Rainbow Bridge Furbabies

Running a sanctuary has its ups and downs at the best / worst of times… this includes saying Goodbye to life long companions… read below about our cherished family that grew their wings

Tigger died in 2006 and we adopted Beary

Way back in 2006 we had our first loss in the family-of-fur, this was when Tigger made her journey alone when she ran away into the gardens feeling the call of the wild once again return to her after a relapse of Cystitis and …. perished in a February blizzard, later to be found 30ft from the backdoor when the storm cleared two days later… and laid to rest under her tree.
Her passing hit me hard, but her brother Socky hardest, we needed to keep his spirits high for fear of a medical relapse (FHV, URI, IBD etc) and in doing so we came to find ourselves adopting Beary some months later who was a stray with a mysterious past.

Tears and losing Beary in 2011

They had a glorious year together in The Den (our old outdoor 13ft tall 7ft x 14ft hand built solid housing enclosure) and a few months in the house when the storm of 2007 hit before Chewie was added to the family when Johnny and I got together.

Through the following three years we built up the cause, hand built the cabin which would later become “The Cat Cabin” (2009) and the second that would become “The Workshop”(2010) for business. The cats blossomed together and became inseparable while we busied ourselves with our first few years of getting into the Eventing scene, Market Trading and Stallholding.
Sadly five years after her “Gotcha day” Beary succumbed to old age, lack of mobility and deteriorating eyesight and later in 2011 she too would leave us. She to this day remains the only one who would leave us by “injection” rather than calmly drifting off in their sleep surrounded by their loved ones. The loss of our beautiful daughter shook the whole family (excluding my Dad who… well if you know, you know – He’s a grump at the best of times!) and we found ourselves once again struggling to keep Socky’s spirits up as he sunk deeper and deeper into depression over losing his beloved.

Socky died of a broken heart in 2012

The following year proved too much for his frail body as he tried dealing with the loss of his lady and he’d already begun to lose his sight… while also keeping up appearances of being the youthful playmate Chewie had grown to rely on – and despite hers and our best efforts to keep him sane and lighthearted he couldn’t shake a bad cold flare-up, had a small stroke leaving his even less mobile than he had been since his car accident in 2005…. and not long before Christmas 2012 he too would follow his sister and his beloved bear into the meadows over rainbow bridge.
Which sent us into complete heartache, chaos and panic- For myself, losing Socky meant more than anything I’d lost hope and felt adrift as we had an incredibly precious personal connection… but this one loss against the others changed everything even in Grumpy old Dads eyes.. We knew things couldn’t ever be the same again but we weren’t ready and neither was Chewie. The cause and the future of the cabin relied on whatever happened next.

Wolfie & Pum Arrived… 2012

Everything drastically changed when Chewie was left alone and petrified of the once happy bustling cabin, now a silent empty shell filled only with creaks and shadows. A pivotal point in the road ahead faced us right there, do we close down the cabin and hope that Chewie adapts to life as a single in-house cat again without reverting to pulling chunks of her own fur out or going deaf from general household noise because of her unique problem? Or do we take the plunge and rally the troops from elsewhere.

You would not believe it unless you had lived it, but we tried and tried for weeks to contact any shelters, sanctuaries, rescues, farms, vets etc to enquire if they knew of any special needs cats that would benefit from an indoor haven for sheltered cats – stipulation being that they would have to be friendly with our fragile bundle of fur (obviously after initial “Getting to know you” meets and separate sleeping areas first)…. we were hit with all manner of verbal abuse and turned away at every point as they could not understand WHY we would have the cabin for the cats or why we would want them to be indoors… 

Luckily (when I was beginning to feel entirely depleted and void of hope myself) I found a rescue in Bristol who accepted the situation – most likely more due to the inability to rehome these two anywhere else due to their age (7 & “at least 10”) alongside their health concerns (Pums Heart Murmur, and Wolfies FHV, Arthritis and “Excessive sneezing” … part of his URI) thus enter Wolfie & Pumpkin THREE days before Christmas 2012. Johnny and I were understandably terrified in case this was a bad idea – big mistake etc…. We needn’t have worried though as Wolfie and Chewie instantly nuzzled eachother and refused to be separated(! So much for the meet and greet period) – It took Pum a couple of days to settle before joining them as she was sick from travel but they all three became as close as the previous trio in their own way.

Beany & Eggy were adopted 2014

Two years passed and we once again grew in terms of business and the cause.
We were approached by a couple who had to give up their FIV+ cats because they discovered their baby was allergic to cats and the rescue they had adopted them from only a year previously was refusing to recieve them again.

