Mozart's Passed

Mozart passed last night at 8:25pm. He'd hopped on the dining table, trying to get me to start getting dinner ready. I'd absently petted him, as he made his cute stretch with his tail all curled up along his back, kicking myself because I didn't have the camera ready to take a video, and thinking to myself, "Plenty of time, I'll get another chance to take one later."

Then as he hopped onto the dining chair, I scritchied him, said "Hey, what a handsome, just a minute, I'm coming." He hopped off. A minute later, I heard a strange horking noise coming from the den, so I went to investigate. I watched as Mozart appeared from behind the coffee table, and threw up a little clear liquid, stumbled over the Bombay chair, then collapsed, half over the chair brace. I ran over to him as he lay there, unmoving, a faint growling sound coming from him, and his tail fluffed up. I just kept saying, "No, no, no, no, Bubby, Bubby?" as I raced to get my coat and the carrier.

As I was rushing around to get my coat, keys and carrier, I kept looking in on him, wishing he would move away from where he collapsed. He didn't move. When I went to put him in the carrier, I knew he was dead. I just wouldn't let myself believe it. He was still warm and soft, one eye closed and the other half opened. I put him in the carrier anyway, and raced to the emergency ER, and told them he'd collapsed. They were encouraging because of what I said, and took him to the back. A minute later, she came out, shaking her head, saying, sorry, you're right, he's dead. There's nothing we can do for him. We're so sorry. I took him back home in the carrier.

I called Hubby in Tokyo to tell him. He was stunned, and said he'd come home on the next available flight. I told him not to, there was nothing he could do, and I worried about his canceling his meetings. Funny the inane things that run thru your head. He called tonight to tell me that he'd canceled the rest of the meetings, had already booked a flight, and what time to pick him up from the airport.

I had Bubby by our front door still wrapped up in the oversized pink towel, so the other kitties could sniff him. They all cautiously came over to look at him, sniff him all over his ears and nose. Pixie looked scared, Ginza looked curious, and Kayla looked indifferent. I placed his little body on our bathroom floor, door opened for a while. The others came over again to sniff him.

I couldn't sleep all last night. I sat by his little body for hours, staring at him, willing him to get up and twitch his ears and whiskers. I was still in shock this morning when I went to the therapist. I couldn't stop thinking of him laying there on the bathroom floor. I called the vet on the way, and she said that of course she could do the autopsy and handle all the cremation details for us. She wanted me to bring him in right away, but I said that I wanted to wait until Hubby came home tomorrow morning, so he could say goodbye. She said, ok, it was still within 48 hours, but he has to be somewhere cold. So I had to put him out in the spare frig in the garage. It was terrible, I felt so bad putting him there, even though I knew logically that he was gone and didn't care.

This is a nightmare.