Out of the Mist and into the Light

It’s said that whenever something good happens, something bad follows and that for every joy there’s a price to be paid. Life is bittersweet; happiness and sadness go hand in hand as if the overwhelming joy must always be balanced out by the

deepest sorrow.  So now, after the wonderful news I shared 10 days ago, it’s with deep regret and profound sadness that I inform you of the untimely and heartbreaking demise of our brave, sweet Ivor. Despite everyone’s enormous desire to help him and

everything we’ve been trying to make him feel better for weeks, he finally lost his ultimate battle, the battle for his life.

Losing a kitty is never easy, no matter how many times someone has already gone through the process or how many other

kitties they have. Saying a final good bye is always filled with disbelief, guilt and grief, even more so if a kitty was young and apparently healthy. But even the young and special ones can carry something we’re not aware of and when their time comes,

nothing we do can make the slightest difference. However sad it may be, the inevitable bad outcome simply can’t be prevented.

Ivor was one of three kitty siblings who were born in a house, to someone's pet cat which was carelessly

and irresponsibly left unaltered, and the entire litter became redundant when all of the kittens were just a few months old. They had been placed at the vet clinic, in a paid pension and remained there until their owner decided that she, in fact, didn’t want them anymore. They were

supposed to be sent to the country, where they probably wouldn’t live long, but by pure luck they were picked up at the last possible second and arrived at the shelter last June, confused and afraid of their own shadows.

Brothers Ivor and

Edan, two tabby toms, were extremely friendly and affectionate from the beginning, real love bugs which adored humans but weren’t even slightly socialized with their own kind. They were hissing and growling all of the time, with their golden eyes wide with

fear, as if they saw some looming danger no one else did. Their tuxie sister was shy and withdrawn, but nevertheless cuddly in the rare opportunities when she felt safe. All three of them were slender and it seemed they couldn’t gain weight no matter how much they ate, but

they looked healthy and as soon as they succeeded in overcoming their initial fear, they were all lively, joyous and playful, like any other youngsters.

Almost a year later, Ivor began to lose weight, slowly but surely. His behavior

didn’t change, though; he was playful and cuddly as usual, but hardly ate anything and was just becoming skinnier and skinnier with each passing day. At first, he was diagnosed with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, but not much later it turned

out he also had a severe hemolytic anemia which was probably a consequence of some underlying autoimmune disease. He’d been given corticosteroids, vitamin B complex, OHB12 injections, Creon for weeks, but the drugs didn’t do

him much good and he continued getting weaker by the day. His symptoms frighteningly resembled those that little Kai had last summer and knowing that Kai passed away after almost three months of struggling against his unidentified illness, we

all had the ominous feeling that Ivor was going down the same path.

I won’t even try to describe the utter helplessness I felt while watching my beautiful stripey boy fading away right before my eyes, while nothing we tried

seemed to help. He wasn’t suffering, he cuddled and purred, he may not have even been aware of what was going on, but someone else was - little Kate was constantly by his side in his final days. Maybe she felt a premonition that something dreadful

was going to happen, maybe she wanted to heal him with love, but whatever the reason, she sat vigil with him until the end, just like a little angel that held his paw and soothed and kissed him while he was crossing over the rainbow. When nothing else could

have been done, her calm and loving presence must have meant the world to him.

Ivor died peacefully and quietly, without pain and without regrets, he just went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Too weak, too exhausted and too

tired of struggling, he was ready to be embraced by the light. He left this world easily and I want to believe he’s out there somewhere, finally free, loving and beautiful forever.

Until we meet again, fly with the wind, my little one.