My beloved departed cats

The backstreet is always full of stray cats. Some seek refuge on our balcony and we feed them out of compassion. Four years ago, one of those cats touched our heart more than the others: it was a cute one-year-old female part siamese, part tabby. The winter was coming close so we let her in and she stayed with us since then. We called her Nyako. She was the best of cats: never complaining, never scratching furnitures, always clean. Like most cats, she was affectionate but distant.

One year ago we noticed that her face was not symetric anymore and that a tumor was slowly growing on the right side of her head. We knew that there was not much to do for that but hope it would not get bigger. It did, but we wanted to keep her as long as she would have a decent quality of life. We hope that she would grow old and eventually die peacefully. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago the tumor got so big that it deformed her mouth and pushed her eyes a little forward. She was constantly drooling and her eye was crying. She was sleeping all day and looked pityful. So, this morning we had her euthanized, relieving her of her misery. It was certainly not an easy decision to take, and the visit to the vet was not an easy moment either. At least now, she won't suffer anymore and she's probably happier in some cat's heaven somewhere. But, to make it harder, it is the second cat that we lose this summer. Those cats were like our children and we miss them. At least, we still have one.

Earlier this year, we adopted two more cats: a black & white female with a black spot on the nose and a white spot on the tip of the tail (so we called her Spotty) and a light brown-reddish male, very noisy, that we called Nyaboy (and sometime also Foxy, because of his color and pointy ears). We couldn't, obviously, keep too many cats so we found someone to take care of the very gentle and affectionate Spotty. Unfortunately, last April, Nyaboy was shot (twice!) in the back with a pellet gun by some moron (probably a kid playing with his new toy). He got a very nasty infection, but for some time it looked like he was having the upper hand. However, he did lost the battle after a while. Luckily, a few weeks later we learned that the young lady who was taking care of Spotty just got a new job in Hong-Kong and couldn't bring her along. So we took her back. Now we have only Spotty. I'll post some pictures of her later (right now I have computer problems, so I cannot).