I don’t cry very often but when I do the tears start by coming out the sides of my eyes, run past my ears and my jaw, down my neck,  kinda like sweat.  It’s not until I’m really bawling that the front of my face gets soaked and my nose is running.

Once that happens, that’s when I know I’m fucked up.

My cat is dying.  She’s seventeen or eighteen years old.  Her kidneys are in an irreversible state of atrophy.

She’s old and all stove up.

Her coat is matted.  She doesn’t groom much these days.

I pet her and there are clumps.

I guess she can’t reach anymore.

Otherwise she’s still rabbit soft.

She’s a spectacularly patterned calico with huge eyes even for a cat.  Gold or green depending on kelvin temperature or her mood ring head.  Those big eyes sit a little deeper than they used too.  Despite very old bones, she walks the apartment with dignity.  Always regal but those eyes are a little confused of late.

She’s never been sweet or loving.

She’s always been cranky and particular.

I adore her.

Her name is Swirly and she’s gorgeous.

She weighs about nine pounds.

Down from twelve.

Like I said, she’s not sweet.

She can actually be a little cunty.

She happened upon me during my salad days so I’m not exactly sure how old she is.  I’ve been her dad forever. She came to the warehouse as a kitten and started visiting my office and sleeping in my chair when I was gone for the day so I became her dad.  I bought her food and scooped her box.  Took her to the vet.

When I got to work back in the day, I’d drop my Starbucks and backpack in my office and head out to the warehouse where she was always waiting to announce her self from various corners and elevations.

She would say my name.

I would go to her, say her name and rub her face and chin.

When I left that job I took her with me.

She’s lived with me in seven different places and in two states.  Over a thousand miles in my car.

Now I come home and she’s bathing in the sun coming through the sliding glass door.

I always stop to watch her breathe.

To make sure she’s breathing.

She doesn’t like the new low protein food for senior kitties in the beginning stages of renal failure.  She did at first. Now she won’t eat it.  She wants the fast food. Fancy Feast and Sheba.  She hoovers that shit and ignores the food that will prolong her life.  She doesn’t have many teeth left so I always get the kind with gravy. She’s not big on fish or seafood.

She gets dehydrated and bound up so she can’t poop.  We take her for an enema.  We have an aircraft carrier sized sectional that she owns about one quarter of.  A blue camping tarp half way between the east and west wings of it that we put the puppy pads on. She does her business there as exclusively as she can.  She lost interest in the litter box some time back.  We have a deal.  It helps me to monitor her progress.

She still likes to piss on whatever is on the bathroom floor.

The worst part is dosing her.  The irregularity regimen.  Holding her down, holding her head, prying her jaw open to squirt two different medicines down her throat from syringes.  She hates it and so do we.  It takes two of us.  I feel really bad when I miss or it spills out of her mouth because she can’t deal with it just then.

She gets a stay from the dosing for a day every time she bequeaths a turd with any heft.

Someday soon I’ll be holding her while she dies or after she’s dead.

One way or another it’s coming.

I’ve known her for a very long time and I’m watching the end of her life and she seems to know all about it.

Maybe the best and worst parts of people animal relationships is that we can’t actually explain things to each other.  We talk.  We communicate.  But we’re never sure how thorough we are being with each other.

Maybe that’s best.

Her end might be up to me.  It could be my decision.   I’m agnostic.  No “Rainbow Bridge” for me.  I hear they will come to your house now.  Home pet euthanasia. I’m pretty confused but I imagine that will be the most comfortable way for both of us.

She hangs a little closer these days.

These days she flops at my feet while I’m at the computer.  These days she doesn’t always look me straight in the eye and hiss when I pick her up to kiss her voluptuous head.  These days she seems to finally appreciate the comfort of love and affection while realizing it has nothing to do with her dignity.

We’re getting to know each other better.

She’s still beautiful and she talks more than she used to.

I’m her dad.

I’ll remember her sleeping.

Snoring.

This one is gonna hurt.

EPILOGUE:

She was just here, at my feet this very morning. The Swirl Swirl Girl Girl.  I followed her from water bowl to water bowl for an hour.  She would stand, dip her head to drink but never actually drink.  She asked for more food and she ate a little.  She smacked and licked at the gravy.  I couldn’t understand how she could manage that but not drink. She didn’t either.  She looked at me and asked for a solution.

I was pretty sure last night that today would be the day.  I got out of bed last night and came to the living room and out to the balcony, leaving the sliding door open in case she wanted one last time on my lap.  She did.  She purred her rare and subtle purr.

She peed at least twice through the night but she hadn’t pooped in almost four days.

A little after 9 am, I made an appointment to euthanize her for 1 pm.  I spent the time between watching her and realizing how uncomfortable she was.  She was restless and confused and indecisive. Her face had become a mess in the last week.  Her sunken eyes had started to run relentlessly so the sides of her nose were now bald of fur and raw from her attempts to groom.

As an agnostic I’m often confused at the energy and angst we are compelled to devote to existence and consciousness that is obviously finite and always terminal.  Why do we have emotions and love that can be so painful if there never has been any hope of it lasting?  I wonder at the point of it. Days like today reveal the absurdity of it all.

There’s no tragedy here, just aching sadness from loss.  No real regret, just a profound sense of bittersweet.

A hole where there was a whole.

I stroked her back and kissed her head as she died.  Afterward, as she lay dead on the shirt I wore just yesterday, on the cold stainless steel examination table, I took the opportunity to fondle her beautiful white paws.  She never let me do that when she was alive, always snatching them away.

However benevolent, she was neither sweet, nor affectionate.  It didn’t stop her from being dignified and absolutely fabulous.  I imagine I will miss her in some amount, for as long as I live.  She was lovely.  Eighteen years is a really long time.

It’s impossible to kiss your cat’s head too many times.

Rest in peace Swirly Girl.

Goddammit.

I miss you.

 

Drinks for my friends. 

 

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