Patricia&Brownie
Member Since 2010
My sweet Brownie is gone. This is the post I dreaded for a long time, even more so since learning 6 weeks ago that he had liver cancer. We had gone to Florida for one last week before school started to visit with my family. Brownie had been looking fine ever since he got over the pancreatitis he had 6 weeks ago. My morning pet sitter took him to get his squids at the vet 3 times during the week. She took him Friday afternoon and he seemed fine. But when the evening sitter came at 8pm on Friday evening, he seemed to be in pain. I had some bupe left over from his pancreatitis and she gave him a dose. When she returned at 11pm for his late evening check, he wasn’t much better. Down in Florida, I began to pack our bags for the trip back to Georgia. The morning sitter took him back to the vet on Saturday morning and the vet called me to let me know that Brownie was in terrible pain and that we needed to let him go. He gave Brownie a good dose of pain meds and the sitter brought him home to wait for us. She set him up on his heated pet bed and told him that we would soon be home. I arrived back at about 5pm and he looked terrible. I gave him the last dose of bupe that I had and even after 30 minutes, he still seemed to be in agony.
Brownie seemed to relax once we arrived at the vet. I stayed with him and sung him a song that I have sung to him since he was a kitten. As the anesthesia began to take hold, I held him close, stroked his head and recited a favorite poem to him:
“Dear eyes, good night,
In golden light
The stars around you gleam,
On you I press
With soft caress
A little lovely dream.”
He slipped away quietly and in a moment, he was gone…
The vet believed that he was in respiratory distress, probably caused by pleural effusion due to the liver cancer. He had fluid coming out of his nostrils and his breathing was labored. He may also have had another pancreatitis attack. I don’t regret going to Florida as my father is extremely ill and back in the hospital as I write. But I do wish so much that I had been able to be home with him during his last few days. I spent most of the last 20 years with my little Brownie boy and very little time away from him, but you always want more. My first thought when he had died was “I want him back! Please bring my Brownie back!” But I knew how selfish that thought was. I brought his little body back home from the vet. He looked so beautiful. He still weighed over 10 pounds and his chocolate fur was gorgeous. I clipped a little to remember him by. I gave him a gentle bath and dried his fur. Then I let Simpkin sit next to his body for a few minutes. I don’t know if he realized that Brownie was gone, but I felt it was important. After a few hours, we drove him to the crematorium and left him there. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I went back inside twice to bury my face in his fur and kiss his little head. Oh, dear Brownie, how I love you. I have never felt this depth of pain or sadness. I am terrified at being separated from you. I don’t know how I’ll get through the next few days/weeks/months or years. I still have Simpkin to care for and now that he is diabetic also, I still have the routine of testing and giving shots. I still have my loving family, my husband and my two little boys. My 5-year-old said “Mommy, we’ll be ok even if our family is odd now.” He has been learning about even and odd numbers and he realized that there are now only 5 of us. I was struck by the thought that it IS so very odd to be without our little Brownie. He also told me that Brownie could have anything he wanted to eat up in heaven - so true… My 7-year-old printed photos of Brownie that he had taken and taped them over his bed. And he even made me a photo puzzle of Brownie. They are grieving in their own way… I told them both that Brownie is in heaven, with his parents and his brothers and sisters. The first thing they probably said to Brownie was “Where the heck have you been?!!!!! We’ve been waiting for 20 years!!” Brownie must have told them that he had a family on earth that needed him so desperately and so he had to stay… And I’m so grateful for every moment with him.
Two years ago, Brownie and Simpkin were featured in the Atlanta Humane Society’s Heart Newsletter as “Friend’s for Life”, since we adopted them there when they were just 3 months old. Click on the link and go to page 12 to see the story I wrote about them…
http://www.atlantahumane.org/events/hea ... winter.pdf
This is a good place to thank everyone at LL for the help and the humor that got me through many a long and stressful night! Your help gave Brownie 3 ½ years of quality life that he would not have had otherwise. You are all pure gold and I will be forever indebted to you for the unselfish devotion you showed to these little souls we share our lives with. I will treasure the friendships I have made here and the bond we all share.
And finally, some memories of Brownie that I’ll cherish forever:
The Hiding.
Brownie hid everywhere for the first 5 years of his life. He was skittish and shy and vet visits required running the vacuum cleaner to herd him into the bedroom and pulling up the mattress and boxspring to capture him. He once hid up inside our couch (in a spot we didn’t even know existed) when my sister and her family visited us in Atlanta. I thought one of my nephews had let him out by accident. We looked EVERYWHERE. Finally, my husband put his hand up inside the couch and felt warm fur! I was so relieved, but so totally washed out emotionally from the ordeal that I sent them all to the Braves game without me. When they all left the house and it was completely quiet, he came out within about 2 minutes and jumped up on my lap. They thought I had missed out on the game, but I never wanted to be anywhere else than sitting on the couch, holding my precious boy.
