Your Moment Of Cat

And a break from the ongoing Ukraine coverage. The Dish is biased as a dog blog, but we want to be balanced as well. So here’s Whitney Erin Boesel, who waxes philosophical about her best feline friend:

I overdocument my cat because it’s (sort of) easy; because I love her; because she’s pretty and the Internet rewards me with Attention Points™ for doing so. But I also overdocument my cat because I simultaneously accept and dread her mortality. I take too many pictures now because I can, and because I know that, eventually, I won’t be able to take any. I overdocument my cat, and then with each new health scare I really overdocument my cat—as if by preserving so many images of her, I can somehow preserve the creature herself. …

Yes, I will be glad for these pictures years down the line, even though I will not need them to remember what my cat looked like; yes, oftentimes pictures of my cat get used in my communications, or as communications in their own right. In the back of my mind though, in the place where magical thinking lives, I’m not just trying to share a moment or to freeze a moment in time; I’m actively trying to prevent time’s progression, trying to anchor and pin down the present so that it cannot slide into the future.

Shortly after we spotted Boesel’s essay, a reader happened to write:

I should have renewed my founding membership earlier last week, but finally got it done today.  The plus side is that by opting for the monthly option, I could increase my support on a cash-flow friendly basis for a self-employed person with a retired (if not legally recognized where we live) husband.  I originally subscribed last year for $31, representing the number of years that he and I had then been together.  This year I did $54 for the year divided monthly into $4.50. This represents the 33 years that we will have been together later this year, plus 21 to honor the age of our beloved Cosmo, who we had to let go to sleepforever on January 27.

It seemed an appropriate way to honor him, since you and your reader’s sharing of their stories of having to let their pets go was very helpful in knowing that the time had come that day.  By then, he hadreached 101 in cat years, celebrating his 100th birthday last September. We, of course, had a nice celebration for his 100th and I have included a picture of him eating tuna on his big day (he usually had to eat special food from the vet) and another picture that greets me whenever I open my cell phone.

Below are many more stories from cat owners collected from the in-tray:

Your “Broadcasting Bereavement” and “Last Lesson we Learn from Our Pets” posts have been an absolute godsend to me in the last 24 hours. I unexpectedly had to put my 12-year-old Torbie cat to rest after finding out Friday morning she had Pancreatitis and a large mass on her liver. She had stopped eating for 2 days and had been vomiting foam for 24 hours.

I held her in my arms as the vet administered the final push of liquid through the tube attached to her little, striped leg. I felt her grow heavy in my arms and am so glad I was there with her, holding her close for her final breaths. I felt so guilty having had given her a death sentence (it’s hard for me to even swat a fly), but after remembering what you were going through with Dusty, I visited the “Last Lesson” thread and read it over and over. I’m not saying it made the pain and grief go away, but it sure as hell made me feel a whole lot better. I know now what I gave Shanks (my cat) was a gift – a gift of dying peacefully and with dignity. I loved her so much, but I have faith that she is now somewhere comfortable and at rest.

Another:

I carefully followed that thread throughout the summer, and I happened to be in a Texas golf resort bar (not at all my usual type of place) when I read your post about the loss of Dusty. Within three weeks my wife and I were at the vet’s office saying goodbye to our 12-year-old cat, shocked after having to make the decision much quicker than we’d expected. When the time came to let her go, I remembered your posts, and the procedure happened much as you and several of your readers had described. Since I knew what to expect I was able to be more present during our pet’s last moments. Thanks to you and your readers for that.

Another:

I got my first cat in 1992 when I had just started my first year of law school.  She had already belonged to another law student through her three years, but that woman was going to New Zealand after graduation and didn’t want to quarantine her cat.  I took her in and she became my one steady companion through the most tumultuous years of my life.  She saw me through law school.  She saw me through a very difficult relationship and break-up during law school. She saw me through the two years following law school when I had to move back in with my parents because I couldn’t find a job.  She moved with me down to Charlotte where I started my legal career in 1997.  She was with me when I met my future wife in 1999.

She saved my life many times.  But she didn’t make it to my marriage.  She had lung cancer and her lungs would fill with fluids, making it very hard for her to breathe. We could drain them, but the frequency was increasing.  On the night before our engagement party, I decided she had had enough, so I took her to the vet to let her go.  It was the hardest thing I have ever done.  I’ve had other cats since, but I miss her every day.

Another:

Just two weeks ago, my now 19-year-old son told me in the car while running errands that he can now finally talk about his cat George. George was euthanized four years ago. We spared no expense in trying to prolong his life. After sending George to countless feline specialists and getting a diagnosis that his lungs were filling with fluid, idiopathic in nature, we knew it was time to let George go.

