Travis and I adopted Gabby and her brother, Felix, when they were just kittens in August 2011. We aren’t sure of their exact birthday, but we picked June 21 as our best guess. They and their litter mates had been found behind the Madison Public Library and were being fostered until someone chose to adopt them. It was such an exciting day when we brought Gabby and Felix home for the first time, and I wrote all about it here if you’d like to walk down memory lane ;) Those kittens quickly made their way into our hearts and kept us entertained with all of their antics. I was reading through some old blog posts last night and was reminded of the time (about a month after we brought the kittens home) that Gabby jumped from the floor straight into the toilet right after Travis finished using the bathroom…haha. In some way, maybe they prepared us for the chaos of having kids ;)
As our family grew, Gabby and Felix were forced to adapt to the increasing level of noise and activity at our house. Felix grew more and more skittish, and Brooklyn and Savannah never even got within a few feet of him before he would scurry away. He would come out and sit a safe distance away, but spent a lot of his time hiding as the girls got older and more curious. Gabby wasn’t afraid of the girls when they were babies and toddlers, but she wasn’t the most patient cat when she was younger. Brooklyn got her fair share of scratches on her face and arms when she aggravated Gabby one too many times. Brooklyn took the brunt of the scratches though, and Gabby mellowed as the girls grew. I don’t remember Savannah or Abigail getting on Gabby’s bad side nearly as often. By the time Abigail was a baby, Gabby would sometimes paw at her as a warning but would rarely scratch with her claws out. In her later years, Gabby even tolerated the girls holding her, and sometimes she would sit in their laps on the couch.
In 2016, we unfortunately had to rehome Felix when Gabby and he stopped getting along after a trip to the vet. It was a hard time, but we found a family who was interested in giving Felix a new home and hopefully a better situation. The next year, 2017, was a wild year with two moves and another new baby, and Gabby was with us through it all.
Sometime after we moved into our current house, we noticed that Gabby was throwing up more than usual and not eating as much. We put up with it for a while before eventually putting her on a couple of different medications to try to help. Eventually, in April of last year, she was officially diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma, and we tried putting her on chemo to see if that would give her better quality of life for whatever time she had left. We were surprised when it really seemed to help for a while. She gained some weight and was eating better and seemed to be feeling pretty good. We had been told it wouldn’t be a cure, but we just didn’t know how long we had left.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. We boarded Gabby for a few days around Christmas when we went to Trussville, and when I picked her up, we noticed that something was different with one of her eyes. The vet said her third eyelid was down, and they noticed that she had a huge swollen lymph node on her neck that might be causing it. They told me the cancer had likely spread, but she seemed like she was doing okay otherwise. We spent a few days with her at home before going out of town again. This time, we left her at home and had the neighbors come feed her and check on her once a day until we got back. On January 2nd, we got home around 8:30 or 9 pm, and Gabby met us as the door, as usual. I could immediately tell something was wrong with her. Her meow sounded really funny, and she looked like she had lost weight. She was also making weird rattling noises and acting like she was having a hard time breathing. I was afraid she wouldn’t make it through the night, but there wasn’t much we could do at that point unless we wanted to take her to an emergency vet. The girls and I were all so upset. Thankfully, Gabby made it through the night (she stayed on our bed part of the night, and in the living room the rest of the time). I called the vet around 9 am the next morning, and the only appointment they had was at 9:30 am, which didn’t give us much time. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be coming home, and Travis had agreed to take her. The girls were devastated, to put it lightly. Savannah kept saying, “I’m not ready to say goodbye”, and we were all crying. The girls made “nests” out of blankets and all wanted her to sit on them in their rooms before she left. They also sent her with her favorite toy, and Abigail drew her a sweet picture. Travis called me after the vet checked her out, and they agreed that it was time to put her to sleep. Even he broke down crying at that point, despite the fact that he has claimed all along that he was ready for her to go. I knew he had a soft spot for her in his heart though ;) He said she sat in his lap the whole time, and that they would cremate her body with the ashes of other pets and sprinkle them in their pet memorial garden. I thought that was sweet. The vet office also sent us a card with her pawprint stamped on it.
While Travis was gone, the girls and I snuggled on the couch and watched as many videos of Gabby that we could find, including some cute ones from when she was a kitten. It was interesting to see how the girls handled her death differently over the course of the day. Brooklyn spent a lot of the day alone in her room. Abigail wanted to wear cat stick-on earrings and watch a “cat movie” that afternoon. She also asked lots of questions trying to understand what had happened to Gabby, which made Brooklyn more upset. Savannah was pretty quiet, but kept herself busy doing activities in her room. It was a really emotionally draining day. The girls and I would just occasionally start crying as we thought about her. Abigail has continued to cry on occasion when she thinks about her, and Savannah has mentioned feeling sad and missing her too. I know Brooklyn misses her as much as anyone, but hasn’t wanted to talk about it very much. I have a feeling she’s written about Gabby in her journal quite a bit though. She also made a picture of Gabby with her 3D pen.
Since that day, there have been several times that I’ve walked into one of the girls’ rooms or into the living room, expecting to see Gabby out of habit. Or the girls will say that something reminded them of Gabby or they felt sad because they expected her to come to the door when we got home. She was a big part of our family! Here are some memories of Gabby that I don’t want to forget…
- Gabby sitting in my lap when I was on the couch, especially in the evening after the kids went to bed. The older she got, the more of a lap kitty she was, and I loved that. It’s one of the things I miss the most.
- Gabby sitting in the sunlight in the girls’ rooms on their carpet or their bed
- For a while, Gabby would make the rounds and come into each of the girls’ rooms as we were tucking them in and jump up their beds and meow “goodnight” to them. She especially loved sitting on Brooklyn’s bed while she was reading before bed and did that almost every night.
- Gabby frequently met us at the door when we came back from being gone for a few hours. If we’d been gone on a longer trip, we would hear her meowing before we even opened the door ;)
- We got a big kick out of asking Gabby questions and waiting for her to meow her answer back. Ex. “Are you an Alabama fan?” If she meowed right away, that was a “yes.” If she didn’t meow, that meant “no”. It was very entertaining, especially when she would meow that she liked Darth Vader or that she cheered for both Auburn AND Alabama…haha.
- Gabby loved to chew on things! She was kind of like a dog in that sense. She especially loved eating paper, and one of her favorites was tissue paper. We eventually learned that we couldn’t put gift bags under the Christmas tree because she would throw up red and green from eating the tissue paper in the bags ;) She chewed on all kinds of other things though, including our neck massager, pool bag, soccer backpacks, etc. It was the craziest thing and something that drove Travis crazy (and me sometimes too).
- Gabby had more nicknames than probably any pet on earth. It started out with Travis calling her “Gabby Woo” when she was a kitten. Eventually, her nickname became Woo or Woo Woo, and as the girls got older, they spun it into as many variations as they could think of.
- One of Gabby’s favorite things to do during the holidays was sit under the Christmas tree.
- Gabby loved being held like a baby or over your shoulder and would purr loudly when you rubbed under her chin or on her cheeks.
Gabby lived about 12.5 years, and we are so thankful she was part of our family for pretty much her entire life. The girls have never known life without her until now. She brought us a lot of messes to clean up over her lifetime, and we spent a lot of time and money trying to improve her quality of life over the last few years, but it was worth it for the great times we had with her and all the memories we have now. Gabby will always have a special place in our hearts!
