could also see that when she sat she wasn’t sitting fully upright, and often her head was slightly lowered. Her veterinarians and I kept in touch about all this and tweaked things.

In late July I didn’t want to admit I could feel her body growing fragile in the way older or chronically ill bodies do, looser skin, weaker muscles and muscle tone. Despite all the little fixes we were giving her, I knew what was coming.

I would guess she put all of her energy into this moment and could no longer hold off the path of her own body, though she had done an amazing recovery. But when the deterioration comes, it comes fast. I’ve seen it a dozen or more times before, so I began to prepare myself for the last walk ahead while giving her all the benefits all of us as a team could give her.

Maybe we could make it to autumn.

This past week has been a blur

She had a heart murmur and was at risk for blood clots, especially a concern after the paw swelling, so her veterinarian and I had discussed Plavix (generic Clopidogrel) to hold them off. I gave her first dose after I put Mimi in the bathroom for the night just after midnight on August 5 and another on August 6. Plavix side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, decreased appetite, even bleeding or liver damage might occur, but those are rare, but she vomited and in a different way than usual, and completely lost her appetite. I noted this and gave her Cerenia and famotidine. I ran to her vet on Tuesday to pick up more fluids, and the vomiting happened again. She was feeling somewhat better with the medications and I had picked up some of her favorite foods.

Tuesday was her day for fluids and she needed them especially after the vomiting. I gave her a dose in the evening just before I fed dinner. She decided to trot down the basement steps to the litterbox, made good use of it, then trotted back up and was ready for dinner. She was eating next to Bella on the cabinet then got up and turned around to go for the fountain on the floor. I saw a bloody pawprint and then discovered blood soaking her fur from the site where I’d given her the fluids.

Off to the emergency veterinarian

I’ve seen the needle area bleed after fluids before, but not like this. I staunched it, wiped her down and pressed a wadded paper towel against it, but it kept seeping. I called an emergency hospital to ask about what might have happened under her skin and they recommended keeping the pressure on the wound for 15 minutes or more. That did not work so I packed her up and went to another emergency hospital we’d been to before, asking for triage at least because I could barely afford their exam fee.

After discussing her medications we quickly decided it was probably the Plavix not permitting her blood to clot. They decided to let it dry because cleaning it off started the bleeding again and there was no way to bandage the area that would stay in place. The veterinarian said looking at her physical condition and her low body temperature she might suggest euthanasia, but Mimi’s gums were pink and she was alert and mobile and social so she suggested I just take her home, skip the Plavix, keep her warm and keep the blood staunched until the Plavix might be out of her system. They were kind not to charge me because they said they hadn’t actually done anything, though the veterinary nurse had taken records and vitals and veterinarian had used her time and expertise to diagnose the issue. I was so grateful, feeling this might escalate.

Later I also messaged with Dr. Elgersma about the possibility of euthanasia, sooner or later.

Feeling better

Mimi was feeling better Wednesday morning though she vomited in the morning and was very tired. I reported to her vet and we stopped the Plavix, hold on fluids for two to three days. Mimi and I did her morning routine outdoors then I had to run back to her veterinarian for more Cerenia, more cat food and groceries so I had her in the bathroom with food while I was out. We did our evening outside routine after that. Later I used old towels to soak her side to loosen the blood from her fur, then put her back in the bathroom to keep warm and rest and hopefully she’d eat more.

Thursday started out on a low note with no breakfast. With no interest in going outside she made it back upstairs and under my bed. When I tried to coax her back out she turned around and for the first time I saw that hopeless expression on her face. I let her settle down and asked Ingrid King for a reiki session for her. I am grateful Ingrid was able to fit her in right away, and as I was in the basement cleaning litterboxes later Mimi came trotting energetically down the steps and went right to the door, demanding to go outside. So we had our outside time and it turned out to be a good day, no vomiting. I gave her a bath and got most of the blood out of her fur. She was moving slowly but was eating and was in good spirits, staying with me.

Friday was even better when she was eating really well, on my desk, asking to go outside, walking around and enjoying the deck, until evening when she vomited again and ate only a few licks of food overnight despite several measures to settle her stomach.

A visitor!

A friend from college was to visit me Saturday; originally I was going to meet her in Erie where she was staying with family and we’d spend some time on the lake but I warned something might come up with Mimi. I knew she’d understand.

Mimi was a little less energetic on Saturday morning so after breakfast and a quick visit outdoors I put her back in the bathroom with food and gave her a dose of fluids, which make a noticeable difference when she’s dehydrated, and hoped I could build her back up enough to at least get to her veterinary appointment the following Tuesday, then we might make some decisions. This was the first time she wasn’t present for a meal in the kitchen with the others, and I remembered the outcome from other meals with a missing kitty; I did not have a good feeling about her condition.

Maybe we could make it to next Tuesday.