The Walks on a Leash.
I walked Brownie and Simpkin on a leash every day for at least 30 minutes each for the first 10 years of their lives. After that, we built them a huge garden with a tall fence and they had the run of it – catnip and all. But I loved walking them on a leash. I just followed them and watched them and learned a lot about them. They both loved to sniff bushes, trees, rocks, anything. And they loved to “scent” everything as well. After we moved to Milledgeville and they weren’t at risk from traffic, I would let them go “off-leash” while I stood next to them. They spent hours in the bushes, stalking little bugs and Brownie caught a chipmunk once (which I promptly pried out of his mouth – sorry, Brownie!). On another occasion, Brownie brought us a bat that he had found under the bushes next to the house – still alive, but barely. I carefully put it in a cage so that we could take it to the vet in the morning, but it didn’t make it through the night. Unfortunately, it turned out to have rabies and Brownie was re-vaccinated even though his rabies was up-to-date and quarantined in our house for 6 weeks. The sheriff would come by every 2 weeks or so to make sure that Brownie was inside and of course, he was. Both my husband and I had to be vaccinated for rabies as well. We didn’t think we touched the bat, but the CDC thought we should proceed with the rabies vaccine, which we did - quite an adventure, Brownie.
Camping Out with Brownie.
And then there was the time that a huge dog chased Brownie up a pine tree in our front yard. I let go of the leash and let him go (I think he would have been devoured right in front of me if I hadn’t). He climbed up about 30 feet and then couldn’t come back down. We took turns staying outside with him all through the night (which was cold at 40 degrees). We talked to him all night and never left his side. The next morning, a friend brought his cherry-picker truck over and my husband volunteered to go up in it to get Brownie. Just as he went to grab Brownie, Brownie tried to climb up higher, but my husband grabbed with all his might and got him! He literally covered Brownie with his body inside the cherry-picker to prevent him from jumping out and he ended up with Brownie’s claw through his lip for it! I have never loved my husband so much. Once on the ground, Brownie ran all the way down the driveway and around to the back door, limping and stiff from his night in the tree. Relief quickly gave way to exhaustion and we all fell asleep, piled together on the bed, with joy in our hearts.
The Empath.
Brownie and Simpkin were my empaths. They always seemed to know when I needed some comfort. In the mail today, I actually received a photo from my mother that she had taken 10 years ago. I had just gotten home from the hospital after spending 4 days there to have my thyroid removed due to thyroid cancer. My parents got me settled into the bed to rest and within moments, both cats jumped up and snuggled against me. They didn’t leave for the rest of the day. Brownie was always especially empathic. How do they know?
The Brady Bunch Song.
I have no idea why, but when Brownie was about 2 years old, I used to sing him songs in which I replaced the lyrics with “meow” instead. One day, I sang him the Brady Bunch theme song - all the lyrics replaced with “meow”. He couldn’t stop staring at me – he kept getting closer and closer to my face. I actually called my husband over to watch. I thought that I was making some sort of deep, soulful connection with him. I kept singing and he kept getting closer to my face. Finally, towards the end of the song, he reached up with his paws and clawed both sides of my face!!! I was shocked (and bleeding a bit), but it was also pretty funny. We never sang that tune around Brownie again – who knows what was going through his mind, but it certainly wasn’t good!
The Nicknames.
Oh, the nicknames. Over the course of 20 years, we came up with A LOT of nicknames for Brownie. Among my favorites: Browns-a-rubie, Brownie bottom rum pie, King Brownie, Mr. Browns, Brownie-kin and Browns-a-roo.
The Garden. I loved to watch both cats in the garden. They would stop to sniff a plant or perhaps spray the boxwoods or the butterfly bush. They would nibble on some catnip or some wheat grass. They would wander over to the arbor and lay on the benches under the roses. Perhaps they would lie on the bench in the sunny end of the garden, soaking up the warmth of the sun. Frogs and toads were always interesting, but after Simpkin picked up a toad in his mouth and endured several hours of pain and frothing, amphibians were off the menu. Birds were watched with rapt attention, but never in any real danger from such old guys. I love that we were able to give them such a wonderful place to experience nature and still be safe.
The Nighttime Routine. Brownie is fed and, in later years, given his insulin. He climbs up into the bed between my husband and me and there he spends the entire night, snuggled between us, safe and warm. I will miss this the most…
Godspeed, my dear Brownie – on your journey to the stars. I wish you happy adventures in God’s garden. I wish you a soft lap to lie in – surely God’s lap is big enough to hold all the tender creatures. I wish you sweet cream and tuna fish and high-carb food. Lots of it. I wish you sleep and a little lovely dream until we meet again… You carry a piece of my heart with you, Brownie – a piece that was ripped from me, leaving me forever scarred. I will wear that scar like a badge of honor. I am honored and humbled and grateful to you for showing me what it means to be loved. You amaze, astonish and dazzle me, Brownie, and you always will…
