Chiquita; a healing.

A few weeks ago, I sent a dramatic photo to friends - a small cat high on the ridge of a roof, silhouetted against a huge, cloud-scattered sky...

This was Chiquita in exuberant mood, on the roof of an outbuilding, a few years ago.

She has not been up to climbing for some while now. I have watched her growing thin and tired, just as Tiger did in her last months. And knowing that her time with me I had thus determined to enjoy it and her to the full...

Chiquita is a pretty cat, three parts Siamese, blue - eyed, and unusually marked. She is dainty and small-boned, and fits so well on my lap. Unlike the boys, she is gentle and quiet there, a comforting and not-too-heavy presence.. And the last of the females.

When, one morning in mid-August, 2001, I went as usual to feed the cats, she was unable to move from the sleeping box..

My heart plummeted. I had not expected this for some weeks yet. I gathered her up into my arms, limp, silent, and so light. And swallowed my heartbreak to care for her last hours.

I prayed, and I asked many others to pray, mostly that her passing would be easy; Tiger's was hard and I needed different for her.

Because she WAS dying. I have lived closely with these lovely creatures for around thirty years, and the signs are unmistakable. Once a cat goes as far down that road as Chiquita had, there is no turning back.

I had her mother and her grandmother; Both died at around this age, or younger, just seeming to stop fighting. I took her grandmother, Mrs Tiggywinkle, to the vet; he saw that she was dying, that there was nothing he or anyone could do. Mrs Tiggywinkle had been far less ill than Chiquita now was.

I kept Chiquita close that day. It was warm enough to sit outside, so she was on my lap then. Tiger used always to "claim" the place across my heart; Chiquita misses her, searches for her still ( which may be part of her succumbing thus) and has claimed that place. So I kept her there, against me, giving her all the love I could as she worsened. Her nose was hot and dry; she was unresponsive, just occasionally moving her head when I rubbed it as she loved. Her eyes were sunken and glazed, her coat felt dead - and when later I transferred her to my bed, she was incontinent, and too far gone to notice or care.

Just dying, little by little.

That night I kept her in my bed, well-padded with plastic sheeting and old towels. She would not, of course, eat or drink; I droppered a little water into her mouth - she could only tolerate tiny amounts. And I kept her within the curve of my body, talking, praying. Whenever I took my hands off her, her breathing grew worse. Yes, I asked God to spare her; I would miss this one so much, especially after losing Tiger earlier this year. Prayed SO STRONGLY - but always that her passing would be easy for her. Sometimes loving means doing this...relinquishing.

In the early hours of that long night, the "thin time" when my prayer-day usually begins formally, Chiquita suddenly started purring..... And, after being stretched out unnaturally all night, she curled up into her familiar, neat ball, tail wrapped over her black nose, and slept...purring loudly. I was told then that cats often purr in pain - but this was not that! This was normal activity .

Punch-drunk with lack of sleep, I did not know what to think - was too drained to think at all.

But from then on her recovery was phenomenal.

A short while later, as I was in the kitchen she came to find me - very wobbly, and looking emaciated. BUT PURRING LOUDLY!! I made up rehydration liquid, thinking that if she DID live a while longer I was going to be nursing a VERY sick cat...

But!

I had craft work spread out on the floor; Chiquita delighted in weaving in and out of it all, back arched, tail across my face, always purring loudly, eyes bright and full. If a cat CAN laugh, Chiquita was chuckling that day... and I got precious little done for marvelling at her..

Her nose and ears cooled rapidly - and, after refusing cat food, she consented to eat a little tuna.. And among all the doubting and incredulous reactions, it became joyously

and unmistakably clear in a very few hours that Chiquita was ebulliently well.

And full of spirit, of life, of sheer zest in life, seeming to know that something very special had happened to her...

The days have lengthened into weeks now; the cat I have now is not the fading, failing old lady of recent months. This is the "old" Chiquita, kittenish, lively.... She races crazily up and down the corridor in her Siamese way, rolls on her back in pools of sunlight.. Eats voraciously, and is putting weight on. And she purrs!! Loud and long..

There seems to be no trace of illness in her.

There is no other explanation but that she was suddenly and dramatically healed. I have never seen HEALING like this before, not so unequivocal, with no other explanation possible. Oh there have been "possibles"!!! The sheep's feet that time, and a tiny, very disabled peachick that was given back to me from death for a few days. Long enough for it to have some time in the sun - and for me to accept that it was too deformed to live..

But, rationally as we are in this age, "brainwashed" , there was always a "Well, maybe..." That is not a possible here; she was dying. And 36 hours with no food, barely any liquid...

I delight in her; she seems to know she has been given back, and I hardly need to ask where she was or who she was with in those absent hours; it shines out of her.

My thankfulness as she sneaks into the airing cupboard or races pellmell up and down the long corridor knows no bounds; I needed her, and God-wh-loves knew that. Praise His Holy Name!

Postscript.......

Over two years later, here in Ireland.......We come full circle....