I haven't gone into detail how Lupe, my cat, died. I was up at 5 am on that Sunday morning. I was feeling like poo, so I made myself some Thera-Flu. Rick was up at about 5:30 am and went into the guest bathroom. I recall Lupe coming out into the living room when he heard my voice and he jumped onto my chair. I pet him for a bit and then I nodded off. When I woke up it was maybe 15 minutes later, Lupe wasn't there and I moved into the bedroom. At about 6:15 am Rick woke me up with, "Brenda, Lupe's gone." Lupe's dead." Rick was making coffee in the kitchen when he heard Lupe make the chirping/growling noise that he would make when he saw a bird or a mouse. Rick went to investigate and Lupe was laying by my chair. Rick stooped to pet him and Lupe stopped making the noise. He seemed fine. Rick left the room and came back 10 minutes later and Lupe was dead. Lupe showed absolutely no signs of illness. He was his usual self the previous night and that morning. Rick thinks that perhaps Lupe died when he was petting him because Lupe's position was the exact same that Rick had left him in. Katie woke up before we could get Lupe's body out of the house, but I think it was important for her to see death. It was the first time she had seen someone she knew dead. I cried all day and at the end of the day, Katie told me that she was irritated with me because all I did was cry. She informed me it was okay to cry only one hour when a cat died. Katie is usually so very compassionate. I think she was dealing with her own grief and she couldn't get it out of her mind with me bawling. Also, I think she was scared to see me cry.
Here at the missile base we have a pet cemetery. It is located on the northwest corner of our property. We actually didn't pick the area, someone else did. Let me explain. When Rick first bought the missile base, he was walking around and found a small rectangular grave marked off by stone. There was no headstone or maker of any kind. He decided it must have been the previous family's pet, so when a cat that he had died he buried it next to the unmarked grave. The area eventually became known as pet cemetery and Max and Eric, our dearly loved and departed White German Shepherds, are buried there. We have also christened the unmarked grave as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I just hope it really is a family pet and not Grandpa. However, I have veered of track to the point that I have done a 180. The reason why I brought up the pet cemetery is that when Lupe died, my first thought was to bury him in pet cemetery, but then I changed my mind. Lupe was a 100% indoor cat. He didn't like the outdoors and had no desire to go outside, so it seemed wrong to bury him outside. I also struggled with cremating him because 10 years ago he is all I saved from the fire, so it seemed ironic to have him cremated. However, I finally opted to have Lupe cremated. I should have his remains back at the end of this week.
Lupe died on a Sunday and no place was open for me to call about cremation services, so Rick wrapped Lupe up in an old towel, placed him in a white garbage bag, put him in a cardboard box and I took him down to our large freezer in the missile base. It was extremely difficult. He was there a few days before I could get him to the vet who then had to forward him to the pet crematory for a private cremation. When Rick and I brought him to Dr. Bolt in Abilene, I asked Rick to cut a piece of hair off of Lupe so I could keep it as a memento. Without hesitation, Rick said of course he would do that. I didn't really want to see Lupe frozen, so Dr. Bolt's daughter found an empty exam room for Rick to complete his task. Rick was worried how he would look too, but Rick was surprised how well Lupe looked. His fur was still soft and silky black and his eyes were closed--he died with his eyes open--and Rick said he didn't look frozen at all. So Rick came out into the waiting room and handed me a cutting of his fur and I bawled.
I still hear him in the house or see him out of the corner of my eye. I have split seconds where I think, "I have to feed Lupe." or "I have to clean Lupe's litter box." then I realize he is gone and I get all sad again. I have these witches legs that I slip the dining room table's legs into for Halloween. The feet on the witch's legs have boots that stick out into the room. More than once I have stepped on one of them and immediately thought I was stepping on Lupe. The night of the day Lupe died I had a weird dream. Actually it was more of a vision because it lasted for just second and I was teetering somewhere between being awake and falling asleep. Anyway, in my "dream" our front door was open, but it wasn’t open to our yard. It was open to a bright fog. Lupe was walking out of the front door and I remember panicking and saying, "Lupe is getting out the front door!" I don't know who I was talking to. I was hurt because Lupe won't stop or turn and look at me. In life Lupe would come when I called for him and would never ignore my voice. Then JOLT! I woke with a start. Was it an over active imagination trying to find comfort or did I see him cross over? I'll never know, but the image from the dream sticks with me because his head was held so high and his big fluffy tail was at full mast.
So that's the end of Lupe's 13 years 8 months of life. I still can't believe that he is gone.
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