That really took me aback. Momma always replies by repeating me. But then she told me that Dexter passed away during the night, and we'd already lost Little Bear the day before. Now, just about twenty-four hours later, we've also lost B.W. and Cal, and Patches is barely hanging on. The entirety of Rebeka's litter has died (or is about to) from quite mysterious causes, Rebeka being my mother's calico cat.
Dexter was to be my kitty. He was mostly grey, but his belly was white. He had the cutest grey and white face, with those big kitten eyes taking in everything around him. He was named for the town in New York where my aunt lived and then died in almost four years ago. He and Patches were the adventuresome ones -- they were the first to leave the nest and start exploring the rest of my mother's home. But once they started to cry as they got too far out, Rebeka would come to check on them, and we'd move them back to their nest so they could cuddle up with their siblings after another of their numerous meals.
I wasn't too surprised when we lost Little Bear. He was the smallest kitty, and he had a problem with his eye. Sometimes it looked like the eye socket was too small for his eye, and other times it looked like it was sealed shut with mucus. Momma tells me they stopped feeding a few days ago. By the time I got there last night, B.W. and Cal were doing very poorly -- just laying on their sides and breathing shallowly. We thought Patches was going to pull through since Rebeka was still feeding her (she's always shown favorites with Patches) and taking care of her. And last night, Patches kept pulling herself onto the couch to lay next to Momma. But it wasn't long before she was too weak to nurse, even when we tried to put her up against one of Rebeka's nipples.
We have no idea what happened, and I doubt that had we been able to take them to the vet, that anything could have been done. It's hard to save little kittens. My vote is poisoning -- that Rebeka somehow ingested something or walked through something that got into her milk that wasn't strong enough to hurt her but that slowly killed all her kittens. But Rebeka never was very interested in her kittens -- she never moved them around like most momma cats. She just laid there and fed them as necessary, but she didn't care if Momma or I picked one up to look at, once they got big enough to and we knew she wasn't going to reject them.
It's all very sad, but things happen to kittens. And it may be very awful to say this, but they are just cats -- and not cats that have been part of the family for years. We got to play with them and love them for four weeks. Now it's time for the little baby angels in Heaven to play with the kittens.
I can just see Little Bear, Dexter, B.W., and Cal making friends with the little baby angels and frolicking in the clouds with all those who died too young...