Kee

animals that have gone by...sierra has been dead since 2000, and tomorrow bebo is going to put kee down. he hasn't eaten for 3 days, he is a skinny mess, and is peeing all over everywhere. the doctors don't know what is wrong with him, but being 14 years old may just be the answer. making the decision to put him down hasn't been easy for bebo, but the quality of kee's life is obviously reaching the point where the drugs and therapy they are trying on him are having diminishing results...

kee was the first of the "rescue" cats, four that showed up in the span of a couple of months. we took him in on the day that the race car driver davey allison died in a helicopter accident. he had huge ears, and appeared to be a bit slow. austin couldn't say kitty, so he called him kee, and we kept that. he wasn't the brightest star in the sky, known for standing in the rain meowing to come in, while you stood there with the door open and tried to call him in. he also got into a pissing match with thing where twice he peed on our bed at night WITH US IN IT. it seems that the two of them were playing king of the mountain. kee didn't exactly win. he got booted from the house and was the only indoor/outdoor cat we had.

when bebo and i split up, we decided to keep kee at the house and not disrupt him. i took thing and olivia, bebo got chili and kee. kee got bounced around a lot more than we thought, in that he lived at jacquie's with her cats when bebo was living with her. then when he got kicked out of jacquie's, kee came here to live in austin's bedroom for about 9 months until bebo moved to his mother's house after she died. he has been living something of the life of riley there, going in and out of the house and being fed wet food. it took him awhile to get used to chili and precious, the dogs, but he seems to have done ok in the last years.

i went by bebo's last week and spent some time with kee in my lap. he loves to have his neck scratched and is very persistent when he wants that. he also drools...but i knew then it would probably be the last time i would see him alive. he had a good run. i am sad. he is pretty much the last link to the marriage, the early years. chili came just a couple of years before we split up and she was always bebo's dog, even though i paid for her with my money from mamama.

animals are often links to parts of your life, and that makes it hard when they pass. my marriage was never the same after sierra died, and neither was bebo. i truly think the marriage for all practical purposes died that day, even though it didn't actually dissolve completely for a couple more years. santini's death was hard for me, for i had had him longer than a husband, a house and a kid. he was the middle link between my college years and my "domestication." it just doesn't seem like it has been that long since both sierra, santini and even ruby (doris' rhodesian ridgeback) died.

i am kinda wiped out, no energy and a bit weepy...