FAREWELL MAMA JESSICA

It started in early January 2007 when two cute kittens followed me and my God-Brother home from work. Eventually we adopted both of them, our first formal adoption though we had befriended many other strays along the way. Somehow, these cuties had melted our hearts with their little actions. Papa Jonathan had gone missing during one of his romancing nights while Mama Jessica had been closely tied to me ever since. That’s 3394 days (9 years 3 months and 14 days) of great memories to cherish. With an appetite of 8 meals a day and still asking to be fed more, Mama Jessica suddenly went fragile and frail during the last 2 months without consuming anything at all. She had to be syringe fed 3-4 times a day with a dozen syringes of liquid food, fluids and boosters to build up her energy. It helped initially but went from bad to worst after a few weeks. Her muscles deteriorated until she was left with flesh and bones on her hind legs. Her wounds won’t heal and she had to be manually cleaned many times to avoid her urine’s acidity to further burned off more parts of her skins. She barely could move… She barely could greet me upstairs each morning as always… BUT she still tried her best to do so… It made me in tears seeing how loyal and true she had been with me all these years.  

I was already expecting this day but I did not give up hope to get her back to her usual health. The blood test came back negative on kidney failure but with mild trace of FeLV (Feline Leukemia Virus which she would have been infected by her parents by birth) and barely noticeable liver infection. She was practically in the “safe zone”. However, with weakened immune system through age and a former victim to FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease), her body could not cope with the “wear and tear” stresses anymore.

I’ve tried to make her remaining days more comfortable by spending more time with her whenever I could… even up to the wee hours of the day just by sleeping next to her and “chatting” with her on our good old times. It may sound weird but I could sense that she knew everything I said by the sign on her tapping tail. 

Everything was still fine when I was syringe feeding her until my God-Brother came back from work and greeted her. She looked at him and me, then decided to call it quit. Her heart beats stopped on 5 July 2016 at 6.30pm. No matter how we tried to resuscitate her, there were no more signs of movements. She stayed lifeless. We had done our best to keep her alive and now she’s in the hands of God. May her soul rest in peace… Farewell Mama Jessica… We shall miss you a lot…