Recap Blog: I Will Always Miss You Pepper

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My sweet Pepper Ann!

 

I’ve written and rewritten this post more times than I can count. Completely scrapped the entire post, started a fresh one, rambled on and on and finally, I think I have the one I’m going to actually publish.

 

If you’ve been with me for awhile, you might remember when I introduced Pepper to our Make Life Marvelous community here.

 

You can read how we rescued her in that introduction post! I tried to give her away for a week before we decided to keep her. Here is the Facebook post I made trying to find her a home that very evening Kyle found her in the street where someone probably dropped off the poor kitty.

 

 

I made her a little place with towels in the garage and that’s where her love of towels began. She had plenty of blankets over her short lifetime, I promise, but she always loved curling up in a towel.

 

I’m so glad every shelter I called turned her down, every Facebook comment said how cute she was but they already had a cat or couldn’t take her, and that every path led to me being able to be her mommy for three and a half years. We don’t have kids yet, only these precious cats and everyone knows how much I try to take care of our parents too. Pepper was one of the biggest parts of my whole world. From the beginning, she was a lap cat and always wanted to lay with me, or she’d follow me around the house while I did things.

 

I love my morning coffee runs as much as they’re not good for me, but I would always tell her as I was getting dressed that I was just going to grab coffee and I’d be right back. She’d be waiting for me always watching our camera (we have them set up on our tv where you can watch the driveway).

 

She was such a smart kitty. She was also the bravest kitty. I’m so thankful she had the most fun, playful, happy little life up until these past couple of months, but she really went through it during that time. All the needle sticks, skin scrapes, temperature checks, car rides to-and-from the vet, losing her hair each and every day, getting itchier each and every day, her little paws got swollen and uncomfortable, just all the things. And yet, Peppy was always such a trooper for the vet and she even wrapped her little paws around my neck on Monday after they took her blood, like she knew her mommy was just trying to get her better.

 

This is such a tough pill to swallow that I feel I really stayed on top of things and actively tried to get her the help she needed and still, she didn’t make it and we had to put her down.

 

It haunts me a bit remembering them placing the needles in her to put her to sleep, but she was bleeding internally and it was starting to come out, and I think by this point she was in pain. I know in my heart it was the right decision, but I just wish it could have all been different. I’m so thankful that as hard as it was, she knew we were both there. I had to call Kyle at work and he was in such shock when I told him there was nothing more we could do other than put her down, and he drove to the vet (40ish minutes away) as quickly as he could.

 

When I told her that dad was coming, her ears perked up and as soon as he entered the room, she got up immediately and stumbled her way to him. He held her and she got in her little spot that she liked to curl up in on his lap. The saddest and sweetest thing in the world.

 

I don’t think anything could have truly prepared me to lose my baby, but I just never thought I would be where we are today so soon.

 

I kind of think she may have had liver cancer or some sort of cancer, and they just never found it or her symptoms just didn’t match it. My poor Peppy, she had to leave us so so young and that’s what I kept holding onto – that she was young and she would be okay, and surely she wouldn’t have cancer at this point. Ugh. This is one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to go through, and the pain seems unbearable at times, and there’s just no other option but to bear it. Kyle and I loved her so much. She was so spoiled and babied and always with us in some way.

 

Of all days, not that there would ever be a good one, she passed the day before our nine-year anniversary. Probably the saddest anniversary we’ve ever had, but we were so lucky to be her parents and that we can go through this together, even though it hurts so bad to see each other going through this pain.

 

Also, we couldn’t believe the mail we had when we got back from the vet, the KitNipBox for her and Draino. Crushed my soul to see that box knowing she wouldn’t be here to enjoy it. The weirdest thing is that I know I skipped until Christmas because she was just not feeling well, so it seemed pointless to get the box. And then here the box was on the porch when we got back, it’s just so strange. Maybe there was a reason for that.

 

If you want to see something cute and haven’t already, you can see her and Draino playing with their Aquarium-themed KitNipBox back in April. She was so healthy then or at least she sure seemed to be, and so happy.

 

Everything in our home revolved around Pepper in some way, there’s nothing here that doesn’t remind me of her.

 

I still need to change my blog bio on the right-hand side to reflect we only have Draino now, but goodness, it makes me so sad to think about doing that. Already it feels so empty at home without her and I think the blog will too if I just wipe her away from here. 🙁 She was my blogging buddy, she was always here behind the scenes with me. She may have been snoozing, but she was my helper.

 

 

I am on James Clear’s email list and he sends one every Thursday, he shares his own quotes as well as quotes from others like this one (and not usually on grief). So I got this the day after we put Pepper down, and this really captures it all so well. We loved Pepper with everything we had, we still do and we always will – and because of that, there will always be moments where it will hit us probably just as hard as it is right now.

 

That’s a wrap on this little tribute post for my sweet Pepper, friends. I’m sorry to share such a sad one with you today and I hope her cute pictures will bring you a smile just like she always made us smile. I’m thankful we still have our Draino cat and she’s been trying to make us feel better.

 

THANK YOU for all of your kind words and prayers for Pepper over this period of time, and even before that, all the messages about how cute she was. I’m glad I could share her with all of you while we had her, and I appreciate each and every one of you more than I’ll ever be able to say!