When i discovered this group an d got to know all the good people here,, I
hoped it would be a long time before i needed to come to you wiuth the
grievous news that one of our little ones has left us. A long, LONG time. Not
so. Our dear Dolly, our Odessa went into sudden respiratory failure this
morning. As my husband read the last prayer said for a Sikh's soul, and an
emergency vet stood by us, we opened for her that door to the Bridge.

She would have been here three years Monday.

Today is my and Louie's wedding anniversary.

She woke us this morning with a cough that wouldn't stop. Our regular vet
recommended a course of precautionary antibiotic. When the cough turned into
gasping we brought her in. She passed out in  the carrier after putting up
one last fight over it, for that was her nature: she was a Lady, but she
could fight and swear with the besst of them. She came around but was still
fighting for breath, and she was losing. The xrays showed the pneumonia had
just wrecked her lungs to the point where even her swallowing reflex was
badly affected. We knew that to keep her with us would be for us only;
eventually the infection would be replaced with another worse infection if
she made it through this at all, and the swallowing problem would get worse.
She had lost two littermates to similar circumstances, breathing troubles
messing up swallowing; they were Orchard Park patients and confirmed there
was a likely genetic problem in addition to the germ that had destroyed her
poor little lungs. The doctor stabilized her long enough for a clerk to print
us copies of the prayers. We held oxygen to her as we came to God with our
Little Doll, asking Him to take her to comfort. Such life she had before; how
she tried to fight. Then no life.

Louie said he could see a shadow of two black cats turning and fading into a
somewhere-else that is not for us to know until we ourselves are called to it.
I thought I saw a tail carried upright as if it belonged to a happy kitty. I
hope our Dolly knows we did it for her. What kind of life would it have been,
living it to gulp down air and having no strength for it?

I had planned on going to work. But I picked up Odessa just before we were
leaving and she puked a nasty catsnot into my hair. Call my boss, tell him
car emergency, not cat; who was going to believe a second morning shower
under such circumstances? Said I'd be ten or fifteen minutes late.

Half hour later, call my boss. Cat emergency for real, I said. Sudden. He
told me to keep him posted.

Two hours later, call my boss' boss. Asked for fax of prayers; fax didn't
work, no matter, the vet managed to get them through a personal laptop. Pray
no one judge us for waiting just to have that stuff, even it was only a few
moments. I would want the Kirtan Sohila said for me; we wanted Odessa to have
the dignity of dying under the name of God; for we believe the Holy Name,
however a person understands it, eases suffering.

My boss said life is short and we did what we had to; rest, come back fresh
Monday, and try to find reason to celebrate with Louie.

We went to a nice steak restaurant to toast our Dolly and this is what we
celebrated:

When we first got her, she was scared out of her mind. She would cuss like a
sailor and find new and exciting placed to run from her initial sequestering
and hide. Once she got into the rafters in the basement and was there hiding
over three hours while we searched high and low. Laughing her tuchas off I'm
sure. When I finally found her with the flashlight she gave me a majestic
hiss. back to sequestering. Louie slept upstairs that night and she made him
chase her for over an hour; then she flipped over, started puring and showed
him her gut.

When we got ill with the stomach flu and she wasn't turned back to the
shelter, she learned to trust us. Sickness sent her to the shelter the third
time, before we took her.

Odessa and Roxie sat next to each other all the time meowing like two gossipy
neighbor ladies.

She liked to walk up to Louie in his sleep and back her butt up into his face.

During her first visit to the vet she blew a noxious fart into his face, that
made him nearly lose his professional composure as he backed off holding his
breath.

She needed no convoluted entertainment: her favorite toys were a wiffle golf
ball and my makeup brush. She liked to sit and watch the sparrows out the
window early in the morning.

Roxie and Odessa liked to chase each other, but it was very ladylike and
sedate. Odessa learned what playing tag was, and became her pecial game with
Mama.

She loved Louie but at the vet she would always want me to hold her.

She was an incurable flirt and loved to strut her stuff for any men who came
around, even shaking her little behind and she walked around their legs.

When we saw her being exhibited by the shelter at a pet store, there was a
litle sign on her cage: "I'm a very friendly girl...I get along great with
other cats...I don't understand why no one wants me." We wanted her. We just
wanted to give her a home and love and kitty friends. For almost three years,
she had that in abundance. But I couldn't give her a breath of life, damn it.
She was barely  four and a half years old. So young. Why didn't I get a
picture of her eating baby food from the spoon, damn it! My poor little
Odessa-Doll. I so hope she knows that all we wanted was for her not to
struggle, not to hurt, not to have to live any longer suffering than she had.
It was so quick; we thought the worst was over. Bull. The germ got put into
hibernation, but it was too strong for the antibiotic, and she was too weak.

God almighty, please tell her we did everything we could. We take no pleasure
in the end of a dear young life. We wanted her to be able to breathe in a
place where the air can never be robbed from her again.

When Louie said the final prayer, it ended something like this, a loose
translation from the Punjabi: "Accept our prayer of supplication, Wondrous,
God, and our offering of the Prayer for the Dying on behalf of Odessa Tatyana
Singh--Dolly Kaur, jyoti jot." At those words, though the vet is not a Sikh
and does not know the language, she nodded to let us know our sweet girl had
left us. Jyoti Jot means passed into the light of God; Louie said he had
forgotten the term and meaning until that very moment and the words just came
out unbidden.

Goodbye, my darling Dolly. I'll miss your beautiful black fur coat; when you
first got sick, it got raggedy and coarse. After we brought you home, it
returned to its fine silken softness. Maybe you wanted us to have a last
touch of pure silk before you left us, for our hands were buried in it when
you went away. And I'll miss your tiny, precious paws and delicate meow that
sounded like a sigh of contentment. I'll miss those mornings when Louie and I
would wake up with you in the middle on your back and you let us rub your
belly; it was a privilege, for we had to work to gain your trust. I'll miss
playing tag and seeing you stick your head into our sneakers. I'll even miss
your wonderfully timed stinkers, my emerald-eyed angel.

I'll miss you, your peaceful essence. sweet Odessa, my Little Doll. Me and
Daddy and Roxie and Brandy and Sabrina and Stosh. We love you. Blessed be, my
black Russian Princess. We love you.