We now have another holiday to always celebrate with special meaning and emotions. On Thanksgiving day 1999 our precious Fur-baby Snowbunny began her trip to the Rainbow Bridge. Now on Christmas day 2012 our beautiful Fur-baby Maxwell began his trip to the Rainbow Bridge to be with Terry, Snowbunny,Sammy Sarah Elizabeth, OOIE-Gooie, Heaven and Joker and all the other precious babies awaiting the joyous reunion with all their parents.
Our beloved Maxwell was in his usual place when we were not home, laying in the upstairs hallway by our bedroom door where he would wait patiently for Kathy to return home and as she would start up the second flight of stairs he would sit at the top and give her soft vocal sounds to tell her he was there waiting for her.
I left at about 3:15 PM to meet Kathy for the Christmas meal and Maxwell was on our bed watching me get ready to leave. I gave him a good-bye chin rub as I left and told him to watch over his sisters and brother.
We returned home at 8 PM. As normal, Kathy went up stairs to our bedroom and I heard her say that Maxwell was in his normal position waiting for her. She called out a greeting to him to wake up. Then I heard her voice take a most dramatic and panicked tone that Maxwell wouldn't wake up.
I immediately ran up the stairs and found he was laying on his left side by the door to the bedroom, and he had passed away. It appears that he suddenly passed in his sleep just a few minutes before we found him. We both were shocked and heartbroken to find our precious Fur- baby had passed away. In a sudden act of desperation, I lay down on the floor next to him and I talked to him and caressed his head and I pleaded for him to wake up, but he did not.
As I talked to him his whole life flashed before my eyes. Back to the day I first saw him as a four week old scared, wide-eyed crying baby, to the last 20 min. that we had spent playing together on our bed 3 1/2 hours earlier that afternoon.
Maxwell was the first precious fur-baby we ever had, where we were not physically there to hold and comfort them as they passed to the Rainbow Bridge.
Maxwell came to our family in 2002 after a friend of my veterinarian who manages a small shopping strip mall found a box behind the stores containing eight tiny crying kittens approximately 4 weeks old. He gathered them all up and brought them to my vet where they were all to remain until they were eight weeks old and could be all adopted out.
We had just several weeks before lost our precious oldest girl Terry. One of the technicians who was aware of that and knew me called and told me that these kittens had been brought in and that she had personally hand-picked one of the kittens out for us. I went down right away, and as soon as she brought out this tiny ball of fur I knew right away that he was the one for us.
So at eight weeks old he came into our family and started his life chores. Kathy named him Maxwell David and he began a special bond with Kathy that was remarkable to say the least. He developed into Kathy's nighttime Guardian Angel over her. Kathy has sleep apnea, which is more predominant when she is sleeping on her back, and Maxwell some how sensed this as he would position himself directly on my pillow above my head facing Kathy and remain there through the night. He would put his paw out to touch her on the shoulder or her arm.
If she stopped breathing.I would wake up, and I would see Maxwell, standing up, leaning over her. He would use his very long whiskers to stroke the side of her face, which would immediately stimulate her to start breathing again. He repeated this nightly routine of watching over Kathy every night.
I received a call this afternoon from our veterinarian. He informed us that he had completed the autopsy and that our precious baby boy had suffered a sudden heart attack due to cardiomyopathy. He went on to explain that our precious Maxwell had been born with a genetic defect that caused his heart size to be very small and never really big enough to properly function in his large frame stature that he was.
The reality is that our precious boy Maxwell had never exhibited any detectable symptoms of this cardiac genetic disorder. It took 10 years before his loving little heart was just unable to produce any further.
We will survive this terrible heartache that we have now as we have done in the past, with warm and loving kind words from all our friends here, and more especially, all the loving warm support from all the other parents at the Rainbow Bridge, and probably again in the future. Each time we have endured these dramatic heartache episodes with one of our precious fur-babies we always learn the same lesson.
If you have fur- babies, make every moment with them count with unconditional love. It was quite evident to us that Maxwell clearly and unequivocally had demonstrated his unconditional love and devotion to Kathy to the end. We are having our precious boy cremated, and his ashes returned to us. He will be whole again at the Rainbow Bridge until our life chores are completed and we will join all our precious fur-babies forever.Our deepest appreciation to everyone for their support. So Mote It Be!

Respectfully,
Bob, Kathy, Bunny, Bear and JoJo

Please also visit BOO BOO BEAR, Bunny, HEAVEN, JOKER, NOAH DAVID, OOIE-GOOIE, SAMMY, Sarah Elizabeth and SNOWBUNNY & TERRY.