The Life of Riley

My husband said a couple of times "from the first moment Riley saw you, she loved you."

Riley and I connected immediately, which is why it was so hard to let her go yesterday.

Only nine years old, Riley struggled with kidney problems for the last four years of her life. It was four years ago that she started crying in the middle of the night at 3:00 a.m. - we knew something had to be wrong. Unfortunately, she was afflicted with kidney stones making her rather sick. We subsequently rushed Riley to the nearest vet school where they performed surgery to remove some of the stones, but not all. This condition would be one that she would live with and we'd try to manage through special food and daily medication. These efforts weren't enough to prevent complete kidney failure which started on Thursday. We laid her to rest in the family pet plot on Saturday. My husband and I were there when the drugs were administered to put her into eternal sleep. We knew we had made the right decision to let her go and end her suffering. Both of us suffer from a deep sadness from this loss. We miss her so much.

Riley was so special to us in so many ways: the way she'd talk back when you'd talk to her, the way she was a stubborn bed hog (only on my side of the bed, of course), the way she'd burrow under the covers of our beds, the way she'd stubbornly lay on your chest, purring, and wouldn't flee at the slightest twitch unlike most cats, the way she would insist on being where you were, even if that meant the bathroom, the way she'd contentedly sleep on our clothes, the way she'd whap at the dog.... She was so sweet. It will take us a while to grieve her loss to our household.

Now it time to clean up her toys, get rid of the litter box and continue to remember her fondly.