Enter Beany & Eggy in 2014…. within two days they were mingling with the family and aside from a few scuffles over the years they would soon become one unit, taking care of eachother’s special needs and supporting eachother.
If you have time, take a look at the cabin videos and you will see what I mean. rolecalling, mealtimes and play as one etc. 

Wolfie passed away 2016 – we broke apart

Tragedy once again hit us in 2016 when Wolfie, now easily into his late teens became increasingly unsteady on his tootsies in early May and for “Mr Hoover” to suddenly stop eating.. you knew it was bad and wouldnt be long before something happened. He miraculously perked up and began eating again after what we pegged as a bump in the road possibly due to allergies and his arthritis too… 

He would leave us in July and ripped our hearts out in the eve of his departure – the family-of-fur gathered around him in silence, tears in their eyes and heads bowed low. He had long since lost his voice to his illness but through his eyes you could hear all the words you could ever need.
As I finally tore Johnny away from him in the early hours and let him drift off peacefully – he suddenly reached out and pawed my hand turning his head to me with the last of his energy and stared… just stared… into my eyes and I was suddenly filled with so much warmth and emotion I couldn’t handle it – in the total silence of the night I bubbled up in tears and held his paw. He’d gone by morning. 

Challenges and Changes afoot. 2016-2018

It was a rocky road in the following months and we considered once again closing the cabin but for the private usage ourselves obviously. 
Many months passed, we stopped attending events, everything became too much to handle. Events meant wearing the T-shirts, hanging the banners, handing out leaflets all entirely filled with photos and details of the cats. Talking to customers about the cause, dealing with the less pleasant aspects and troubles that come with retail and the sometimes downright rude and aggressive event hosts etc… we couldn’t cope and instead retreated into the cabin more and more with our remaining four beautiful babies. 

Some personal trouble occurred throughout late 2016 to September 2017…. we almost didn’t make it through but in 2018 we dusted ourselves off, tried to make a real go at the business but would no longer be focusing on hitting the road just to show our faces at events we’d not see a penny of ourselves..
We couldn’t bear to be away from the cats as much as we had when Wolfie was failing… it took a ton of effort to agree with the decision to even do occassional events when we lost everything Aug 2016 – but we plowed into the website and eBay store aggressively forcing ourselves to become self-sustainable in terms of funding.

It worked.. at least for a few months…. come Christmas 2018 we had only attended a couple of small school events and had piles of online orders daily which we juggled around plentiful hours spend in the cabin discussing work with the cats.

New hope and a way forward – together, forever.

Everything outside of that cabin had become much less important than previously.
It became our own little cocoon where we six could lock ourselves away and relax or mull over challenges ahead (like planning event setups on repeat – way into the night).

We thought we’d finally made it, crawling our way out of the dark times and forging ahead into a newer time of togetherness and sustainable income.
We began to plan for the future of the cause again, got back into a routine of mealtimes like when Wolfie was here, each fed in the order they’d laid out between them.
Playing and having fun – listening to CD’s together.. discussing our favourite programs (Dr Who, Castle, Stargate) and began to feel more normal again. 

“Perhaps we could temporarily bring the cats indoors while we extended the cabin, build a giant outdoor play area where we could lounge with them and we were getting almost enough money on a monthly basis to really consider some of these plans.” 
Christmas 2018 came and went, bad storms hit hard after we saw the first White Christmas in a long time and the gardens were solid with fresh snow on a daily basis. Plans would have to wait. Throughout January and February cold days, freezing nights, snow falling in blankets on top of either previous snow fall or sheets of slush turned icy. Work continued but we held off emptying the workshop as it was too risky to traipse back and forth with heavy stock boxes to the house when you could lose your footing at any point.

Lost …. my little boy. Feeling suffocated.

Then … something I to this day can’t talk about properly… – “The 2019 crisis” unfolded. [So it’ll be a bit “long and scrambled thought written” okay.]
Beany died. Out of the blue.
I think his little body just couldn’t cope anymore with the cold (even with heatpads and heaters). It just didn’t know how to regulate properly.
He didn’t understand why the White stuff wouldn’t go away.
“”Why couldn’t we plan for the big toys mamma had dwawn?
Were we going to stay indoors wis NahNah still?
Chewie telled him it was big and noisy in der. But him bwave. Him takes lots good care of Mamma”
Does this mean daddy wouldn’t be having his burpday pardee nau?”.
His poor little brain had been going a million miles an hour the past couple of weeks as the weather stayed frozen. It just… was too much.
He just slipped away the night after John’s birthday. That’s the last time we celebrated anything.
Beany had been so excited for daddy to open presents with him – presents we’d chosen together on mammas phone.

