What a truly wonderful forum this is.
Thank you all so very much for your kind words and kind thoughts.
(And thank you, Diana, for letting folks know that Moses had gone.)
Moses was PTS at home.
When the vet and nurse arrived Moses was sitting on the living room rug, Sphinx-like, with his front legs stretched out ahead of him. He didn't move, just sat quietly. The vet and nurse knelt down beside him, and quickly shaved some fur from his front right leg, so as to expose a vein. Then the vet put the needle into his leg. Moses turned his head and bit at the leg as though trying to remove the needle, but the vet nurse spoke softly to him and gently lifted his chin. I stroked his head and said "It's OK, sweetie, it'll all be over soon." Seconds later his head relaxed into my cupped hand, and he was gone. The vet said of Moses, "He was ready to go."
The weather was cool so Moses was able to remain in his little cardboard box coffin in an unheated room of the house for a couple of days. It was kind of comforting to have him there. I put a little parcel of his favourite food in the box 'for the journey', and pressed a tiny clay Buddha (an object that has been precious to me) against his chest, close to his heart. Then I snipped off some of his beautiful fur to keep, and cut off a lock of my own hair to put in the box with him so he'd always have something of me.
He was buried in the woods on the Winter Solstice, alongside Jim Bob (who'd died on July 30th) and in close proximity to Jackson, Samantha, Moss-Moss, Polly and Ambrose.
Before he was put into the grave I called out to the surrounding trees, asking them to take what nourishment they can from his body, and to stand guard over his bones. When the grave was almost completely filled in I suddenly became aware of a sound and movement about 20 metres to my right. I turned and saw a deer. It ran towards us and past us in a broad eliptical path. (It was so strange to see a deer run towards human activity.) It felt almost like a salute; and I took it as a sign that the woods had accepted Moses.
Moses was the sweetest and most companionable of cats, a really bright little spirit. And the house actually feels darker without him, like a light has gone out somewhere...
Thank you all, again, for your many kindnesses.
I'm sorry to have not been active on the forum for the past few weeks. Moses' death hit me harder than I expected. But I think I'm OK now. Sort of....
My love to you all.
Eliz x
