My heart is broken, I wished they lived as long as we did. 💔

My heart is breaking. I’ve had at least one cat since 1984, and my house feels so empty.

Tribute photos attached. The adult pic was from earlier this year before she started to decline.

[Art by cco00oo on Twitter/X]

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/99057969

https://x.com/judehallow/status/2115479355581415564/photo/1?a=V5I5v8STwvwAWdPu8B4&s=19

https://x.com/kareidon26/status/2115433174516076852/photo/1?a=V2sCV8Kgb6prsGM588s&s=19

Sauce!

It wasn't a tragic accident or a sudden, violent illness, it was a quiet, heartbreaking reality of loving two very old souls whose bodies were simply wearing out.

Missy (the first image) . I got her when she was just six weeks old, over the next two decades, we grew up together. She was there through every apartment move, every heartbreak, and every milestone.

But at 20 years old, she was tired. she had been diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease, her kidneys were slowly losing their ability to filter toxins. We managed it with subcutaneous fluids and special diets, but eventually, her little body couldn't keep up. She stopped eating, her weight dropped. She passed away peacefully in my arms at home, leaving a massive hole in my heart.

The silence in the house after missy died was deafening. The grief was suffocating. A few days later, in a desperate attempt to fill that void and to give another old soul a chance i went to a local shelter. That is where i met Barnaby. He was 15 years old, surrendered by a family who could no longer care for him. The shelter staff warned me that he had stage 3 kidney disease and a severe, untreated dental infection. He might only have a few months, they told me. I did not care. I brought him home.

I thought i was saving him, but Barnaby had been hiding his pain for a long time. Because his previous owner had neglected his health, his kidneys were far worse than Missy's had been. when i took him to the vet for a full workup, the blood tests came back terrifying. His kidneys were failing rapidly, but the bigger issue was his teeth. The severe infection in his mouth had been leaking bacteria into his bloodstream for years.

The final weeks, Barnaby's heart was strong, but his body was poisoned by a condition called Uremia, the build up of toxins in the blood because his kidneys had finally shut down. The dental infection had made it worse, causing his immune system to crash. We tried antibiotics, IV fluids, and painkillers, but he was too weak. His little heart gave out from the strain of a system just too broken to be fixed.

I feel so broken, but i find some comfort in knowing that Missy had the perfect life from day one, and she died knowing she was loved. Barnaby had a rough, neglected life, but in his last two weeks, he knew what a soft bed and a gentle hand felt like. I couldn't save either of them from their falling bodies, but i could make sure neither of them died alone.

source

Source: https://x.com/Eyzmaster/status/2115474796574359722

This is the second quilt top I’ve made. First one I will be attempting to quilt myself. The pattern is from Pen and Paper Patterns and the fabric is from Art Gallery. I love the tiny little candy corns! Really happy with how it turned out but I’ll definitely be getting a 1/4” foot bc I cannot sew consistently to save my life.

I’ve got a black and white stripe fabric for the binding and a light gray ghost print from rifle paper for the back. Fingers crossed the quilting goes well!