Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~ Robert Frost, American Poet ~

The afternoon of October 30, 2004 my next-door neighbor and her children knocked on our den door. As I opened the door, the first thing I saw was a lovely gold and white cat in the arms of the oldest son. Melissa had found him rooting around in her trash that was piled up for her husband to take to the local landfill later that day. Craig and I had just neutered an abandoned neighborhood orange cat with touches of white and she thought he had managed to get out of our home without us knowing it.
This cat was definitely not Orangie Man, a lean orange boy. This cat was stockier and more gold than orange. I told them I'd never seen this cat before, but to bring him on in. If he was foraging for food, he had to be hungry. And hungry he was. He ate an entire can of cat food, then dove into the dry kibble before he was filled.
I went on ahead that same afternoon and took him to Shreveport to make sure that he was communicable disease-free since we would keep him until his owners were located. I told Dr Steve to put the name Goblin on his records because it was the day before Halloween. He was deemed in good health, flea-free, and had already been neutered. Dr Steve guesstimated that his age was about 8 years old. We used his arrival date as his birth date, making his birthday October 30, 1995.
Goblin had enormous soulful gold eyes that matched his golden fur. He had a white nose blaze that extended to the end of his lips and whisker line, a large white bib, white mittens on his front feet, and white stockings on his hind feet and legs. On his right hind foot, he was missing one toenail - just a teeny speck of nail grew there. In all the years we had him, I never had to clip that one nail. He was graceful and mannerly at all times.
I was deeply saddened that he was someone's cat - he was such a handsome little boy - thinking he had become lost. So for the following three months, Melissa and I made flyers and posted them within a 3-mile radius of our home. We knocked on doors throughout our neighborhood and the two adjoining. No one had ever seen this little boy before. I didn't get the first phone call in response to the flyers, either. Finally, we pulled all the remaining flyers and Craig and I decided we would adopt him out since we had a houseful of feral kittens we were socializing for adoption.
It broke my heart to think that someone had abandoned him, leaving him to fend for himself in an out of the way neighborhood out in the country. He was such a laid-back little fellow and never met a stranger. Craig and I placed him up for adoption, but over and over our kittens were placed while he and Autumn were left behind. After six months, we decided Goblin had enough stress in his life and he would just become one of our unadoptable brood.
Goblin was very sociable amongst the sanctuary cats, never getting into confrontations with the more aggressive Kiddens. He was such a gentleman; any skirmishes that the others got into, he simply walked away. We never heard him hiss and spit, growl, or complain. In fact, he was a man of few words.
When I began working full-time again in 2005, he was always first at the door to greet me. The few times he would speak was his greeting after I'd come in from work. He dearly loved ear, chin, and base of the tail scritches. He loved rough, warm washcloths for face washing whether he was dirty or not - something we did twice a day simply because he loved it so. I guess he was thinking of his kitten-hood and his mother's warm tongue washing him. Regardless, he loved those face washings.
In the spring of 2007 I noticed a small bump beneath the skin on his left shoulder. I called Dr Steve and made an appointment for the upcoming Saturday. By Friday evening when I got home from work, that bump was gone. We took him on in, but Dr Steve said he didn't see anything wrong, that perhaps it had been an oil gland that became impacted and it opened and drained itself during the week.
September 2008 we were dealing with Sylvester's battle of advanced liver failure. We helped him to the Bridge on September 8. That evening after work during feeding time, I noticed for the first time that Goblin was losing weight, too, and didn't eat much of the food we put out for his supper.
We took him to Shreveport the following morning. Dr Steve diagnosed liver disease, too. We were totally devastated. I'll never forgive myself for not noticing his health earlier. We immediately began the medications and diet to help stay the advancement of this eventual fatal disease.
Our little boy dropped from 13 pounds to 7 pounds. We fought to bring his weight up. Never once could he eat on his own after that first day I realized he was so desperately ill. I force-fed him his meals for seven and a half months - first with a human baby tablespoon-sized medicine dropper, then with a 10ml (2 tablespoons) syringe. His weight only got up to 8.7 pounds.
I would nearly cry, and at times did, at each meal. He would lay in my arms like a human baby and look up at me with eyes filled with adoration. His eyes would never leave my face as I fed him.
The second week of April 2009 we added to his meds Reglan for the nausea that was getting worse with each meal. The following week we added one daily 5m Prednisone for pain. Two weeks later, he began his "stand in time." We knew immediately that the disease was reaching his brain. He would get up to get a drink of water or use the litter box and freeze - one little paw lifted, three on the floor. He stopped wanting to sleep with us; something he always did.
The week before he left us, we seriously considered euthanization. He was sounding congested. I figured the blood was backing up into his lungs as he ate. Dr Steve always leaves the final decision of euthanization to us, though he gently offers to give another week to make the decision.
I truly wish we hadn't put Goblin through another week. He was so nauseated with every meal - he fought every bite he took. Instead of 15 minutes to feed him, it took at least 30 minutes. His beautiful golden eyes were filling up with crusty matter. I noticed his right eye had a lot of red in the upper sclera (white part). I dragged out my cat manuals and decided he must have an eye tumor. Dr Brad (Dr Steve's son) confirmed it. Our poor, poor little man. Just one thing after another.
I called to make the euthanization appointment for Saturday, April 25, 2009. He slept most of the night on his side, something he never did, beside my chair. That morning I only gave him his Pred for pain with a couple tablespoons of CatSure. Even his CatSure that he so dearly loved made him extremely nauseous. When he went to the water bowl, he couldn't pull his back up - he was walking on his rear "elbows." He was still aware of his beloved scritches and would dip his little head to my hand with each. He would arch his back for the tail scritches. I brushed and combed him for the last time.
Craig and I took him in for his final vet visit at 11:30am. For the first time ever, he set up a howl - a heart-rending howl. Dr Brad said that Goblin didn't know what he was doing - the stand in time stances are a sure indication that the brain is affected. Though I held him in my arms and constantly spoke to him, he screamed during the shaving and injection. And then it was over. At 11:45am our little Golden Boy was gone, flying away on gold wings to meet all our little Kiddens who've gone before him.
As Frost symbolizes in his poem, perfection and purity doesn't stay forever. But sweet and gentle little Goblin's memory is engraved in my heart for eternity. ❤

A Bridge Called Love
It takes us back to brighter years,
to happier sunlit days
and to precious moments
that will be with us always.
And these fond recollections
are treasured in the heart
to bring us always close to those
from whom we had to part.
There is a bridge of memories
from earth to Heaven above ...
It keeps our dear ones near us
It's the bridge that we call love.
~ Author Unknown ~