She steps into my life.
A feline disruption.
Demanding affection, food and a lap.
She complains, and wants attention.
Her paws destroys furniture, claws ripping cloth;
Feet stepping on the table, the desk, fresh laundry, my lap.
She crawls into my lap and purrs.
Soft brown and beige fur; with big blue eyes a mystery of emotion.
A cat that’s both aggravating and ingratiating.
Until she isn’t.
Weak, pain-filled legs can’t jump up onto the table, the desk or my lap.
Walks along the wall, not knowing where to go. Her eyes don’t see.
She can’t find her food nor the litter box.
Leaves vomit, pee, poop on the floor.
Her spirit is gone; it’s time to go. I kiss her good-by.
Her absence leaves holes in my heart.
And an impression of her paw.
Cats are simultaneously adorable and annoying. They have big eyes and are soft, furry and cute. They sleep a lot and drape themselves over various surfaces and purr when they are happy. But it’s hard to know what they are thinking and what they want besides food and a soft lap. Their emotions are not readily discerned. A cat language translator needs to be invented. Are they bored, in pain or lonely? An owner is never sure about this mysterious creature.
My cat came into my life when my daughter, on one of her rare visits in 2016, insisted that we go to the animal pound, since I “needed” a cat. I don’t know why I agreed.My thought was to get an older cat or a cat that was not likely to be adopted. A kitten did not interest me because of the longer commitment and possible obnoxious behavior. A black cat looked promising, but it had behavioral problems. They brought out a tuxedo brown and white female siamese. She REALLY wanted to be adopted and was friendly, but she didn’t like other cats. We took her home. I kept her previous name, Mama Cat. Why she was named that is unknown, but it could have been her affectionate behavior. Most of the time she was just “cat”.
Any pet is a lot of work, especially when older. They rip up furniture and vomit on the floor. I thought that an older cat would be easier. Ha! She had thyroid cancer, peed like a horse and had arthritis, then kidney problems.
Mama Cat never liked to play with things. She was more interested in being petted and snuggling. Previous cats I had owned weren’t overtly interested in affection. She DEMANDED it. This aspect of her personality was both gratifying and annoying. She never seemed to get enough. Being siamese, it was probably due to her breed.
Mama Cat would always wait by the couch until I sat down and then jump in my lap. She was never a good jumper and could be let out in the back yard to lay in the sun on the patio. But she could still jump on the desk or in the chair during my zoom calls. In the last year of life, I had to pick her up because her legs weren’t strong enough to jump at all. Lacking any ability to do this was sad, not being able to make her wants known when the body was incapable of expressing them.
Mama Cat’s health when downhill when she was twenty. For a couple of years prior, she needed to go every week to the vet for hydration because her kidney function was marginal. She would complain after eating for an unknown reason. Her right eye became dilated and it was difficult to know if it was painful. A vet eye doctor said that she was okay, but a cat neurologist five months later thought that she was blind and probably had a brain tumor. This is when I especially longed to know how she felt, but she couldn’t tell me.
It was difficult to know what to do about Mama Cat. She would walk in a daze along a wall, not knowing where to go. The litter box was unused and she peed and pooped on the floor and sometimes smeared it on herself. I had to put her food in front of food, because she couldn’t find it. Walks were a painful limp.
After talking to the vet, I made the decision to end the suffering. It feels terrible to have to power to kill a pet, but I didn’t want her to have more pain if the tumor progressed. In the back of my mind, I dreaded finding her dead.
The vet gave Mama Cat a sedative, then the drug that would kill her. It didn’t take long until she was gone. I gave the cat a parting hug and also hugged the vet. They took her away. I opted for cremation, but not to keep the ashes. I couldn’t imagine burying her in the garden. It was bad enough with the parakeets when they died.
They made an impression of her path, a faint trace of her existence.
With her gone, it was a relief and painful. I didn’t have to fed a cat, clean up her poop and pee or worry about her health. I didn’t have to take her to the vet every week for hydration. I could leave the house without worrying about feeding her when I got back. I could go anywhere for any length of time without having to arrange a sitter.
But her absence was a emptiness, as if a little furry cat had a big presence. No purring lap sitter, no head nudges, no adorable sleeping poses, no blue eyes watching me. It was an un-needed and lonely feeling. Nothing was vying for my attention or wanting affection. The loss of a small creature leaves a big paw-shaped hole.
