Sammie

A donation was made in memory of Sammie by Doctors and Staff of the Queen Anne Animal Clinic on Apr 28, 2009.

A SUDDEN DEATH

There was a sudden death in our family over the week-end. A sudden death, swift and unexpected, occurring sometime between the hours of 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Holy Saturday.

We were celebrating dinner out with family and friends, all 20 of us: my 90 year old aunt (the only sibling living of my maternal grand-mother’s 8 children), my aunt’s daughter and husband, their children, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends of the family, a new grand-child, and our son and his new girlfriend. As is usual with our family, there was much hugging, kissing, laughing and telling of stories. In addition, the cousins were keeping the 15 month in paroxysms of laughter and aping as they made faces for him, and in general acting goofy.

We finished our family dinner together, but my husband and I wanted to visit with our son and his new girlfriend, so the 4 of us spent another 45 minutes or so talking in the bar.

When we got back home, we proceeded with our usual evening routine of making sure our animals are all safe in the house and ready for bed (at this point in time that meant our 2 cats, Frankie, our 7 year old part Siamese and our 6 month old kitten, Sammie, a Tiffany looking breed, medium long haired, totally black and with golden eyes). The pattern is that our animals come to me when I call. Frankie is pretty nonchalant, and regal, but Sammie is a kitten with a kitten’s usual exuberance, tearing toward me from somewhere, her feather-duster tail waving straight in the air.

She didn’t race towards me this night. Then, Jay found her. She was lying at the foot of our basement stairs, her upper torso on its left side, a small spot of blood on the rug, and her hind legs splayed out behind her. It looked as if she could have been using the litter box, was getting ready to run upstairs and then dropped dead.

We got most of our animals by chance. By that I mean we haven’t deliberately sought them out. They have found their way to us and many of them have been rescue animals. So it was with Sammie. We weren’t actively seeking a cat. We were still grieving over the death of our 21 year old cat, Otto, who had died a few months before. The friend who had given us Frankie, a rescue cat, called us by chance a few months after Otto died. A niece of hers, while out doing work for PUD in Snohomish County, found a dead cat by the road-side with a one day old kitten beside her, and a day later found two more kittens in the same area in the high grass just off the road.

Our friend, who has a full time job, a husband, and takes care of her niece’s 3 children, took the kittens in and proceeded to care for them (something which she has done so many times before), hand feeding them with a dropper every 1 to 2 hours, round the clock.

Giving up, separating from one of the kittens was a hard decision for the children. As Susan told us, they were each used to carrying one of the kittens under their arm at home as they went about the business of being children. But soon we had a new kitten, Sammie, by this time about 7 weeks old.

I know some people don’t care about animals and prefer not to have them, which is hard for me to understand maybe because I’ve always loved and had animals as part of my family.

A friend of mine, who a year ago took in a Beagle puppy as part of their family, has a quote from the writer Anatole France at the end of her e-mails, “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains un-awakened.”

Even though Jay and I still missed Otto, mutual love and bonding was immediate with Sammie. She slept with us the first night, where her place would be thereafter, under my right armpit with her head and front paws laying on my breast. It is hard to resist kittens, puppies, and babies, at least for me. Life is brand new for them and everything is an adventure. One friend of ours, upon spending an evening with Sammie, was in a state of joy just watching her play so hard, passing out for a while, then waking up and starting all over again.

Sammie figured that everything in her world was there just for her either to play with (our toes and fingers, Frankie’s tail, leaves, rubber bands, twist ties, her dry food, water from her water bowl, shadows on the wall), or to love. She and I often played together during the day, one of her favorite games was hiding behind the shower curtain and jumping out at me to surprise me, or if the bathroom door was closed, reaching under the door with her two little black paws, hoping to latch on to something. Often, she would simply just run from one end of the house to the other, sliding around corners as she ran, or jumping straight up in the air just for the joy of doing it. At night before sleep she would groom us all, Frankie included. One morning I awoke to see 3 little red blotches on Jay’s bald head from Sammie’s grooming.

Jay and I cried off and, on Saturday evening, didn’t sleep well and were teary eyed most of Easter Sunday before our friends and family arrived. Having them with us to celebrate Easter together softened the pain of Sammie’s death a little, but we fell into our sadness and a feeling of utter exhaustion when they left.

How does any living thing become that precious to us and leave such a feeling of emptiness when they go? Every act of loving is a risk and takes courage because we all know eventually that object of love will leave us, separate from us.

My mother always used to say that I was a ‘chicken heart’ and she was afraid for me when she realized I wanted to become a nurse, as a nurse she knew that death is very much a part of everyday life.

At some level, I’ve always realized the preciousness of life and all living things and as a nurse I’ve come to revere life even more. I haven’t reached the Zen point-of-view of learning to let go easily, but I have gotten better at dealing with loss. I feel a certain sadness in the Fall as my garden and flowers die or become dormant, but I know what the following Spring will bring if I tend my garden well, it’s beauty of vibrant colors and plentiful fruits, wooing the birds, bees, and other pollinating creatures. The people in my life whom I have loved and the animals like Otto and Sammie have helped to teach me that all of life is a precious gift and never to be taken for granted. Each moment should be savored because it will never come again.

Maureen K.


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