The story behind the story is this. We made decisions for our cat that affected her life and ours. As hard as it is to take responsibility for what happened to her, it is essential. The main thing is that everything we do and have always done is from a place of love. We do our best to give her as good a life as we can, and we love her. She means the world to both of us.
How did we get to this place of Rosie’s Angels?
When we first decided to get a cat, I researched to find a cat that was not going to trigger my allergies and asthma. That led us to Siberian Forest Cats, and eventually to Rosie. She tested “medium” for Fel d1 protein in her saliva. That was good enough to keep my allergies and asthma to a minimum and we eagerly started the journey to bring her home.
Part of our agreement with the breeder was to feed her a raw meat-based diet. We were armed with all kinds of information and recipes and we truly did our best to prepare a nutritious raw meat-based diet. Rosie hated my “cooking”. HATED it. So, we chose to move to a commercially prepared raw meat-based diet. Again, I researched and checked for recalls and knowledgeable reviews, and eventually narrowed down my top choices. Then hubby and I chose from there. Rosie was happy with our new choices, and thrived. She was healthy, super active, happy, playful, and simply an awesome part of our family.
Our vet at that time was concerned about the diet. I get it. Raw meat is likely never going to be recommended by vets. We compromised and supplemented the raw diet with canned, 50/50. Rosie continued to thrive, although we noticed her energy was not quite as high. She was out of kitten stage by this time, so that didn’t seem unusual.
Rosie was about 6 when we had an issue. Our regular commercial food was sold out and we made a different choice. The new choice had larger pieces of bone (previously the bone was ground up quite fine). A piece of bone got lodged in her back tooth. It caused horrific symptoms and even remembering that now almost two years ago makes me shudder and want to push away from the keyboard so I don’t have to relive that. But it happened. It took several days before we were able to get her in to a new vet clinic (the previous clinic had closed down during Covid). It was a serious conversation, punctuated by my extreme anxiety and emotions. Next came emergency procedures to relieve some of her pain, specialist dental surgeries, antibiotics, pain meds, and a commitment to stop the raw diet completely.
Rosie didn’t tolerate all of these changes so well. The pain meds and antibiotics coupled with a sudden change in her diet resulted in diarrhea and misery for all of us. It didn’t help that hubby and I are not great at administering medications.
I still feel so much guilt and sorrow for putting her through that. I can say it easily enough that we did what we believed was best for her. We continue to do what is best for her. But if I had to do it all over again, I would probably make different choices. I am not getting on a soapbox to promote or defend any particular diet choices for pets. I will trust that Rosie’s vets have the knowledge and training that I am not willing to get.
All of this was happening while I worked on Rosie’s Angels quilt. While Rosie was experiencing those awful symptoms, I sat at my sewing machine. I pieced my blocks with shaky hands, half my attention on my blocks and the other half on Rosie. I did my best to capture her symptoms with my camera each time my hyper-vigilance was alerted to the tiniest sounds or motions she made.
When she ground her teeth and stuck her tongue out, as she tried to dislodge that piece of bone, I felt it almost as keenly as she did – and I was immediately on the phone with the vet clinic. I panicked. My anxiety soared. I was in tears, hands shaking, lightheaded and scattered in my thoughts and words. Hubby did his best to take care of both of us, and we were soon at the clinic.
The anxiety and panic continued as we had to leave Rosie to the surgeon’s care. Back home we went. Back to my sewing machine I went. By now I knew this quilt needed to have a cat theme. And so I put my mind to a different task to try to get through the waiting for news.
Searches on Pinterest, leafing through my patterns, eventually I remembered the cat-themed quilt book that one of my sisters had given me years earlier. I opened it up and found a pattern I could adjust to fit with my keyhole block pattern that we all needed to stick to. I used the keyhole block as the body of my cat and built up the head and tail so that the finished block would fit with the surrounding keyhole blocks. I made a sample using fabrics that were old and thin from age. It took a few tries. Each try brought me a little bit closer. The more I focused on this puzzle, the more I was able to draw off some of the panic and anxiety of waiting for news of Rosie.
As I continued to work on this project, more thoughts and inspiration arrived. I thought of angels and spiritual helpers – I’m not religious but I liberally use bits and pieces from whatever source makes sense to me. In this case, it was angels.
I pulled out the lightest keyhole blocks from my own batch, and remade several with a light, mostly white batik fabric. This felt angelic and ethereal. I mentally drew in the energy of the sun and light and directed it toward each cat block as I stitched the pieces together.
