On January 6, 2002, about a week after Tango had gotten so very sick and passed to the Bridge, Raven got very, very ill. She would lie by our bedroom door and drool. On the morning of January 7th, I went to check on her and syringe feed her some water and some wet food. She spit most of the food out and it got all over her fur. She was obviously doing badly. I cleaned her fur up and then I called my husband at work and told him we needed to bring Raven to the vet's office now. He turned around as we spoke and started for home. This was about 8 in the morning. I bundled Raven in a towel and sat in a chair and rocked her. At this point she had degenerated into siezures and all I could do was cry and talk to her and rock her. It was horrible. The siezures went on almost constantly and her eyes were dilated and she was unresponsive. I talked to her and told her that if she needed to go to the Bridge, to please go, don't suffer, that Meowmy would see her again some day. She siezed one last time while I was rocking her and then passed to the Rainbow Bridge. I was crying hysterically by this time, holding on to my dead kitty, and Ric walked in the door. I told him she was gone and he started crying and raging and asking what was wrong with our kitties. He went into the computer room to call our vet, Dr. Taylor, and, when he came back, he asked me a question that made my blood run cold in my veins. He asked if I'd heard about a disease called FIP. I started crying more heavily and told him that yes, I knew it, it was a coronavirus and a bad one and when it presents there was little to do but pray and put the kitty on fluids. The vet wanted to see Raven so we folded the towel over her and drove her into the vet's office. I stood there holding my stiffening baby, feeling stares on me from the people there with live pets, knowing they knew that I was holding somekitty I had loved deeply, knowing they knew that she had passed to the Bridge. Dr. Taylor called us back and she looked at Raven and checked her over. She suggested a necropsy. I asked if we'd get our baby back and she said no. I think I also asked if she was sure Raven was dead. At that point I was in heavy denial. They gave us a few minutes to say goodbye to Raven and then we covered her with the towel and had to leave her there. While we were standing at the counter, can't remember why, maybe paying on Nico's bill, he was still in the hospital at that time, I saw them bring a garbage bag wrapped bundle up to the counter to give to the tech from LSU where they were going to do the necropsy. I had to turn away. That was the last time I saw our baby Raven.
I miss her so much. It's like with Tango. Sometimes it's like she's still here with us. I hear a meow or see a shape or hear something and she's there, just for a minute. Just for a minute there's hope. We found out later through her necropsy that what she and Tango died from was Feline Panleukopenia (Feline Distemper). Sometimes I think that she sacrificed herself so we would know what was happening to our kitties. Dr. Taylor sold us the vaccine so we could vaccinate the rest of our cats. We didn't know that things like this could be brought into our home on our shoes. God, all we'd ever done is try to protect our kitties to the best of our abilities and we thought they were safe. Little did we know. It makes me sick to think that, had we only known, Raven and Tango would still be alive and with us. Raven's story begins in July of 1992, you can see more about her in The Kittens. She was the smallest kitten in Wolf's three kitten litter and she was always the daintiest lady. My daughter named her after me, believe it or not, Raven being one of my nicknames. When she was a kitten she would lie in the circle of my arms on her back and let me kiss her tummy and just pet her silly, she loved to be loved. As she grew, she became aloof, but she'd still stand quietly while I hugged her close to me. She didn't play much, though you could catch her playing every once in a while, secretively, as though she didn't want anyone to think her anything but a lady. Raven wasn't a lap kitty, she preferred to do her own thing. We loved our littlest girl so much. She was so beautiful, with dark gray fur around her lips and muzzle, it always looked like lipstick. She would have been ten years this year.
