12/7/12 Serena

It is with great sadness that I inform you that Serena passed away this morning. She was taken from us in her prime, taken from us before her time. I remember the day that she entered my life very clearly. She entered my life just as suddenly and unexpectedly as she left it. I was in second grade, and my father was walking me home from the bus stop. It was my mother's birthday that day, and Dad told me that he and mom had gone out and gotten a very special birthday gift together. All the way home, I tried to guess what it was. I never even came close to guessing. When I got home, I found her hiding under the table next to our stairs. She was only six months old or so; they had found her at the local animal shelter. She was a very timid cat from the start, but we quickly became close and she became a member of the family. There are so many things that I could say about her that define her. Things like how she doesn't play with her toys normally, but if you take a sheet of paper and crumple it up and toss it up she will tackle it out of the air. Things like her deathly fear of vacuum cleaners. If you can't find her, she is usually snuggled under Mom and Dad's blankets sleeping the day away. If she sees another animal out the window, she will track it from window to window throughout the house. She does not like strangers, but if she sees us with them she will walk out and introduce herself. There are so many things that I could say about her, about how she became a part of our family and stole a bit of our hearts forever. She was a wonderful cat. When we did our ocean crossing from Wrightsville Beach to the Bahamas, she was seasick and was generally unhappy. Even so, one night she managed to hop up on my bed and sleep with me and afterward she went and slept with Mom and Dad and Julia. At the time we had no idea she was trying to say goodbye. When we arrived at Nassau we took her to the vet and he pronounced her as being dehydrated, which makes sense because she had not eaten and had barely had anything to drink during the trip. She was put on an IV and was getting better very quickly. Too late, we found out that her problem was not only dehydration. She passed away early this morning, and apparently she had something wrong with her tongue. It might have been cancerous, but now we will never know. She was certainly a very young cat to have a problem like that. When Mom and Dad got the news from the vet, we stood together in one big group hug. I think everyone was crying. Even though we were all together, there was still a feeling of emptiness, like something was missing. A piece of our family, a piece of our collective heart. Serena you were a part of our family and a part of our lives. May you rest in peace now and forever.