Jayden and Sila...14 years, 16 days together...with me
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Jayden and Sila had great lives. Here they are a few years back at Garfield Avenue manor...
They arrived from Georgia on July 1, 2005. There was a special on CNN with Anderson Cooper how troops being deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq were losing their pets, and the pets would be destroyed...in horrible fashion in a group gas chamber.
The woman on Anderson Cooper was from Animal Control in a region down there. Every year on July 1 I would send pictures... we maintained a friendship. The rescue of Sila and Jayden was very special. Animal control worked hard to find homes for the pets...but the "higher ups" at the high kill shelter had no such compassion....they murdered 33 of the cats that were waiting for adoption right after Jayden and Sila departed, maybe June 28 or 29...behind the backs of the animal control officers...
Sila and Jayden got out in the nick of time and traveled north.
Animal rescue is an interesting thing. You get level-headed people with a heart, and you get crazies. Well, a "crazy" drove the "kitty underground" and she leaves my babies and the other cats she was transporting in a house with 50 other cats en route to Massachusetts. So of course our flea-less cats came up here totally drenched in fleas.
But without the crazy lady (demanding money, of course) we wouldn't have been able to get the kitties here ...
July 7, 2005 my little Duffy from Woburn (by way of New Jersey) had a heart attack and died, six days after Sila and Jayden arrived. His little heart was beating faster and my partner and I knew it was a matter of time, but they all got love, a roof over their heads, and lots of food...and lots of love.
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Last Monday Jayden jumped up on my chest at about 2:30 in the afternoon. She was hugging me, clinging to me. I knew the end was near, but the old gal still had some spunk in her. Driving back and forth from the kitty hospitals is an ordeal, especially because one is concerned on how his babies are doing. They both bounced back around July 1, 2019 with some water under the skin, electrolytes ...but Sila had cancer, and the cancer was draining her fluids. She was running around after July 1 but by Jo Jo Laine's birthday, July 13th, she was resting under the bed.
I came back last Monday night, July 15, and crashed in the living room. When I awoke I thought it was 3 AM, didn't know where I was, exhaustion had come upon me. It was 11:30 pm or so. Went into the bedroom, Sila was there, breathing but not moving around, Jayden, however, looked like she was going to breathe her final breaths.
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What do you do with your furry children? I could have let Jayden pass away under the bed, but wanted her comfortable. I called the ASPCA in Boston. They said the trip was too far and suggested the hospital in Woburn. We had been there before with Tiger in 2010. I gave them a call. They said to come up. They still had our records from 9 years ago when Tiger passed away. The doctor was amazing. We arrived around 12:30 am but had to wait in the examination room. Tiger was about 4 rooms up...Jeff and I helping our little Tiger into the universe. So here I am again.
"Could you give her some gas to put her to sleep." The doctor agreed. Jayden could have been 19 years of age, she was at least sixteen - and very needy the entire time we had her. I imagined some soldier left her behind, and Jayden would get friendly with everyone. She loved Jeff and would jump on him in his chair...Sila just a wonderful love.
Jayden at doctor's office a few years back
The doctor said that she had a crib where the gas could be administered. I gave her permission, Jayden so old she had no veins to find, but boy was she spirited almost right up to the end. At 2:30 pm in the afternoon she jumped up on the chair and got on my chest, at 11:30 pm at night it looked like she was drifting into a coma. The spirited little girl was now resting in a box on a blanket. I stroked her head and told her how much I loved her.
When they called me into the surgery room the doctor had a little gas mask on Jayden. She went to sleep and the wonderful doctor, the so kind and caring doctor administered the final shot and Jayden passed on within about ten seconds.
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They were both scheduled to see the regular doctor at 1 PM on Tuesday, the 16th. So I put Sila in the same box as Jayden, twelve hours later, and I knew in my heart this would not be a check-up. Both gals were not bouncing back like they did two weeks before.
The doctor made it clear, the cancer was taking her fluids. That's the tough choice we have to make. The two girls came up here from Georgia July 1, 2005, their incredible journey. I picked them up in Connecticut from a wonderful rescue lady, we are all in touch today. The rescue feeling the loss just as I did. Every year I would send photos on July 1 to the people who helped them with their journey, fourteen years of friendship and the big success story.
The doctor gave Sila propofol or whatever, I think it was the Michael Jackson drug. Sila nodded off quickly. And like Jayden twelve hours before, the final shot took about ten seconds.
The girls are being cremated together.
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It's 10 pm a week later. I was fast asleep three hours and forty-five minutes before sending Jayden on to her next journey. Why am I at peace? I supervised my babies having a very peaceful passing. Both of them. They would not have made it through the heatwave of this past weekend, Jayden wasn't going to make it through the night. Both doctors were so caring, so superb, that the sense of loss is mitigated by the peaceful passing of both older girls. Sila was about 14.9 or 15 years old, Jayden, as stated above, could have been as old as nineteen.
They were loved, and they had a wonderful life.
jayden
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Post script: the woman who met me in Connecticut called and asked if I could rescue three dogs. I had to meet her at the rendezvous point in Connecticut and drive the doggies up Route 495 to New Hampshire. There they would be transported to a no kill shelter in Maine. The dogs were amazing, I fell in love with all three of them. Two sisters (brown) and this amazing, angelic white dog. Who could let these precious souls get away? What amazing doggies, what amazing work. People who care working hard to give pets good lives and get them out of danger. It was an honor to do my part.
