Rest in Peace

One of Six-Pack's kittens died tonight.

I'm not sure what happened, exactly. Six has been busy moving her kittens around a bunch, lately. We'd had a maternity box set up downstairs in the laundry room (the same one Flea-Byte and Mystery had their kittens in), but Six gave birth under a chair up here in the living room, and she's been determined to take all three of them back upstairs. For the past couple of days, she's been living in the corner under the easy chair.

Tonight we caught her transporting her litter under our bed. This was clearly unacceptable, so I gently reached under and scooped up the kitten she'd just brought in. It was cold to the touch, but it was still moving about, so I figured it had just gotten too chilly because some of the windows were open. It was the smallest of the three, obviously the runt of the litter, and it was making movements like it wanted to cry, but it was too weak to make any sounds. We tried feeding it some milk in a medicine dropper, but it was too weak to eat. It died in my arms.

I don't really know why it died. Maybe Six inadvertantly handled it too roughly when she moved it, or maybe it was just too small and weak to make it. The kittens have only been around for a week or so, and this household has already gone through three other litters this year, so I wasn't really attached to it on a personal level. I still can't help but be pretty upset over this, though. Natural life cycle or not, I hate watching things die.

Runt, the little white kitten who's the last remaining one from Plank's litter, could have easily met the same fate. He was weak and tiny when he was born, looking underdeveloped, like he hadn't quite been ready to be born when he was. We cared for him and bottle-fed him, later making sure the three available mom cats were all taking turns nursing him after they'd come to accept him, and always stopped the bigger, stronger cats from picking on him or pushing him away during feeding time. Now, we've found homes for all the kittens from that batch except for him, and I've come to love him so much that I can't stand the thought of giving him away. He's such a sweet little thing. He mews for me, follows me down the hallway, and grabs onto my leg. Already, he recognizes that I'm one of the caretakers. He's had eye infections and litterbox training issues, but it's so easy to overlook that. I hate to think what would have happened if we hadn't stepped in and helped him.

We let Six say goodbye before we buried her little one, right next to Crosswise. She meowed at it and licked it and meowed some more, and then thought nothing more of it. Actually, I can't say that with certainty. I have no idea what goes on inside her head. We put her back down in the maternity box with her remaining two kittens and closed the door. She's turned into a very domesticated cat, and loves getting pets and attention, so I feel bad for relegating her to the downstairs. She's crying to be let out even as I write this. I recognize that I'm overcompensating, after the fact, for past events that I had absolutely no control over. I guess it's just what people do.