This came a four months after our beloved Weimaraner Fritz was diagnosed with bone cancer. We opted for amputation as a palliative measure for Fritz because he was so fit and healthy. Six weeks after we euthanized sweet George, Fritz became paralyzed. It was clear the cancer had spread. It was early on a Monday morning, when he awoke whining and desperate. We took Fritz to our vet immediately – and as a family we let him go as we did for sweet George. So, we lost our two beloved pets within six weeks of one another.

My son told me in that car ride two weeks ago that it has taken him this long to be able to even speak about George and that he doesn’t yet know if he will ever fill that void that George’s death left in him. I’ve attached a photo of George nursing our kitten, Mira. Yes, our male cat nursed our kitten for two years! He was a very special cat indeed.

Another:

Your Dusty died about the time one of our cats was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We had to euthanize him (Thomas Merton) last week. I’m not surprised that you aren’t read to dispose of Dusty’s ashes. We have two small urns on a bookcase upstairs and Merton’s will soon join them.

I’m an Episcopal priest, and I see something of the same thing with family members dealing with the deaths of their loved ones. Sometimes those who die are closely tied to the places where they lived. Perhaps their roots go back generations. I have buried bodies and interred ashes of people who had left their hometowns decades ago but wanted to return for their final resting place. Other people, other families have no such ties, no such roots. For them, the idea that a body or ashes are tied to a particular spot is itself a barrier to coming to terms with death. Having no particular home in life for them to think of a permanent resting place is, I suspect, a frightful burden.

One more:

I had a great cat, and when he became so sick from kidney failure at the age of 14, I had to have him put to sleep (this is term I grew up with; we never said “put down.”). Holding Roscoe as the drugs extinguished his life, something occurred to me.  I was struck by how EASY it is to take a life. All this shit about the power of our will to live and the strength of the human spirit is nonsense. Stick an IV into a vein and death comes in moments. No trauma, not writhing; just the flip of a switch. The experience reminded me just how tenuous our hold on life is. There’s no difference whatsoever between how my cat went and how someone I love might go.

In fact, watching my cat succumb to the drugs, I thought of my parents’ deaths. My mom dropped dead in the backyard when I was 8, from a brain hemorrhage. Boy, did she love life, and how valiantly she would have fought to remain on hand to care for her kids. And yet when that blood vessel burst, she was GONE. My dad dropped dead from a massive heart attack some years later (but still way too soon; in his fifties). He was a force of nature, that man – but it didn’t do him any good when his heart suddenly stopped. I’d forgotten much of what I felt when my parents died – the feeling of utter helplessness against the shovel fate swings to the back of our head – until I had to put Roscoe to sleep. Ever since then, I really do try to remember how quickly our lives – our world, the whole universe – can end.

Fortunately, I also take comfort from the fact that when my moment arrives, it’ll likely happen fast, and I probably won’t even see it coming. You know the phrase, “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.”? You can apply that to our entire existence.

Update from a reader:

Goddammit Andrew! Your blog is the only place on the Internet where a post with the word “cat” in the headline that can leave me in tears considering my ephemeral existence …

On that note:

I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I stopped by the Dish and found the thread about cats. I couldn’t help it. I had to tell you my cat story.

In 2001, our 10-year-old son, Max, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a very aggressive childhood cancer. In late 2002 we got two new kittens, Kishka and Gingey, after losing Max’s beloved cat, Tinkerbelle, to a sudden bout of liver disease. We took the new kitties to the vet for their shots. As we were leaving the exam room, Max decided to check out the cats waiting their turn with the vet. He walked over to one carrier and peered inside. My kittens were getting skitterish and so I said, “Max, we gotta go.”

The owner of the cat, said, “Your name is Max? So is his!” pointing to the grey tabby in his carrier. Max asked the owner if the cat was okay. The owner responded that his cat had cancer. Max sat for a minute, took off his baseball cap to reveal his bald head, and leaned down to the carrier and said, “Hi Max! I’m Max too! And I have cancer too! You have to fight it … just like I am fighting it. I’m gonna beat it and so will you.” He stuck a finger through door, gave the kitty a quick scratch on the head, and followed me out the door. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the waiting room.

Six years later, as my son lay in his own bed, dying from his cancer, his cat Gingey climbed up on the bed and wouldn’t let anyone touch Max. He was there for just a minute. But we all understood that this was his time to be with his best buddy. He soon jumped down and left the room. After Max passed, as we waited for the funeral home worker to arrive, Gingey and our other two felines came into the room and sat at the foot of the bed. They didn’t move. They just sat there. A few minutes later they walked out. It was almost as if they knew Max was gone and they just wanted to pay their respects.

Here is a picture of Max and his best friend, Gingey, taken about four months before Max died. Gingey is still with us and we love him very much.