Dvds to watch together to make daddy smile and drawings to go with little “stawwies” (stories) he’d made up.
But we’d been so tired after a busy day of some generic business rubbish that we promosed to watch them the next night. He burst with excitement and went to bed bouncing like a child before Christmas…. anxious that we wouldn’t forget our promise the next night.
And then that night came… we just fed them and went to bed because I’d become ill from being out in the cold weather (Migraine) doing the workshop and wanted to make sure they were all back in their beds as quick as possible so they didn’t get ill too.

Beany cried. Refused to eat. Walked straight passed his bowl [- something I should have realised had I not been so tired and ill that was a sign he wasn’t right. HE never ever left food. Ever.] and camped out on his blanket beside me reaching his paw out for my leg. In my ill state I remember slightly annoyedly telling him he had to eat or he’d be ill too and we’d be told off for going indoors too late.

I recall bringing the bowl up to him and him still not eating, then him crying out and reaching for me as Johny put him to bed.
Him pacing his house for 10mins wailing and pleading that we still spent the evening together. At some point I jolted awake on the sofa with a thin towel around my chest where John had tried to cover me up as the room was hurting my asthmatic irritation… and realised we’d not even gone indoors yet.

Every time I recall this I feel sick to my stomach. What kind of person had I been on that night to put myself before his crying and now obvious pleas for us not to leave him?
[For a long time after this we still mis-remembered being out very late that night and not coming to bed until well into the early hours… it wasn’t even 11pm apparently.]
The next morning Beany had gone, he wasn’t upstairs with Pum and Chewie who were acting odd.
He’d fallen “asleep” at the foot of the ladder and one of the others had tried to bring his bed to him from upstairs.. somehow managing to get it through the ladder hole and slide up up alongside him and bring his bed blanket to him – his paw was stretched out as though he’d been holding on to someone, just like Wolfie two years before – and his teddy was beside him.

We were all in complete shock. Still am if I’m honest. We buried him…. I suppose the same day? I honestly can’t remember as it felt like the world crashed in around me and suffocated me. Neither of us can recall if that’s accurate but we assume if must be because we couldn’t have left him in with the family and Eggy didn’t move in with Pum and Chewie until after this.

A month long struggle with Pum pining after her best friend

The following month was like we were wading through hardening cement. Pumpkin was shattered to pieces by the loss of Beany, they’d been nearly inseparable since Wolfie died (her daddy). One day, five or six days after Beany died she just stopped eating.

From that point on, for one entire month Pumpkin became a zombie. She wouldn’t interact with the others apart from snuggling up to sleep with them.
She wandered around wailing for her smooshie “Beyaaaaaaaneeee” and insisted we had simply taken him from her.
We had to begin force feeding her liquid feed as she was skin and bones rapidly. It’s not an experience I liked or ever want to repeat but I know one day I will again. 

Because Pum withdrew, Chewie who was already struggling with losing yet another family member (for her she’d lost Socky, Beary & Wolfie) also retreated into her head.
You could see on her face that calculation of “who is next?! Will I be alone again soon?”….

Meals became impossible –  Chewie would not take a single bite until everyone else was eating. Not even treats.
It’s how it had been for years. Of course, with Pum not eating it meant Chewie quickly picked up a habit of also walking away from her meal.
Days turned to weeks and somehow Pum still held on. Only the cat-gods know how?. 
Hearts shatteringly all three showed signs of rapid health decrease after losing Beany.

Eggy had flare up after flare up of asthma attacks, her LRI and URI causing immense worry. Sometimes she choked while simply drinking [something I’ve actually started doing myself now?!], sometimes she’d been too tired from breathing to even move and needed help to the litter box.
Everything suddenly became this surreal existence of get up, spend 6+ hours doing anything to get the three cats to eat, clean up, hold on to them and listen to CD’s to while away the hours – rush in to do orders and answer horrendously rude emails as politely as possible while both just wishing we were free to spend whatever time left with them – fearing that SOMETHING was imminent and we just hoped to cat-gods we were wrong.

Everything of course was still only weeks after Beany passed suddenly. 
We thought we’d turned a corner with Pum. One day she suddenly looked a lot perkier.
Willingly slurped at the teaspoon of liquid feed and managed to take down half a bowl in one meal. 
Unfortunately she died one month and 5 days after Beany. 

