>>280795093My family's first cat, Boots, was a free spirit. She came to us before I was born by appealing to my sisters' love of kitties. My parents tried to fight their cries for this stray kitty (we had a small Heinz 57 dog named Sparky already), but a thunderstorm changed that. My mom said " ok, we'll let her stay overnight..." and that was it. She blessed us with A litter of kittens, one whom we gave to my dad's uncle and aunt. Sparky also became their babysitter during this time too, when she'd wander for the day. It was cute. My parents have photos.
long story short, she would constantly go on... excursions. One time we got a call from a family friend the next small town over. Another time, she went missing shortly before my proper rich British grandma was to come visit.
Turns out she'd gotten a toe caught in a bear trap or something, and chewed it off, and made a reappearance... much to my mom's mortification.
So, when she started having some kind of seizures later in life, and disappeared one day... we reasoned she decided to go off and die, out of sight, out of mind (my youngest-older sister, who had bonded the most with her, had JUST gone off to college, so she took it hard. She would later bring cat #2 into our lives. Maybe a chance to post about him will come up...)
But, a few days, later she just showed up again, seemingly fine... until one day, she walks out of the kitchen, looks at me wide-eyed, meows pitifully, and promptly loses feeling of her back end. We decided the next day to... y'know...
Pic related is kinda what she looked like