Warning: This is a long post, emotional, and quite personal.

Many of you that know me know that a couple of months ago, my fiancé, Joshua and I rescued a scruffy little stray cat from the street about a mile from our house. We were on an evening walk in the neighborhood when this little white cat came out from the bushes on the sidewalk and greeted us, meowing, purring and winding around our legs. She was impossibly skinny and dirty, with one red-rimmed weeping eye and matted fur. She was captivating; my heart instantly went out to her. Joshua picked her up, and we pet her gently and scratched her little chin. I admit, I was compelled to take her in my arms and simultaneously, to feverishly wash my hands. I tend to be germophobic.

We stood there for several minutes, wondering what to do. She was clearly lost or abandoned, starving and in need of medical attention. But here we were, on foot, a mile away from home with no phones and no keys. It seemed there was nothing to do but leave her and walk home, which is what we did that Thursday evening in June.

She haunted me for three days. I went back in my car looking for her, I circled the neighborhood twice a day hoping she would make an appearance again and I could sweep her up and get her to a vet. Nothing. Sunday night came around, and I suggested we go on another walk in the neighborhood, to give it one last shot. And sure enough, she emerged from the underbrush to greet us, in front of the same house we found her the first time. This time I was prepared, emotionally and practically. We went door to door, asking if anyone knew her or who she belonged to. Nothing. I spoke with one neighbor that thought it was very sweet of us to consider taking her to a vet. “Just hold onto her until the morning, then take her to a shelter,” she suggested. But I knew this little creature would not survive in a shelter. They don’t have the funds to give veterinary attention in shelters, and she certainly did not have the look of a cat that someone would want to adopt. I resolved to take her to the vet that night, knowing that we could figure out some other option besides a shelter once we got an idea of her overall health. I left Joshua there with her, and I ran, yes RAN home through the windy, hilly streets of the Berkeley Hills to get my car, some food, water and a cat carrier.

She purred like crazy…everywhere. With us on the street where we found her, in the cat carrier, in the car, even in the vet’s office. It was astounding, the purr motor on this kitty. The initial check-up on her revealed that she was at least 10 years old, weighed about 4 pounds, had a respiratory cold and eye infection, bad arthritis in her hindquarters, and was not micro-chipped. She was not going to a shelter, of this I was certain. They tested her that night for Feline AIDS and leukemia, which turned out negative. We resolved to treat her for a week with anti-biotics, and see how she was faring before considering the next step. At the very least, we could get her healthy enough to be around the other cats of the household (of which there are 3). Joshua’s mom lives upstairs from us, and she was kind enough to put kitty in the spare room for quarantine while we cleaned her up and medicated her. If she didn’t have a hold on our hearts right then, she certainly settled into them soundly over the next week. My biggest dread was that we wouldn’t be able to integrate her with our two female cats downstairs, who are very territorial and already hate each other. Ann’s cat was still young and impressionable, so she had the best chance of tolerance as we nursed Miss “Stray” DeFount back to health.

We gave her a bath 5 days into the anti-biotic treatment, confident that she was well enough now to handle the change in body temperature from the bathing. We painstakingly rinsed out her dingy white fur, combed out most of the mats, and managed to get a wide swathe of her tail clean of caked motor oil. And she feasted…boy did she feast! We gave her everything: dry food, canned food, table scraps, you name it. Anything to put some weight back on her. She was starting look almost presentable, the sweet little thing. By the time we brought her back to the vet a week later to get the full senior blood panel done, we had named her Annapurrna, after the Hindu goddess of nourishment, and to honor her incredible purring motor. When we checked her in and told them her name, the vet tech smiled. “Now you’ve done it, you’ve named her. You should never name them (strays),” she said with a laugh.

It turned out that Miss Annapurrna was suffering advanced hyperthyroidism. I’ve had two cats in my life that succumbed to hyperthyroidism, so I knew the drill; it would be lifelong medication for this little one. She also had elevated kidney and liver function tests, which the vet warned could be underlying conditions that would “unmask” themselves when her thyroid was treated. Of course, this nearly extinguished any hopes we had of adopting her out, and for the time being we decided to treat the thyroid condition and have her re-tested in a month to see how she was doing.

Unfortunately, this never happened. We tried two different forms of thyroid treatment, both of which Annapurrna had severely adverse reactions to. It seemed that anything we did (beyond treating her respiratory condition) was too much stress for her little body. There were several moments on the meds that we thought she wouldn’t make it through the night. It was beginning to sink in to me that she hadn’t come to us to be “fixed” or “cured,” but to be loved and healed. For the next two months, we gave her the best life we could. Miss Purrna ate like royalty three times a day…steak, chicken livers, dishes of cream. She had the run of the upstairs, holding her own when Zeisah (Ann’s cat) tried to rouse her or coax her into rough play. We took to calling her the Duchess, in tandem with Princess Zeisah.

