Ivey My Girl

How do I begin this post... Our little girl cat Ivey passed away tonight. I guess it is considered tonight, it's 4 am and I can't sleep. Tonight at about 1 am I woke up, Ivey was asleep on my legs as she is every night. She is such a cuddler. I moved my legs and instead of readjusting herself, she slide in between my legs. I knew something was wrong as I could tell she was dead weight. And that was it, no warning no odd behavior... my 6 year old otherwise healthy cat was gone from us. I think I'm still in shock over it just a mere 3 hours ago.

Ivey hasn't gotten a lot of blog time over the past couple years since our addition of Ray. But she has always been there doing her thing.

I guess I kinda took her from granted if you will. She is always in the room with me sitting on the bed or on the heat vent in each room.  She sleeps with me every night, no matter how annoying she gets and how many times I push her off the bed...she always comes back to settle right between my legs.

Since being at home with Will, I have spent more time with her than before. She is always with me. The calm ever present Ivey. She loved looking out windows and getting behind the blind so she could sit on the window seal.
She was my first real responsiblity...I got her in grad school before T and I married. Taylor hadn't proposed and I wanted an animal to keep me company. T went with me to pick her out even though he told me "now you know you are going to have this thing for the next 15 years or so". Always logical...I didn't care. The choice was between an orange tabby (what I originally thought I wanted) and her or should I say "him". Ivey was tagged as a male. After a speech from the shelter lady about how black cats often get euthanized, I asked T which I should get. He said if it were up to him he would get the black one. So that is what I did. I got a black male cat and named him Ike...one week later at the vet visit I learned that I had to change his name to Ivey. And so the story began with Ivey.
She brought us many laughs and she was a good companion for me. My first "baby" if you will. She will be missed and I will think of her in every nook and cranny of our home. For instance the chair in this pic above was her favorite spot in the house. She could see out the front window from her perch. I would see her pop her head up as I pulled in the driveway. She always knew when we were coming home. It has a permanent indention on the back of the chair from her body. Something that annoyed me but now is a reminder of her. I put a blanket up there so that she didn't get hair all over it. Looking at that blanket kinda makes me sick at my stomach tonight. I might have to get rid of it.

We are going to take her body to the vet tomorrow to see what they say. Because this was so sudden with no warning we may do an autopsy it just depends on how expensive it is. I guess it doesn't really matter why this happened, the end is still the same. Our guess is that it is heart related. She just died in her sleep with no warning, she was running around today and eating. So sudden. She even was on the floor with Will. He loved her already. He would just look at her and try to touch her. I was just thinking tonight seeing them on the floor about how much fun he was going to have with her.

Well I really needed this outlet tonight. Please don't judge my grammar etc, I'm just processing and since it is 4 am there is no one else to process with. Already did that with T. We had 6 good years of life together and I'm thankful that God put her in our home and let us be the ones to love her and care for her. Will miss our Ivey girl.