Life of Heidi

In June 2015, I wrote about "Life Behind the Gate".  My dog Maggie had passed away and I was incredibly sad.  I still miss her and want another female Dachshund one day.  I was content though knowing that I still had Heidi, my cat.  I have written about her a few times.  Heidi passed from this earth August 2020 at 15.  She had been sick with what we thought was a tooth infection.  Looking back, I always thought she would eventually get better and live until she was 17 or more because I took such good care of her. Bless her heart, if she had been at home in Texas and able to go outside, she would have just ran away and died.  She hid the last month of her life under the bed.  I thought it was because she did not want to go to the vet again.  It turns out, she had cancer in her jaw and was suffering.  I was so distracted by moving over the last few months to equate her hiding to her eventual death.  I coaxed her out many times and held her and squeezed her.  She would purr and relax on my neck.  She was more loving in the last days.  She was eating but only because I put her in front of the bowl and made a gravy out of her food.  She had become unsteady on her feet and fell down often. 

Heidi was born just before Hurricane Rita.  We adopted her to be an outside kitty and keep mice and snakes away.  Unbeknownst to us she was already pregnant and ended up birthing 8 kittens and she nursed a baby squirrel that fell out of a tree.  We found homes for them all at the appropriate time and gave the well-fed baby squirrel to a wildlife rehab place.  Heidi survived flooding of Hurricane Ike on her own for 2 weeks.  When we finally made it home to survey the damage, she came running out of the woods towards us.  We thought we would only be gone a few days.  I do not know how she survived the flood.  She moved around with us away from that area.  Then she traveled with me north to see my husband at his different job locations.  Once she stayed in a hotel with us for 10 weeks in Oregon.  She would get carsick, but I discovered a way to put her facing front and high and in the middle of the car or truck and she slept most of the way.

She was finicky and ignored or ran away from many visitors.  However, she recognized my friend Sherry and my friend Stephanie who visited often.  She would run into the living room to greet them.  She would roll on her back just beyond reach and force them to move to pet her.  She loved for them to pet her.  Sherry was afraid of cats but she learned to trust Heidi.  Sherry would have her love fest, then promptly brush off the cat hair and go wash her hands.  Ha ha!  She was allergic to cats.  I know Sherry and Stephanie are just as sad as I am about loosing Heidi.  Sherry lost Fudge (her dog) and Stephanie lost Simba (her cat).  The losses are still fresh on their minds.  Our pets are our family and love us unconditionally.  I will miss that, I will miss you Heidi!  I long to hold you close again and feel your purr.