A very sad post - Booty is dead

The mystery - On Friday afternoon, I let Booty, old glack and gray tabby out as ws our routine. He went out each day, strolled around the yard and napped on the porch step or on the bench. That evening, I called and called at supper time and he didn't come home. I wasn't worried yet because he sometimes stayed out until Cat's party at 9:30. Every night when I let the dog out to do her bedtime potty in the back yard, I give the cats treats in the back room. They each have their spot and their little dish. None of them ever miss the Cat's Party! But that night, Booty didn't come home.

I am too blind now to go out at night and walk around. I called and called and sat on the porch but he didn't come home. That night, I had a bad and frightening heart episode - I'd accidentally drunk two large glasses of an iced tea that turned out to be caffeinated. The caffein caused a high blood pressure attack - horrible pounding and arrythmia and palpitations that felt like I might be having ahert attack. I was up all night. i was so worried about dying that I didn't think about Booty.

Next day, my heart had subsided to a dull ache. I hadn't slept at all, so I slept most of the day, going out once in every few hours to call Booty. I didn't think too much about it because I was concerned that my heart might not come back to normal after this attack.

Saturday night I was worried. That was too long for him to be gone. But there wasn't much I could do about it. I could hardly stand up, I was so weak from the worst heart episode since I was in the hospital years ago,

Sunday, I had to stay home from Woodbury friends Meeting because I still had some chest pain and I was very weak and my head didn't feel right, as though my brain had been deprived of oxygen. I worried that maybe my carotid arteries were occluded, or that I'd had a clot travel somewhere.

On Sunday, I picked up Susan and she did some shopping for me and she went door to door in the neighborhood asking neighbors to keep a look out for Booty and she checked all the backyards for his body. No luck.

What really worried me was that my new neighbors, Dina and Mark had seen Booty on Saturday morning before they left for vacation. I was afraid they had locked him in their shed by accident. In the night on Saturday, I thought I had heard distant meowing, but I thought it was probably Willy in the catio out back. He often went out there and he often meowed. He is my noisest cat. Booty had a very weak meow I think from the smoke inhalation in my sister's house fire.

Booty had actually been my sister Susan's cat. She and her then partner Mike and their son, Archie had a catastrophic house fire on March 15, 2016. Sue was at work. Mike fell asleep with a cigarette in an ashtray on his chest. The cigarette rolled off into the sofa and set it on fire. Mike and Archie got out alive, two pets died of smoke inhalation: a dog and a cat. One cat was rescued, Booty. Booty was probably a year old at the time, maybe two.

In the turmoil following the house fire, my sister and her partner broke up. She and Archie lived with me for three months until she rented a house where but no pets were allowed. So Booty stayed here. he had been here ever since, part of my feline family. So that made him about 11 or 12 years old.

Booty was a quiet and gentle cat and had a beautiful face. He was no angel. He had a big problem with territorial urinating and he had destroyed some furniture. I think he was at war with my other old male, Lucky. Who knows. Anyhow over time, all our problems ironed out. Booty claimed the kitchen table and the Deacon's bench, and I bought vinyl (Pleathure) furniture which he didn't seem inclined to pee on. He did however, pee in the other cat's food dishes sometimes.

I don't let my other cats out. Willy, Patsy, and Dolly, triplets whom I adopted from the vet's office 7 or 8 years ago, were bottle fed babies and they had never been outdoors. I bought a 12 foot by 10 feet chain link enclosure and had a cat door installed in a window in the back room so they had an outdoor place, but I kept them indoors because I believe the view of the veterinarians and adoptions centers: the outdoors is dangerous for cats and also they kill birds. An outdoor cat lives 2 to 5 years. An indoor cat lives 13 to 16 years. Booty being an indoor/outdoor cat has had one or two year shaved off his life span. I don't know how old he would have lived to be, Most of my cats were in their 18th year range when they died.

Midmorning today, my neighbor from across the street, Mark, who puts out my recycle and trash cans for me, told me the recycle guys found my dead cat in the recycle can. Mark took the now empty can with just Booty's body in it to the back yard. I had a box which he put in the yard near the can. Sue will come tomorrow to bury the cat.

I texted my nephew, Archie, to ask if he would come after work today to bury Booty for $100 but he hasn't answered. I had hoped he would so that Booty's body wouldn't have to be in the recycle another night, but he hasn't answered and I don't think he will. Mark didn't want to take it out of the can because he said other animals would prey on the corpse. It is probably true.

I will just have to cope with the emotional pain. There is no escape. It is a big pain the older I get because the more power death holds as I approach it myself and the more indescribably precious life becomes as O prepare to lose it. I loved Booty and I will miss him. He loved me too. His suffering is over and he wasn't well. He had begun to lose weight, an affliction my cat Honey had suffered in her old age - a thyroid disease common to old cats. they eat and eat but they get thinner and thinner and sicker until they die. Even with treatment, as I discovered with Honey who went to the vet and got medicine and blood tests, the disease just progressed until she died on the bedroom floor one night - a better death than the one poor Booty suffered.

I will never know what happened to him but my guess is a car struck him and someone who knows us saw his body and put it in the recycle can since it was out at the curb. Or maybe they didn't know it was my cat and just found the recycle can handy. Anyhow, at least he is home and I can bury him and he can have his eternal rest with the other cats and dogs in the back yard. And he will be one more reason why I will stay here until I die. Their bones and their ashes are out there in the yard with som eof my mother's ashes.

Happy Trails or Sad ones - On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine

wrightj45@yahoo.com