A blue day (WCB)

When you have high hopes and great expectations things have a tendency not to develop as planned and hoped for. My experience when it comes to cats and kittens is that the lower your expectations are the better the outcome will be...

And even if I've had my shares of both joy and sorrow when it comes to cats and kittens, I can't say I grow strong and care less for every time it happens.

And I did have great expectations for Greta's litter, it was going to be her last, I had so hoped for a little cream girl to keep. Well any colour would do, but since cream is yes, créme de la créme, I had my fingers crossed. The days went by, nothing happened... I decided I should get her checked out at the vet's - she was so adamant not to go and I felt more than a pang of guilt forcing her into the carrier...

They didn't notice anything obvious wrong with her at the vet's, the X-ray showed at least two kittens, her condition was good, the blood-tests were fine. She was so stressed out but still a brave girl and I just kept telling myself I did it for her sake...

The vet said the best thing was to go home and just let nature has its course. And if the labour didn't started we were to come back for an ultrasound. So after paying a hefty price for that consultation (it's not the first time I've realised that if you want to make the big bucks veterinarian is one of the occupations one might choose...) we went home to wait...

After a few hours she went into labour, it all happened very quickly and out came a little bluecream one, lifeless. She didn't much care for it and even though I tried to revive the little one, who looked perfectly fine, there just wasn't any signs of life. The first sorrow...

A little while later I realised there was actually a tiny little cream one between her hind legs. She had cared for it and it was all dry and clean and she looked quite proud. But it was just so small, this little cream one, boy or a girl, not ready for this world... The second sorrow.

So that's what became of my high hopes and great expectations - two tiny little creatures who didn't make it. Little Ulla and Ullrik/a. One in a cardboard-box of Anaïs Anaïs-perfume, the other in the Vivienne Westwood Boudoir-box. So completely sad, so tiny that they fit in a small perfume-cardboard box... Which I only kept for the neat purpose of wrapping future gifts in. Instead they became pixie-coffins. Who'll rest in my garden.

I do hope and think that these tiny kitten-souls will find a new harbour one day, until then they play happily on the green fields of Nangijala.

The third sorrow is that Greta is looking for the kittens, her kittens, she went through all that labour and didn't get anything from it. She's miaowing loudly and seeks my company and there's nothing I can do to really, really ease that pain...

And yes I do believe other animals than humans feel pain and sorrow, that they mourn, and it makes me feel even sadder that I can't explain why it happened, it's just nature, that I don't speak her words, that she can't verbalize her pain in my language.

It's been almost exactly one year since we had kittens in house. I had so much looked forward to that. Spring kittens roaming the house and eventually the garden. And instead there's only sorrow and pain. Such a blue day.