I am very sad to say that my cat Scarlett has passed away. She passed away about a week ago, but my mother wanted to tell me in person (I am home for fall break). She had been suffering from stomach problems for some time and her health had started to deteriorate. She spent her last few days being held by someone 24/7, and drifted away while being spoonfed in my mother's arms. As much as it hurts me to have been so close to seeing her one last time, it is comforting to know that she was well loved in those final hours. We think she was much older than we thought when we took her in.

She had a rough start to life, but I'm glad I got to make the other half of it as good as I could. Her old owners had declawed her (not well - she had pain in her paws a lot) and had kicked her out of their house when they got furniture redone. My neighbor was doing their furniture and saw her. When the owners said they were going to shoot her my neighbor took her away and she snuck out to our porch. She was covered in fleas and ticks, her whiskers had been burnt off, and her tail had broken at the base and never healed right (it twitched all the time - still don't know why).

But I was crying on the porch - a bunny had actually just passed away - and this cat came up and sat in my lap. My mother is a very religious person, and she honestly believes God sent her to us.

In the last year she had gone blind and lost a lot of weight. The vets weren't sure what was wrong, we spent lots of time holding her and feeding her lots of yummy wet food and chicken livers. In her last days she got baby food and anything she would eat (basically she got spoiled!).

My mother let her sit in my room a few days and stored her away with a teddy bear in her arms and wrapped up in blankets - I got to hold her and kiss her one last time when I got home. She will be cremated, and I have her collar on my wrist all the time expect for when I'm sleeping. We're looking in to getting one of those cuddle clones made of her (the plush ones, not real!!), I just hope we have enough pictures.

Our older cat Louie is taking it very hard. He used to spend all his time downstairs and now he doesn't want to go down there. I think he was honestly guarding her and now has no reason to be down there. He wants to spend all his time in my room and is being very affectionate. He is getting on in years (he's 15) so I hope he is able to overcome it soon. I couldn't bear for something to happen to him.

In better news, some of you know I live in the coastal region of NC. We have been hit very hard by Matthew. We are okay, we have a lot of trees down and one that may pose a bit of a threat to the house, but otherwise we are okay.