SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days

The Reason For Glaedr

I change my handle too much, but think I've settled on three or four recognizable ones. I know it confuses some people who don't remember me and they have to hover and/or click to see. I really am just bored and having fun because it expresses how I feel.

I'm flyboy now, I'll be glaerdrfly later, or just glaedr. Or when I am missing the little orange kitten that died in our arms a year ago, I might have a message for the little guy. He was our hero.

Our 13-year-old cat Pele took ill about a month after we adopted Glaedr, named by my son after a dragon of the same color in the Christopher Paollini book Eragon. Pele was on death's door. We could only imagine why she suddenly took ill at her advanced age. After surgery and removal of a small obstruction, we waited.

Glaedr sat by her and purred every night. I learned that's how cats cure themselves. Pele would not take food. It was an ordeal. Maybe, we missed the signs but Glaedr became more ill as his big sister recovered. When we noticed the little guy would just sit on the floor next to the radiator and do nothing, we worried. More veterinary intervention was needed and they could only assume he had contracted a rare disease.

Glaedr came home with us. We had a decision to make. He made it for us. All four of us cuddled with him New Year's Eve. He was as small and gaunt as ever, but as beautiful as the day we picked him up at the no-kill shelter. And shortly after he made it into 2013, he took his last breath in my wife's arms. The children sobbed. We all had tears in our eyes. This miracle of a cat gave us all a second chance with Pele before passing on to greater things.

Glaedr leaves us behind, but we will never forget the brave, selfless love for his big sister who is with us and has two new kittens (Mohawk & Carmella) to play with each day.

(Tears streaming down my damn eyes when I wrote this. Now I've got to change my handle again.)