Then there were two. How do we come back from this?

Chewie and Eggy [who’d never quite understood what had been happening to everyone each time they left the cabin – Eggy that is] suddenly clung together realising they were now all alone in the cabin and it felt like the oddest pairing in the world.

They had never been the closest out of the lot – they slept together on the furniture or would happily spend time together washing each other (okay, Chewie being washed by Eggy) but suddenly they were like twins. One moved, the other followed. One drank, the other wanted to go with them. 
The rest of April, the entirety of May passed and we hoped that the worst was behind us now and we all four mourned day in day out our mutual losses in such a short time frame. Once lively and fun cabin sessions had now become “Stick a CD on to drown out the silence” and sit holding a cat each and sob into eachother.

We had begun to cook Fresh Chicken and Beef in an attempt to get Pum to eat something back in the “bad period” so we began doing this on a weekly basis for Chewie and Eggy once they were the only ones left. It became this odd ritual to need to get shopping purely to cook this Chicken and occassionally the Beef… we barely ate but we did this late night cooking every week just for them… and it helped us ease our pain… 

It felt like it was working. I began to hope that as awful and heartbreaking at the past months had been we’d be able to find a way forward together and make the losses mean something. 

Then Chewie stopped eating.
Remember the mealtime routine? Pum had gone. She just couldn’t cope with yet another loss. The day we buried Pum we both looked at each other and sighed/gasped a mutual noise…..”how the hell do we get Chew to eat anything now”.

Eight weeks and four days after that day…. we buried Chewie beside her. – I’m purposefully not writing about this period because it hurts too much.

The Eggy Days…. It felt like a dream.

By this point Eggy had learned only too well what the “leaving the cabin” meant.

We came in from the graves after laying Chewie to rest alongside her fur-family and fell on to the sofa with Egg, and for the first time ever she ran to me.
Sat muzzle planted up against my leg and curled into the tightest ball clutching against me.
We crieed our hearts out that night and for the next three weeks left the cabin as little as possible.
I couldn’t bear to think of Eggy being out there alone after everything. But we couldn’t bring her in as she’d wailed when we worked at that theory a day or two into her alone days. She was rooted to the cabin and had become its guardian. She was here until the new babies came she said. We didn’t have the heart to tell her we’d been through it all again…. the threatening evil judgemental communications we’d received when trying to desperately find Special needs cats or at the last ditch attempt even just “normal healthy” indoor cats to keep Eggy company. She constantly had this look of forced happiness and expectation for her new family to arrive… 

So much so that one low day I mumbled “but we can’t get any more family for you baby egg….” immediately regretting breaking the illusion and seeing her face crumble in disbelief… at that moment I knew I HAD to do something if we didn’t want to lose her too…

The confusion period… how long?

Two weeks passed… though it even now feels like insanity to imagine everything we experienced only happened in a two week period…. and on the third week we … Okay wait a minute I’ve been using the calendar on my laptop to get these timeframes as right as I can recall… I just checked and from Chewie leaving on Wed/5th/June we had ONE week and THREE days with Eggy before the new arrivals. This hurts my brains and body. That sounds so wrong. How could everything that happened, after Chewie – have happened in SUCH a short timeframe?!

Eggy took her meals out of the verandah and spent hours lounging with us while we refused to leave her, Johnny would read her Harry Potter while she sat on her blanket – she would trot indoors and curl up on her stool and wait for evening CD time… [it seemed to soothe her going back to these things we’d done as a family before the tragedies of late] and we even had many visits in the cabin from NahNah (mum)… 

We had sanctuaries, rescues, rehoming groups online, stray cats at the vets etc being considered for adopting in to the family and all barr one being extremely rude or declining with no reasoning given…. how was this in the space of apparently A WEEK!?

No hope for company

The one rescue we did get a go ahead from was over 300 miles away and meant jumping through considerable hoops uneccesarily just to “tart up” the cabin for a video interview BEFORE having to submit applications for adoption despite full detail being handed over regarding our background and relevant things.

After everything that had recently happened – at the last minute we declined. We didn’t want to have to move things we could still “feel”/remember the others being on. 

It felt impossible. Why wouldn’t anyone take us up on our offer to give a loving home to cats in need? Hundreds were advertised daily, it made no sense.

One final attempt came in what we thought was the third week but guess not – anyway we made plans for 5 days and spent considerable time and money on renovations to the cabin while trying to please the would-be helpful other rescue until suddenly come the eve of making a 3+hour journey to and back from them with our agreed FIVE new family members (a considerable amount of changes were to be implented, we’d a lot still to do and were in too far to say now despite those gnawing butterflies about being told we HAD to have at least the five… right?)… it all fell apart.

