My sweet Filou lost his last battle- memorial pictures #52/53

[emily_the_spoiled]

When I first saw this posting yesterday I could not bear to respond. You Filou had given me hope that when Emily was diagnosed with renal failure she could live as long and as fully as he did (unfortunately she did not ).

I can only imagine what you are going through right now, but he is now at the RB, happy and healthy once again, just waiting for the time when he will see you once more.

[Lilith Cherry]

Goodbye Filou, you will be sorely missed!

[Vermontcat]

Barbara, I'm so sorry to hear that your sweet Filou has gone to the Rainbow Bridge.
I know you fought long and hard to give him a long wonderful life with you and Siegmar.
I know how much it hurts to lose a beloved heart kitty.
I'm sure that Filou is with his big brother Tigris again at the Rainbow Bridge.
Sending hugs your way.

[Killearn Kitties]

Barbara, I am so very sorry that Filou's time had come. You did an absolutely amazing job in keeping him as happy and as healthy as possible for all those years. Not that that makes it any easier to bear.
Sending many hugs to you and Siegmar.

[Barbara]

It’s difficult to write about Filou.
We met him with his human mom who is a pet photographer who has published quite some books about cats and his kitty mom. He was an only child, 8 weeks old, and started our acquaintance by chewing on our fingers and sitting on our back. He lost the first habit and followed the latter one until the day of his passing.
When Filou came to live with us he was 16 weeks old. His 13 weeks old adopted brother Tigris was already there- just for one day. While Tigris had spent the first afternoon in the transport box, just not wanting to get out, Filou jumped out of his box and within five minutes had been to every corner of the house and back again.
Filou and Tigris became friends (and were called “the Mongole hordes” or “the stampede”) and while, after the coming of age, their relation was not without tension they stayed friends until Tigris’ left much too early:


Filou was a prince- he just couldn’t move without grace. All his pictures show him so quiet but that is just because I couldn’t take pictures when he moved, fast as lightning.
Talk about light…ning: He loved the sun:





He loved his balcony garden and the flowers:





Being a prince, he made sure his subjects loved him- and how could they not:



He groomed his dad:


and followed us everywhere, especially in the kitchen where he ate Thai curry chicken, salmon, corn, olives, cooked potatoes, coconut milk, corn, avocados and milk chocolate if he could get it. I have never seen a kitty with such an appetite.

[Barbara]

When he was 9, back in 2005, I began to notice that he drank. Before I had never caught him in that act. We got him to the vet and had to hear that his kidney began to fail. He got fluids and diet food and he loved even the diet food. For some years all went well. He had his weekly appointment with his friend Trude, the vet and with all the nice vet assistants who were just as charmed as we were. Then, 1,5 years ago he had a first crisis which scared us very much. He overcame it with flying colors but he strated to seriously lose weight. He had been 7 lbs when healthy but he lost half a pound after the other and was thin- but continued his life as a shoulder sitter. He began to prefer being carried on the shoulder to walking himself and climbed our trousers (or naked legs- ouch) to get to his outlook place.
His diet became very special: kitten food, treats, fresh chicken- sometimes I offered him 3 fresh puches before he decided he will have a bite.
This spring he became thinner and weaker. Beginning of May there was the first time when he didn’t eat for 3 days. We thought that would be the end of his life but he came back J He spent 10 days here at home with my sister, her husband and doxie Amber while we went on vacation. And he was eating happily when we came back.
But his eating became less predictable. He might go a day or a night without food. His last pictures show how thin he became, how rough his fur was and how his eyes changed their expression:





He spent a lot of time in the position of the last picture and only short times in his favorite tortellini positions.

Dearest Filou, to let you go was the hardest decision of my life. You have been my little prince and now you are a memory only – a memory on my shoulder, on my duvet on top of my legs, in your favorite places in the sun.

I miss you so.


The Abyssinian Cat

His amber eyes, his tiger face,
They speak of jungles, sight-unseen,
Or Abyssinian desert place,
Where my small cat has never been.

His throaty purr, his paw embrace,
The way he always follows me,
Define the central heart-home place
Where my small cat will always be.

a poem by Jean Gorton

[Kirsten]

Lay down,
your sweet and weary head.
Night is falling.
You have come to journey’s end.

Sleep now, and dream
of the ones who came before.
They are calling,
from across a distant shore.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see.
All of your fears will pass away.
Safe in my arms,
you’re only sleeping.

What can you see,
on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea,
a pale moon rises.
The ships have come,
to carry you home.

(Annie Lennox, Into the West)

This is such a beautiful tribute to him, the photos you posted capture his purrsonality so well, a testimony of the wonderful life he had with you.

The last picture broke my heart. Yes, I would say, he was ready to go... (((HUGS)))