I finished another book cover illustration and design through the morning, checking Mimi now and then, then invited her out of the bathroom. She still wasn’t very energetic, but had eaten some of the food and was happy to see me. I took her in the bedroom while I made the bed and positioned her on it when she tried to go underneath for her nap spot, made the bed around her while she stood in one spot and watched me closely. I put her on the floor and she took a few steps and stopped so I carried her down the stairs.

I noticed she felt a little extra warm so I took her temperature, thinking she could have another UTI. Her temperature was normal. She licked a little food and we went out front to enjoy the beautiful day and greet my friend. Mimi was moving very slowly, heading for her spot on the sidewalk and lying down, even listless, and she didn’t get up to greet my friend when she arrived as Mimi always would have.

Bad symptoms

We had been talking for a while, catching up, and I picked up Mimi and carried her to the porch, twice, not wanting her to sleep out in the sun, so this time I held her. When I shifted her in my arms I felt a wet spot on my side and looked to see kind of watery blood as though the needle area from her fluids was bleeding again.

Another drop fell on my dress, though, and looking closer it was coming from her rectum. My friend completely understood what I needed to do and came in while I called urgent care because my veterinarian had closed an hour before, but was on hold for five minutes while I considered what was happening.

Decisions

Bleeding from the rectum is not good at any time, but with a fragile cat like Mimi it was probably not survivable, no matter the cause. Which was probably the thermometer, lubricated and gentle though it was, with her fragile skin, the effects of Plavix which could cause bleeding, her inability to stay hydrated. I knew urgent care would recommend euthanasia, even my own veterinarian would. I had kept up with Dr. Elgersma about her conditions and though I wasn’t ready for this and I wasn’t sure Mimi was, I messaged her asking what she thought, and if she could take care of Mimi if that was the best course for her. We knew it was, hard as that was to imagine.

Dr. Michelle didn’t have a car that afternoon so my wonderful friend went to pick her up and bring her back.

I carried a very weak and lethargic but relaxed Mimi all around the yard while I waited for them to return until she seemed uncomfortable with being carried. The bleeding had stopped but I laid her down in her favorite spot on my yoga mat on the deck. I told her what we had planned to do and petted her lightly, kissed her and cried, she got up and turned around a few times, went to her water bowl but didn’t drink, wasn’t interested in any food, thought she might like the spot of sun she liked to nap in, and in each case laid back down.

Eventually she laid fairly still curled against me, breathing slowly, eyes closed. I had the feeling she wasn’t any better prepared for this than me, but we both knew she couldn’t live in that condition.

Unavoidable fragility

It wasn’t the Plavix, she was that fragile even without its effects. Another dose of fluids, another temperature…if this had developed a month ago we might be able to get her back to some semblance of wellness. But she was not going to rebuild her muscle mass, or strengthen her skin. When a body itself gets to this point of fragility and needs more and more medications and treatments, pain becomes a part of it, the slightest injury can be fatal, and the chance of suffering is imminent.

A message from a cardinal

While I waited and petted Mimi, the cardinal fluttered down from the mulberry to the wicker loveseat that holds memories of Mimi and all her children, then flew over to the mulberry not ten feet from us and looked right at us, then flew off. Suddenly cardinals were talking in all the trees.

So Dr. Michelle and my friend and I said goodbye to Mimi at about 4:10 on Saturday, August 10, 2024. She went easily, in my arms then tucked up against me as she often napped, out on the deck on a beautiful day, which she had always loved best.

I will say more about what I sense from her, how I feel, the rest of the household, how impossible it is that Mimi is not here. But not now. She visited me this morning, and I will write about that soon. For now I just wanted to let you know, and tell her story.

August 11, 2025

Mimi’s garden on her anniversary, and I’m so grateful to have followed her encouragement. I can see her strolling the brick paths and napping in the shade under the kale.

Mimi seemed to love her red collar best, so the red geranium is on her garden chair. Mewsette’s chair is still holding together, and I feel she is there with us. Of course, I’m not in my chair because I’m taking the photo…

What it now looks like from three different angles. There’s more to it as well, in pots and planters on the deck, but the main area is where the memories are.

I missed out on the tomatoes and peppers in the really rainy weather, but lots of beans and greens and radishes and beets. I’ll catch the rest of them now.

And here we are, all lined up, still together, in a way.

And Mr. Sunshine’s flower, might have seen some better days but spins joyfully all the time, and just the sound makes me smile about him. I can even hear it spinning when I’m inside at my desk and the window is open. I took many videos of it spinning but this computer I’m using while my good one is in the shop doesn’t handle videos very well, so I’ll wait for that.

He and Mimi out here in his last few months was so precious that every time I hear it and look up to see it spinning I remember how silly he was, and how he and Mimi were so close then.

 

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Pet Loss in the First Person

From the time I began writing about my experiences in pet loss, relating what I was feeling and thinking about it as I moved through grief, readers have thanked me, often in private, for my honesty, grateful to know another shared their feelings as they moved through grief, or helped them make a decision. 

Thank you for following our grief journey after losing three members of our feline family.

I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.

You can read all the articles related to their loss by tapping one of these images in the side bar and in articles.