Ivy wrote:
> Our cat Angus became ill on Friday night with a urinary infection. We
> hoped that he was getting better but sadly he passed away yesterday.
> Angus was 17 years old. His infection was clearing up and the results
> of a blood test looked hopeful but the illnesses he had, we think,
> just became too much for him. He had cysts (which didn't trouble him),
> a heart murmur, and he was coughing a great deal during the last two
> weeks of his life. Yesterday early in the morning he woke up in a
> state and we called the vet. Sadly before she could arrive he died of
> heart failure. There wasn't much the vets could do given his age and
> his heart murmur.
There is a school of reaction that I have encountered: "Oh, it's only an
effin' cat, big deal." There's less of this horrid reaction when a dog
dies because dogs are thought of as having personalities. People who
disprize cats that way...I picture them ending up like Mussolini on the
phone wires after the Communist partisans got him.
I have "owned" or lived with two cats (among several) who died before
their time. I have written about them both, I believe even here.
Miles, my little black cat, was named for another "Black cat," Miles
Davis. A funny, troublemaking part-Siamese little (6 lb) monster who
ran ragged my original cat, Pushkin, who despite the name is a female.
Miles created hiding places, could dodge around the dog, and was the
resident food reviewer. If he did not like the food he stood in the
middle of the floor, looked and me, and brayed.
June 22, 2002, I took him for a routine checkup to the vet, who said
"This cat has lost a whole pound in a year, something is wrong." He
drew blood, told me something was amiss with his liver enzymes, and to
bring him back Tuesday for x-rays and potentially a ruinously expensive
surgery. When I called the vet on Tuesday afternoon he said it was very
bad, he'd done the x-ray but could not open Miles up because the cat
would not have survived. Miles had a malignant tumor wrapped around his
liver. It was eating him. Either way he was doomed. That night we had
him euthanized. Right, lethal injection of barbiturates. The other
cats, who know smells, were distraught. Pushkin, especially, who was
Miles' surrogate mom, girlfriend, and play-fighting buddy, was furious.
How "furious"? When the cat smells your hands, screeches, and then rips
your arm it's a pretty fair sign she's entering her own form of grieving
period beginning with anger. Do domestic animals have a concept of death?
Miles could not be replaced, but was substituted for a few weeks later.
The "new" cat is wonderful in his own way. I call him Tolstoy. An
exotic sand-colored part-Abyssianian. I didn't call him Chekhov because
I didn't feel like dealing with jokes about "Vare are the wessels?"
Two years later, January 10, 2004, Macy, the dominant female in the
reconstituted Gang of Four, got sick on Saturday afternoon. My S.O.
took her to the vet on Sunday. Kidney failure: complete and
irreversible. She was scheduled to have "a day" resting in the animal
hospital, and then be put down. Instead she died at 3 PM on Monday,
January 12, 2004, on her own. The other cats, when they figured it out
(sniffed the carrying box and towel inside), did not seem bereft of a
friend as they did with Miles. The other cats loved Miles. But none of
them liked Macy. Isn't that awful? I loved her, however--she was
what's known as a "groping cat," aka Moby Cat (she was snow-white and
about 17 pounds), and she loved me in particularly to knead her gut.
Macy the Swedish Massage Kitty....
Devastation is an appropriate feeling. My original cat Pushkin got me
through the first winter after my separation. She's now about 15, and I
know I need to enjoy every moment with her.
Animals have healing properties. No wonder services cats and dogs with
the right personalities are set to work in hospices and hospitals. They
comfort us, they are companions. At their end it is no wonder we grieve
them. The grief passes but not the remembrance. They leave the joy. I
feel like I'm writing greeting card verses, but it's true. Animals ask
nothing of us but food and (for dogs) walks. They give back much more.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
W.H. Auden
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