The coming weeks were a rollercoaster of emotion. Coming to terms with not actively treating her conditions but trying to provide loving palliative care was very hard for me. For all of us. In the last two weeks of her life, she stopped eating her favorite foods and perhaps the saddest, even stopped purring. She drank water by the gallon, parking herself within a few feet of the water fountain where both cats drank. She began to get dehydrated, and slowed to such a point that out of desperation, we brought her back to the vet. This was my last real hope of helping her. The vet suggested doing another senior blood panel, administering IV fluids and seeing where to go from there. Part of me was ready to do just that…against all my intuition. But I kept reminding myself what had happened every other time we tried to medicate her, and I knew deep in my heart, that this was part of the process. She was getting ready to leave us. We declined the tests that night and took her home, feeling uncomforted and unhappy. The next day, Ann (who is a nurse) was convinced if we just gave her some subcutaneous fluids, she would get some relief and possibly get some appetite back. Something about this idea didn’t feel right in my heart, but the other part of me that couldn’t bear the idea that she was in pain or discomfort gave in. We brewed up some standard saline and set it up in a brand new sterile IV bag. Ann put the needle under the skin of her shoulderblades and we slowly, gently began to massage the fluid into her body.

She cried for the first time. She cried so loudly and desperately, my heart broke right in two. She swatted at our hands and pretended to bite at us. She only got about 25cc of saline before we had to stop; it was so traumatic for her…and for us. I knew then that this was the beginning of the end, and I cried myself to sleep that night. The words, “do no harm, do no harm” echoed in my head.

For the next five days, Annapurrna slowed to a nearly paralyzed state of weakness. She stopped eating, even stopped drinking by the last couple of days. On Thursday night, she climbed up onto Ann’s bed and slept there through the night–for the first time. She didn’t get up again on her own.

Friday was a long, melancholy vigil. I had the day off and it was the first weekend both Josh and I had no plans and would be home uninterrupted. I curled up next to her on the bed most of the day while Josh and Ann worked. The three of us ate dinner together that night on the bed, with Purrna resting quietly between us in the blankets. That night we took turns sleeping with her upstairs, Josh taking her for 3 hours on the couch while I tried to nap with our other cats downstairs. I came back up around 2am, and we curled around her on the carpet and tried our best to sleep the rest of the night, as I checked the rise and fall of her breath every 15 minutes or so. We were all stunned when morning broke and she was still with us. Ann took her sleeping body back onto her bed while Josh and I stumbled down the stairs and crawled into our own bed for a scant window of real sleep. In less than two hours, Ann called to let us know she had taken her last breath.

Tears. Many, many tears fell.

So much about this little spirit was a gift to us…the pleasure in seeing her embrace the love we gave, the gratifying purr of her happiness being with us. The lessons she taught in the short time she touched our lives.

• She taught me humility. To be bold in coming forth and asking for help. To be unashamed of her need.
• She taught me acceptance. I learned to let go of my need to fix her, to make her beautiful and healthy and “suitable” to sustain love.
• She taught me that nourishment comes in many forms. That food and medicine and warmth are just facets of that which truly sustains us in this world.
• She taught me that love needs no guarantee. That each day of her presence was its own reward, that to try to project further into some possible future life was irrelevant. Distracting.

Saturday morning we laid Annapurrna to rest. Joshua dug a grave for her as I went about and collected flowers, fruit and herbs from the garden to give her for her journey. I gathered a small wooden butterfly earring, a tiny amethyst bead, and one of the ACEO prints I had done last year, the sterling white cat with wings that I called “Familiar.” I colored her blue eyes gold and put them all in a basket with the other gifts.

We buried her under our bird bath, amongst a tangle of blackberry brambles and tendrils of ivy. I’m looking out the window at that cement bowl right now, as a fat little robin flutters in it right next to the red rosebud I tossed in as a last token of love.

Later that evening, I noticed in our hallway a large ivory colored moth perched across from our bedroom door. An odd sight, I thought. For one thing, to see a moth that large while daylight still seeped through the windows… and in 3 years of living here, I’d never seen more than the little brown moths you expect to gather round your porchlight at night. I left it there absently and we spent the rest of the weekend in something of a daze, feeling the emptiness of her loss and little shadows of her former presence. I poured myself into making a piece of art for her, a watercolor illustration honoring her as Annapurna, Goddess of Nourishment and Abundance. Sunday night as we crawled into bed, I saw that the ivory moth was now on the ceiling of our bedroom, next to the light above my head. I mentioned it to Josh. “You know, I did give her wings when we buried her. That little pale wooden butterfly…it was nearly the same size as this moth.” He paused for a moment, reflecting. “Would that give you comfort?” he asked.

I didn’t know how to answer that at the time. But now, three days after Purrna left us and the little ivory moth has disappeared, I think I can say yes.

In gratitude to the community of friends and loved ones who supported our journey with Annapurrna both emotionally and financially by participating in our art/jewelry sale fundraiser, I would like to offer anyone a free print of Annapurna Maarjaara as a thank you and a gesture of sharing the love. Please visit and “like” my Facebook page: Raven & Rose and send me a private message there with your mailing address. Blessings and gratitude to all.
~Holly