Looking back on it now (I literally just spent an hour reading back on many emails) it could have been handled differently I suppose but then we wouldn’t be where we are today in 2021 with six completely different special needs babies.

The deal fell through enitirely. We had wasted our time and money and the secret we had been keeping from KM (mum) about the discrepancy / upsetting discussion suddenly came pouring out after the 100th re-read late night on the 18th June 2019.
We had been pressed into changing everything about ourselves and our cause – no longer being special needs only. The rescue badly worded an series of accusations about our appalling setup – “our small pens weren’t suitable” (they don’t LIVE in PENS, they roam the 12ftx9ft cabin and inner houses). And we had to agree to buying an EXTRA cabin within a very short period “or else THEIR cats wouldn’t be staying”…. Anyway after that I literally cried so much I cried myself to sleep as it felt like the final straw. I felt like a total moron for falling for these two bigger rescues hoops and tricks and felt ashamed for the first time every that our 15 year cause was “irrelevant” in everyone elses eyes.

Tear stained eyes and a heavy heart.

I woke the following morning, spent 2 hours writing and re-writing a final goodbye to the rescue’s email person.
Panicked a few more times and kept re-reading what i’d sent afterwards – wanting to switch my phone off and hide with Eggy but knowing I obviously had work to do so couldn’t.

Then like a bolt of  nowhere we received an email from someone in Gloucestershire.
Within HALF AN HOUR of sending the final correspondance that we thought was the end of it all.

A miracle… and bliss at last.

Would we take on a 10 month old neautered boy who was behaving oddly “but probably high spirited”?
…. Okay!
In a state of disbelief we hurried into the car and by lunchtime he was at home with us and Eggy… Spitting at her admittedly but it was as if all her worries had melted away the moment we entered the cabin with this little brother for her to show the ropes.
She couldn’t care less about the noise and the paws flying… she sat beside him and smiled while eating her lunchtime Chieken.
Only the night before had she basically flopped just as we did and today… her eyes twinkled.
BUT the oddness didn’t end there. We suddenly received another email – would we collect a 12week old female kitten from Knowle? Runt of the FOURTH litter the family currently had.
(Quite literally a breeding house for gumtree sales)… but they “couldn’t find a home for her – she’s too attached to her mum” [as in “we can’t breed mum again until we shift her”]
… YES okay?!
So straight after lunch – off in the car again and almost home when … wait – mad panic realisation after collecting her – we don’t have any teeny tiny kitten yummy.
Detour to Tesco and get some food. Find out later dad almost lost her in the carpark as he was pratting about opening her crate! And finally home…

So come tea-time… We’ve now got Benny AND Luna…. vocal as all heck but the cabin felt… butterflies in tummy – like a new start… we’d not had to lose ourselves entirely to grow. We’d still be helping special needs cats – just this time Teeny tiny ones… and Eggy of course. Luna suddenly took on this peculiar air about her of Chewie – we thought we imagined it….. but now 2yrs on – we’re blessed to have a small part of Chewies essence with us in her. 

The three black beauties [- aptly named “The Moonshadow Cats” based on a drawing Chewie helped with before her passing…. that looks way too much like Lu to be coincidence] spent the next week in complete harmony – Benny still occassionally spooked by Eggy but playing more and more with Luna, who had immediately taken to Eggy and nuzzled her while mewling that first time she saw her (Chewie much?!) and because Luna said Eggy was a fluff-friend “Fafweeeeeenb” Ben too realised he didn’t need to hide / hiss…. somehow everything came together in a mad heap and it felt like we had blissful weeks together just us five. But no, exactly a week after the arrival of Ben & Lu we found ourselves once again trecking across country to collect three abandoned seniors who were being made homeless. 

One forgotten discussion among many bad memories meant new arrivals

Enter Pearl, Alby & Foxy. 

We hadn’t heard anything from their soon to be ex-owner for some weeks as in fact this part of the story started BEFORE losing Beany and Pum when we were looking at options for the future….
Suddenly we were inundated with messenger communications, they had also got hold on my email address and Cat Chat ID and wanted to know when we were collecting the cats we’d promised to take.. [I shan’t go into it here but that was not what happened!]. Anyway we had them now…

They spent their first week hiding (except Alby who tried to become friends with Eggy after the first day and got smacked by Pearl for “messing around with Those people”) – It all felt suddenly strained.
Our perfect little trio had to suddenly contend with three outdoor cats who were agressive, feral-sounding and certainly didn’t want to be together – much less be let alone with them… It took time… just too much for Eggy to ever see it become the peace that we have now…

Our final piece of heart had crumbled to dust… we are adrift.

