Obi-Wan

Obi’s Obi-Tuary.

May.19/2015 – March.14/2023 🥀💔

I don’t even know how to begin to say goodbye to the cat that stole our hearts, the cat that became apart of our family and everything we did. No matter his trials and tribulations he was the most loving, heart warming, heart healing, a part of our souls and the biggest blessing. I always said he was an angel disguised in a cats body, because Obi didn’t even know what “mean” was, he only knew how to love. And boy did he fill our lives with an insurmountable amount of love.

I remember the first day I saw Obi. I worked at the Grande Prairie SPCA and his mom had been fostered out to be able to have the kittens in a loving, peaceful, quiet environment. Obi and his siblings were born May.19/2015. Around the 4 week mark is when Obi and his siblings were brought back into the SPCA for check ups, a little girl was carrying Obi when they walked through the door and I literally stopped and my jaw dropped. It was love at first cat. Obi wasn’t doing very well and so he needed to be fostered longer which is where I stepped in and immediately was like “I’ll foster him!” 4 months before that we had fostered 3 kittens but I soon found out I wasn’t a good foster parent. I get too attached very quickly and that’s how we wound up with Navi (Obi’s sister from another mister) she was a failed foster. Obi came home with us and never left, but I knew the moment I saw him he was going to be mine forever.. even though I said I was going to “foster” him. Obi was sick from the get-go whether it was the fact that he was weaned from his mom too early or didn’t have good genetics, he just never had a break. He ended up being roughly a $20,000-$25,000 cat due to all of the vet bills we endured over his life. We first started noticing Obi having issues when he was constantly hungry, and he would eat and then vomit everything up even kitten formula, one day he actually vomited up a round worm and his stomach never really recovered from having worms. He had severe gastro issues and there was a time where he was literally in the vets once a month for probably half of his life. We went through countless amounts of food until we finally found one that worked and one he could keep down. He was also a cryptorchid which means only one testicle dropped and so surgery to neuter him was quite a bit more expensive. It wasn’t just snip and suture, it was snip/suture and then go through the stomach to get the other. Obi was an indoor outdoor cat, so he would go out during the day (except winter months) and then we always made sure he was in before the sun went down. One day Obi came home with his eyelid sliced down to his cheek bone (no idea how this happened) so off to the vets (regular occurrence at this point) we go to get his eyelid sewn up, the stitch was in for about a week before it came out and Obi had to go back to get it sewn up again. Heart failure and kidney failure was what took him downhill in the end, I had to give him 3 types of medicine every single day, and he fought so hard. We fought hard and he fought hard, I don’t know any other cat that would come running towards me when I would shake his heart meds. Most cats would run away, but the cat didn’t have a mean bone in his body and as long as you were giving him attention (even if it wasn’t the nicest attention like shoving meds down his throat) he would gladly allow it. I always gave him treats after to sweeten the deal and tell him he was the goodest boy ever!

Obi was apart of all of our major life changes —except for when we got married but he was born almost exactly a year later to the day. But he was apart of our big move back to Vernon from GP, Marley’s birth, Lennon’s birth and then our move out to Lumby.

Obi wasn’t just called Obi, the cat had an insane amount of nicknames some don’t make any sense but I suppose that’s how nicknames are. So… to my Obi, Dasobi, otter man, sweet Angel man, Obi-Wan, yasher-do, yasher-Obi, crasher-cru, Midnight man, Dasobi noodles, Fooman Chooman, bean boy, nice boy, nice belly man, Jedi-man, fluff head, crinkle boy, bell boy….. We will forever miss everything about you. Your annoying meow (which was like something you’ve never heard before), giving you brushes, your adorable cat breath (or just his smell in general) your adorable little feet’s, I’ll miss your insanely long whiskers and the most perfect markings/fur, the way you would chase the light reflection from my phone, whenever I would call you you’d come right over, his beautiful Jade coloured eyes, I’ll miss you laying on my chest all night or laying on our bag of chips, the first one to greet us when we came home, your endless love and affection, mister had to be involved in every single thing, the cat that would just sit there when you gave him a bath, when you’d lay on your back and hold your front paws like a little otter, I will even miss your fluffs of hair everywhere. I’ll miss the way you’d try so hard to cuddle with the dogs, inching closer and closer hoping they wouldn’t notice, I’ll miss you spooning with us in bed, and how you’d sleep right in the middle of mine and Brandon’s pillow (usually Brandon would have a mouthful of Obi’s tail in his face), I’ll miss you laying on all of our clean folded laundry and Brandon’s hockey bag, I’ll miss your head butts and the worlds loudest purr, I’ll miss you climbing on my chest and attacking my floss when I would floss my teeth,
I’ll miss the fact that even though you were free fed you always wanted us to carry you to your food (he was the baby that never stopped being a baby). I don’t think there will be a day that goes by that I don’t think of you, long for you or ever stop loving you.

