Life, Interrupted

It's time.

Merlyn doesn't sleep through the night. He has finally bonded with Sauron the vaporizer--he alternates laying down by Sauron and then moving away and laying on his side in the entryway. He hasn't even noticed that I brought his bed down from the bedside--I haven't set him in it because he may be too warm from steaming (either Sauron or the tent) and then just demands more steaming. It seems to help, but it hasn't loosened up his sinuses. I'm afraid he's in pain--and if I don't take him to my Vet now, then we either have to wait until Monday or deal with the emergency vets. The Emergency centers are good, and kind people, but of course they will want to run tests. I promised my cats I would never do to them what they did trying to help Brae. She looked like Frankenstein hooked to the table when she died. We're not going there.

I always hoped he would slip away in his sleep. But I think he doesn't want to leave. I just don't think he can stay any longer. He said he would stay until the wind changed. Either it changed when we weren't looking, or he was wrong about that.

I don't know how I will go on without him. During the worst of my illness, he kept me alive. He was the nanny cat, nagging me to eat, feed him, take meds, go to bed....he's been office manager, muse, and nanny. I always dreamed of having a place with more space for him to run and sit in the sun. But now I realize I saw him as stronger, healthier than his skinny, tough little senior body. So it will be a ghost Merlyn who gets to enjoy that place, when I finally reach it.

Without Merlyn and Max, I would not have made it back.
( Sadness you may wish to skip )

Coda: Nineteen years, six months, twelve days. Another cat lost on a holiday. Merlyn, PMP--best project manager cat ever. The deadlines moved, but he never gave up on the project--me. I did not remember the procedure the kind young vet was going to do, a muscle relaxant and then threading a vein for the pheno. I didn't remember because Merlyn did the same thing as Max did. Once he was relaxed enough, he just stepped over--didn't need that last drug.

They are given to us to learn how to love and to lose. But I am not reconciled. Not until we are together again.

Now I know why Max was giving me the look whenever I said he was 19. He was only 18. But I am famous for forgetting actual age, and usually try to duck the subject.
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Eighteen years, one month, seventeen days. Time flies when you're having fun.