Eggy passed away in the heatwave one week later [1st/July/2019] after struggling to calm her Asthma flare up and battling a blocked nose from her URI in the heat.
She’d been camped out under her chair with Daddy laying beside her, cabin door open (everyone else asleep in their houses) trying to let cool air in from the garden, windows all wide, fans and humidifiers on, occassionally coming to me to douse her with a drop of cool water and to have a drink…… then come the morning she didn’t seem right.

She watched Ben & Lu play… curled up on her stool and snoozed while I cleaned bowls etc… and then we put her in her house while we nipped in to do some orders we’d neglected overnight as we’d been with her lots.
At 3pm we rushed out to check her after being caught up with stupid ignorant idiots on eBay who wouldn’t understand we COULD NOT give away items at lower than cost price AND pay postage / fees ourselves…. [I wouldn’t call them that usually but these folks took it to the next level trying to get my account closed, telling eBay i’d dealt offsite and many other lies when they couldn’t get what they wanted, as well as threats and abusive messages].

But we were too late… I unlocked the cabin door, felt an odd flutter in my tummy…. took a glance at Johnny and said “you’d better wait here”… he ignored me of course and barreled into me as I clambered towards her house in a trance… We had just enough time to remove the litterbox for Eggy to sprawl out…. thinking she was just uncomfy and agitated because we were later than planned.. When she dived up at my arms trying to make an exit to lay somewhere else… I instinctively told Johnny to help me lift her back down into her house all the while cooing at her and calmly talking to her…. she’d gone within minutes and all I recall after that is the racket me and Johnny made… howling, sobbing, waiiiiiiling and shaking so much while both cradling her in our outstretched arms inside her house that the door kept tapping into the next house and disturbed Pearl who came to see what the noise was about…. She must have known because she suddenly (and for the first time since having her a week before) wailed a low pitiful penguin/duck-like noise and bowed her head so low it couldn’t have been a coincidence.

We buried Eggy the following day I think, I don’t remember because everything after that day until this day has been a series of blurring images of memory flashing by.  

The final piece to the puzzle… a small and squirmy pink nosed one.

We were completely broken after losing Eggy. The only thing that had kept us together and sane was knowing that we had to put a brave face on and keep going for her sake. Yes we had the others now and of course now things feel different with them too but at that point our hearts just weren’t in it anymore. It felt as though we were caretakers for other peoples cats. We questioned whether we could carry of after everything the past five months had thrown at us.. 
Maybe we should reach out to other rescues and see if they could take on at least some of these new arrivals?… the very thought made us sick after all we’d battled to get them… No we couldn’t do that to them, to ourselves, to the memory of the eight babies who had built this cause up. 
We would take time to rebuild our confidence and try to carry on.

Two months passed and truth be told I had become somewhat fixated on scouring the local haunts online for any special needs cats… thinking “what harms one or two more now?” But by the week preceeding my birthday I had given up and knew I would have to just SETTLE and get on with it. No amount of new arrivals would bring back our beautiful angels. Then I got an email.

Finally, we were complete. New challenges ahead.

Would we please consider taking on a difficult kitten who “they were sure was a handful” and even the mother cat was having difficulties with it and had become aggressive towards it. It was touted as being 12 weeks old, and again being the runt of the litter having been previously reserved and then let down in questionable circumstances.
Truth be hold again, I wasn’t in the right mind frame for another kitten, but reasoned that she would only be a month or two younger than Lu and maybe they would get on well as Benny, although he loved her dearly – was a bit too boisterous for little Lu.

We collected her 4 days before my birthday and found out some tripping points… She was riddled with fleas and worms. She was so small that her claws were still soft and see-through, she could barely open her eyes and we had to carefully feed her as she had no ability to eat yet.

Needless to say, months flew by. The pandemic didn’t exactly help anybody of course but it allowed us uninterupted time with the new family and we found our footing with the new way of life.

Willow still to this day struggles with eating as it took almost 2 years for her to get a set of hard teeth she could bite with… her claws didn’t take as long 😉
We’ve had our ups and downs but we are now seeing our second year since the babies died. As Eggy used to say “Find a Happy, Every day”. and we try to.. but tears still fall when I think of how we used to be.