It is with a very heavy heart that I report the passing of Yorkie, my tuxedo cat, this morning at 6:05 am, MDT. I had the care of him for the past 9 1/2 years, and he was a wonderful cat. It happened suddenly, with no warning. He started crying and panting, then went into convulsions. Within a minute, he was gone. I have lovingly wrapped him in a blanket and put him in an open-topped box for later transport to the vet. It's still too early to call to get an appointment.

I don't know what was wrong yet. I plan to take him to the vet for a necropry (whatever the autopsy on animals is) to find out. It almost seemed like he was poisoned, but he was a totally indoor cat, with no access to outside sources.

I will be at work today, since my worksite certainly won't give me bereavement leave for a cat, even though he was like my child. I think, though, that I will forego going to my Eastern Star meeting, so that I can take care of things with the exam and cremation stuff, unless when I call the vet I will have to wait to take in his body.

I know that losing a cat in no way compares to losing a human relative, but the grief and anger and wondering if I could have done more is as real as for any loss. I would appreciate your prayers.

UPDATE

The vet could not do an autopsy because it would have needed to be done within 3 hours of the incident for it to be able to tell them anything, and as I live 2 hours away from the vet, and it was already two hours after Yorkie died that I was able to call...well, that did not happen. The vet did say (based on my description of what happened when he died) that the likely cause was either his lungs collapsed or he had heart failure, and because he did not evince labored breathing, she was leaning toward the heart failure. At least it happened fast, and he was not in distress for long.

I will still have him cremated. I should be able to pick up his cremains the middle of next week. I'm not exactly sure what I'll have done with them, but I want to do something, especially since I never had an opportunity to do anything about my previous cat.

Thank you to all who left kind thoughts and comments. You are a great bunch of friends. I do intend to get another cat soon...in fact, one of my co-workers cats is pregnant and he says I can have one of the kittens, or maybe even two. It will be a little while still, but that will give me time to clean up old cat stuff and see what can be reused and what needs tossed.