I truly believe Obi was apart of our soul, and this is why the hurt/pain is so bad because now a part of our soul… a part of our heart is missing. There’s such a huge void at home and it’s not really my favorite place to be right now.. I look for him in his usual spots and he’s not there, I go to call him and realize I can’t, I cry 15 million times a day and my chest/heart aches and burns. Numbness and nausea has kicked in and this has totally rocked our world and not in a good way. I may be more expressive and vocal in how I’m feeling in regards to our loss, but Brandon is feeling the exact same way and so knowing I’m not alone in how I’m feeling helps a little bit. — We lost our sweet Navi 11 months before losing Obi and we never got over that heart ache before we had to go through it again, we never ended up finding out what happened to Navi but I can only hope she’s in a loving home somewhere, or her and Obi are finally reunited. I can’t help but feel like heartbreak was the beginning of his heart issues.—

In the last week and last few days of Obi’s life he had really started to shutdown, I would have to hand feed him to get him to eat and bring him to his water. He became extremely skinny and lethargic, he mostly just slept at the end. I was at the pet food store daily just trying to find something he would want to eat. On his 2nd last day he hadn’t eaten in 2 days and stopped drinking so we brought him to the vet, did a bunch of blood work, testing, gave him fluids and was given an anti nausea pill and an appetite pill. We got to bring him home but sadly there was no turn around and the next day his breathing changed, I could tell he was struggling to breathe. I sent in a couple videos of his breathing to our vet and she immediately called me and told me he needed to come back. So we took Obi back to the vets and I get a phone call about an hour later where our vet told us his lungs were filling with fluid and that she was going to give him a diuretic to see if we could help it drain out, if that didn’t work then that’s when we were told we would probably have to euthanize him. I’m telling you… when you get told information like that it feels like your world closes in on you and you can’t breathe.

We go to the vet hoping for a turn around and unfortunately there was no sign of improvement. When I tell you we literally exhausted every option… we really did. There wasn’t anything else we could try it didn’t matter how much money we spent on trying; and we were more than willing to spend the money if it meant saving him. But seeing him gasping for air and hardly able to move, not able to get comfortable in any position and extremely restless… I knew it in my heart it was time to let go. If we hadn’t humanely euthanized Obi he would have died shortly after at home most likely drowning from the fluid in his lungs. Obi died in my arms which is how I wanted it to be, and when he took his last breath all I could do was sob. I sobbed so hard it sounded guttural and I’m pretty sure the entire clinic heard me, all I could say is “I love you, I love you, I love you so much and I’ll never stop.” By far this has been the hardest thing we’ve ever gone through as a family, we’ve all been experiencing the worst heart break and agony and we really don’t know how to do life without him…. Although I guess we already are. The 2nd hardest thing was bringing Obi home in an urn… it’s Earth shattering. It’s only been a week today and yet somehow it feels like an eternity that he’s been gone, it’s the weirdest feeling.

Honouring our sweet Obi I made a slideshow of some of our favorite and most treasured memories, if you take the time out of your day to watch the 20 minute slideshow you will get a glimpse into how much he meant to us. How hard we loved him and how hard he loved us back. I also want to thank those of you who take the time to watch it, you might hear me call him Max a couple times but that was his SPCA name before we adopted him. Losing your heart cat is an indescribable pain and I would never ever wish this feeling on anybody, but know if you also are going through this I understand how you feel and please reach out. As I said I will be joining a support group for people grieving their pets. I’m also honouring Obi by getting a necklace made with some of his Ashes so I can have him everywhere with me and getting a tattoo of him on April 1st.

Rest in Peace our precious Angel boy. Forever one with the Force, and forever and ever and ever in our hearts. I love you with every ounce of my soul, you’re my first thought when I wake and my last thought when I sleep. And I will never let your memory fade…. Forever our Obi.

“Grief… I had my notions of grief.. I thought it was a sad time that follows the loss of someone you love and you had to push through it to get to the other side. But I’m learning there is no other side, there is no pushing through. Rather there is absorption, acceptance and understanding. Grief is not something you complete you endure it, grief is not a task to finish and move on it becomes an element of yourself. An alteration of your being, a new way of seeing and a new definition of the world you live in. If you love something love it completely, cherish it, say it out loud and most important show it every single day. Life is short and fragile and just because something is here today does not mean it will be with you tomorrow. Never take your loved ones for granted, say what you need to say, then say it a little more, say it too much, show it too much, love too much. Everything is temporary but love.. love outlives us all”