Sheba's Passing

After a illness of several weeks, Sheeba, one of our cats passed away today. It was a snowy January day nearly ten years ago when we first came across her in our front garden, eating the bread we had put out for the birds. Was she a unwanted Christmas present we wondered? Probably not. Though she was tiny, she seemed old when we found her (or she found us). We started to put food out for her twice a day and she hung around. She was named after the brand of cat food we fed in then.

Some months later, she was still unwilling to come into the house, but lived in the garden quite happily. Then we discovered her one day making herself a little home in the log shed. Some time after, she gave birth to two kittens. By moving her kittens into the house, we persuaded her to come inside, and she mainly stayed indoors there after.

Her girl kitten, Sugar, died a year or so ago, run over by a car. I was rather fond on Sugar. She used to sit on the back of my chair when I worked. But she is survived by her son, Spice, a somewhat accident prone cat who has out lasted the others, much to our surprise.

Sheba took herself out into the garden the other week and we thought perhaps she was taking herself off to die quietly as cats do. But the vet thought she might just have a mouth infection and some antibiotics seemed to perk her up a bit. But in the end she just flaked out and that was that. I took her down to the vets who put her to sleep and she is buried in the garden next to Sugar. Odd how affecting pets can be.

One of our last pictures of Sheba, taken a few days ago.