Farewell Sweep

It's not been an easy weekend as we had to say goodbye to one of our cats. Sweep took a sudden turn for the worse on Friday. We're not quite sure what happened. He seemed fine first thing in the morning, ate his breakfast but something (the vet thinks it was a stroke or a fit) hit him hard and when John came back from walking the dogs, he found him lying helpless in the kitchen.

Sweep was 16 and 3 months, suffered from kidney failure and was almost completely blind and in fact, survived almost 2 more years than the vet had predicted, but because he was so strong and stayed in charge of all our other animals, we had somehow assumed he would go on for ever. Sadly it was not to be and he was so very ill on Friday and in real distress, that both John and I decided it was simply unfair on him to let him suffer in this way.

I'm not sure how his brother Brush will fare without him. They were brothers and have been together for all of their lives. At the moment he seems to be okay and Troi, our greyhound, loves Brush and treats him as if he is her baby, so fingers crossed.

At the top is a picture of Sweep on my (also lost) quilt Blue Waves. Sweep had a wonderful life with us and he also provided us with lots of love and purrs. Life will seem a lot more empty without him!