Then I selected a deep blue-green-black batik as the background for each cat. The depth of colour matched the depth of my emotional pain. Just as water can symbolize emotions, this blue-green colour felt like deep watery depths of pain and darkness. Or maybe the deep blue-black of the night sky, where stars pierce the darkness and show the way to somewhere.
Eventually, Rosie’s surgery was completed and she came home to recover. Once again, she was set up in her special place in the sewing room. I was set up at my machine, one eye on my sewing and one eye on her. I was getting to the last part of piecing this quilt together, just as she was on the last part of her healing journey. I put all the blocks on the design wall. Angel cats first, one near the top left corner, as if it is descending from the sky. The next one I placed a little further down on the right side of the quilt. Still a high note on the quilt, a symbol of happy times spent playing with Rosie.
Then the third one, just barely to the left of center. Balanced with the other two, and three seemed like a good number…but the area at the bottom right felt so empty and wrong. The same feelings I have when Rosie isn’t home with me. I had to fill it. I dug back in to my batiks and made a fourth block – this one was just head and shoulders, no tail in sight. This is hope. The tiny head that pops up out of nowhere and says “Surprise! Here I am! Don’t give up!”.
And now the four cats are surrounded by keyhole blocks made by the friends who sew with me on zoom each week, or who I see at guild meetings, UFO days or retreats. There are angels among us, and the threads of our quilting family hold us all together.
When I quilted this, I used a freehand all-over design of loose spirals and circles. These shapes symbolize the circle of life, the uncertainty of what’s next, and the freedom of movement we have with choices. I used a medium blue flannel for the backing. It’s warm and soft and can soak up tears, or kitty drool. As Rosie loses more and more teeth, she does tend to drool when she is super relaxed.
Rosie continues to hold her place of honour in my sewing room. She has a soft bed on the top of a cabinet in the center of the space. She can see me no matter where I am in the sewing space. She can look the other way and see the family room and windows so she can keep an eye on the birds outside. We made it through this awful experience.
Now when I sit down to relax, I pull Rosie’s Angels over my legs and Rosie jumps up and begins to knead the fabric. I brush her fur, she purrs, we both relax and snuggle in, safe in the company of angels.
What I have learned:
- A keyhole block is made of three 2 1/2” squares sewn in a row. A 6 1/2” x 2 1/2” strip is sewn on either side of the center row. Then a 6 1/2” x 2 1/2” strip is sewn on the top and bottom. The block now measures 10 1/2” x 6 1/2”. It’s an easy pattern, super forgiving as there are no major points to match. And of course, there is a video that shows just how easy it is to make. I needed to see Jenny Doan sewing with such joy and abandon while I made this quilt. She reminds me how important it is for quilters to enjoy their creative time.
- A keyhole block can be a centerpiece or a background piece. Choosing the fabrics for each block is an easy way to play with colour and shadow and light. We need all of these in our lives. Shadows for our deepest darkest secret wishes and desires and fears. Light to brighten our days, diminish our fears, and bring hope. And all the colours to bring in all the emotions to play.
- Batiks are an awesome fabric for group projects. I’m not sure how or why, but it really doesn’t matter which fabric colours are chosen – in the end they all mix well together. Just like people. As much as we are different, we all have something valuable to offer each other. We all fit in.
- Although I wonder what would have happened if we had made different choices, it’s too late now to make different choices. There are no good or bad choices – just the next choice.
- Rosie’s teeth will continue to deteriorate. I don’t know if it is because of the diet she had as a kitten, or the diet she had as a growing cat, or the diet she has as an adult. It might be a genetic thing. It might just be the luck of the draw. Whatever the cause, we are now prepared for the rest of her teeth to crumble and need to be removed over the next couple of years. We will continue to make the next choice and the next choice and the next, as life goes on. With each choice we have new information to work with. I can trust my choices, have faith in my good intentions, and hope for the best.
- We are never alone in our suffering or our uncertainty or our joy. There are always angels among us. We may not know where they are, we may not see them, but I know they are there.
- The threads of friendship are strong. Friendships shift and change, come and go, but the times we share together remain touchstones we can look back on and appreciate over and over again.
- And, of course, what I know with every quilt is that quilts are made to comfort. They are strong and soft and are great for cuddling, they soak up tears, they soak up drool (whether it is a kitty drool or a naptime drool!), and they wash well. And they are very good at protecting tender skin when a cat gets into a good kneading session.
