A Silver Angel Reaches Paradise

This winter is going to be a tough one, maybe tougher than any before. Other than the dangers of a deep freeze, possible and probable snowstorms and frosty, stinging winds that chill the marrow of one’s bones, what really scares me is the thought of the oldest

shelter kitties. Already well into their golden years, they seem to be fading away slowly and it can’t be reasonably expected that all of them will see another spring. Losing a pet is a harrowing experience and not even the knowledge that the animal in question has lived a long and healthy life can make it any easier. We’re all well aware that our pets can't live forever, but when their time comes, it’s somehow always too soon. For some unknown reasons, most of the elderly pass away during the cold and depressing winter

months; I'm guessing it's just too much for their breaking down bodies to bear.

Sadly, Falsika is gone. Peacefully and quietly, she left this world, two and a half years after she finally found safety here. I’ll never know what she’d been going through until

she arrived at the shelter in the spring of 2011, but whatever it was it must have been scary, terrifying and horribly traumatizing to make her as desperate and utterly distrustful as she was. When she was returned to me instead of my own grey cat after the

worst adoption of several Felix kitties that could have been imagined, I tried to find out something about her but my search for her real owners or for anyone who could give me any information hit a dead end. No one could or would tell me anything, no one

knew a thing and yet here she was, with her short blue grey fur with silver tipping and beautiful, vivacious, beaming eyes of green, malnourished, unapproachable and absolutely terrified. During her miserable life before we met she probably never

experienced a friendly touch, she was never surrounded with love and care and all she wanted was to be left alone.

Four of the Felix kitties were adopted to a woman who sounded credible, even nice, in the spring of 2011, but

just ten days later it turned out that the only reason she took them in was to sell them as purebreds. After dozens of phone calls and a couple of difficult, stressful weeks, I finally managed to get them back, all but one - the skinny grey cat which arrived at the shelter

was not the same one I gave up a month earlier. My own kitty, the one that disappeared without a trace was young, healthy and loving; this new girl was not only bone skinny, but also skittish, vigilant and extremely cautious. She was in very bad shape, so

her age could not be easily determined and I was reluctant to do anything that would make her more stressed than she already was.

Over the next two years Falsika had mellowed a little but still remained very wary and shy; she had

recovered physically but her memories of bad times obviously could not be erased and the question arose of how would I catch her if she ever got sick and needed to be taken to the vet. The time came last summer, when I noticed that she had one fang tooth

sticking out of her mouth in a totally unnatural position. I had no idea what happened, if it was the result of an injury or if her tooth simply grew like that, but I somehow managed to put her in a cage and take her to the vet after days of luring her. Being

uncooperative as she always was, she pretty much freaked out in the ambulance and the vet said that her tooth had to be pulled out. He also told me that she was very old and that’s why all of her teeth were in such rough shape, with a lot of plaque and tartar

build up on them. The surgery went well and the dental cleaning was also done, she quickly recovered and to my great surprise, she began to cuddle with me after that. Maybe she somehow knew she wouldn’t live much longer and wanted to see how it felt to love and trust a

a human, even for such a short time...

Falsika passed away peacefully and without pain, calmly accepting that her time had come to move on. Exhausted by the years of a tough life in an unmerciful world, after countless disappointments and

many days of pure despair, she found love in the end. With no sorrow and with nothing to regret, she crossed over into the blinding yet irresistible light and I can only wish that her happy and carefree time on this earth had lasted longer. She's ascended up the path

I can't follow just yet, where she is finally free, young and whole once more.

Spread your wings and fly, my little darling, until we meet again. You’ll be held close, forever in our hearts and very sadly missed.