08/26/2026
Today I need to tell you about Zelda. And this is a story I desperately wish I didn’t have to tell.
Our beautiful little calico girl died unexpectedly yesterday.
There is a particular helplessness in losing a newborn kitten when nothing was wrong until suddenly, impossibly, everything was.
We are meticulous with our babies. We weigh them daily, but we watch so much more than the scale: body temperature, latch and suckle, breathing, movement, whether they stay nestled with their littermates, and even the color of their gums, skin, feet and toes. We notice tiny changes because with newborn kittens, tiny changes can matter.
And when something isn’t right, we intervene. We warm. We supplement. We support blood sugar when necessary. We stimulate. We feed. We treat. We stay awake. We watch. We fight for them.
But Zelda gave us no warning.
She was warm. She was nursing. She was gaining. She was beautiful and seemingly healthy.
And then nature took a cruel turn.
I held her while she was still soft and warm and begged her to take another breath. I kept thinking surely this couldn’t actually be happening. Surely if I just kept trying, I could change the ending.
I couldn’t.
That is one of the hardest truths of breeding: sometimes you can do everything right, notice everything there is to notice, have every tool ready and be willing to do absolutely anything—and still lose.
Zelda was only here for a few days. But she was here long enough to be loved.
She was my beautiful little calico girl. She had a name chosen especially for her, a place in The Great Storytellers, and a future I had already begun imagining.
Her story was supposed to be much longer.
Instead, hers became the shortest story in the litter—and the one that has broken my heart the most.
Zelda Fitzgerald
Save Me the Waltz
Our beautiful little storyteller. 💔
Some stories are far too short.
