Hello, friends. It's me, the author.
Yesterday afternoon, Maya -- my favourite little kitty in the whole entire world, and the original Winnipeg Cat model -- passed away at the age of ten, following an extended period of severe acute feline pancreatitis.
The disease progressed very rapidly over the past week or so, which I'm trying to tell myself is all for the best; artificially prolonging her life wouldn't have accomplished anything very positive, she maintained a very high quality of life almost to the very end, and she was able to slip away quietly with a minimum of suffering.
I want to take this time to thank Dr. Alison Litchfield and all of the staff at Dakota Veterinary Hospital for their efforts, their support, and their kindness throughout.
The other reason that I've decided to wrap this blog up is that, soon enough, I won't be here to do it. Two days ago I received and accepted a job offer that will move me to Air Ronge, located along the west shore of Lac La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan.
I'm incredibly excited to be moving there and to serve as the Library Consultant for the Pahkisimon Nuye-ah Library System, which represents and supports fifty-six libraries across thirty-eight northern communities. But leaving is difficult, as it always is; Winnipeg has been a major piece of my identity, right to the core of who I am, for a very long time. (Even aside from the hundreds and thousands of posts on this blog, I mean.)
My new employment begins April 4th of this year, which means I'll remain in town for another month or so, but this site wouldn't be well served by my lingering; an author who no longer lives here ghostwriting a cat who no longer lives at all wouldn't make for particularly compelling content.
So this is the end, and I want to thank you for being here with me. I'm immensely appreciative and deeply gratified that so many of you have been willing to read 1,765 posts of nearly-identical cat pictures over these past four years and three months. Some of them were better than others -- which you'd expect with seventeen hundred of anything, I suppose -- but I hope you'll remember some particular favourites you've enjoyed over the years, and I've been glad for each and every day that you found them all worth coming back for.
This concludes Winnipeg Cat. Thank you for reading.
Maya
March 23, 2003 - February 26, 2014
