by Sara
It happened only a few weeks ago, the details are still so fresh in my mind. The day before my orange tabby cat, Butterscotch, got sick, he escaped from my house for 3 hours. (Our cats are all indoor-only cats.) When we discovered him romping outside on our front lawn, he seemed fine. And he seemed fine all throughout the night, up until the next day, in the afternoon. I was working on the computer when I heard a cat vomiting in the corner of the room. The first time I heard the vomiting noise, I ignored it. I figured it was our other cat, Velvet, who has long fur and constantly vomits. Soon the cat started vomiting uncontrollably. So I turned around to see what was happening. I didn't see Velvet there, but I DID see Butterscotch lying limply on a chair. I got up to get a closer look at him. His body was stiff and his tail was bent, and he was lying in a small puddle of drool. At first I thought he was dead. I yelled in his face to see if he was alive, but there was no response. Finally he opened one eye to assure me he was alive - but very, very sick, almost to the point of death. So I ran upstairs and screamed to my brother that we had to take Butter to the vet, immediately. My brother gently picked up the big cat, who now seemed so frail, and we rushed out the door. We went to the local animal hospital - but there was no veterinarian there. So we had to drive all the way out to a different animal clinic, just to see that they were closed! By this point we thought all hope was lost. I knew that if we had to drive even farther out to another clinic, Butter would die there in my brother's arms, that it would be too late. I prayed to God and asked him to send us a nearby animal hospital. And sure enough, right down the road was an animal clinic! We took Butterscotch inside and the vet took him in right away. The vet took one look at Butter and told us that Butter would have to stay there overnight, and that if we got a call from him in the morning, that would mean that the cat was dead. So we left. The next morning, we got a call. It was the vet, announcing the bad news. We cried the entire rest of the day. (It didn't help that later in the day, we got a call from my grandmother saying that my grandfather had died the same day.) By now I keep thinking I am over Butterscotch's death. But occasionally I get a reminder of my dear cat, and all the memories flood back, and I know I will never totally get over the loss of Butterscotch...