Back in May of this year, I wrote a column about how my two remaining cats (out of a total of 5 at one time) were 19 years of age, which, according to my research, made them the feline equivalent of 92 human years. Senile cat Buddy is still going strong but as I wrote in May, Spanky was going downhill. He was skin and bones, frail, wobbly. I didn’t know just how sick he was until our veterinarian made a house call and looked him over. She found two open wounds in his mouth that in a younger cat would be easily removed by surgery. I knew immediately, though, that Spanky would not survive an operation, so I opted for palliative care, which the good doctor agreed was the better option. The doctor also discovered that Spanky had kidney issues, which are common in older cats.
Those wounds in his mouth probably created a fair amount of pain for Spanky, so I chose to limit his diet to something liquid that he could just lap up. I continued to add the high calorie supplement to each meal, and I offered him a dish of this concoction many times throughout every day. It soon became apparent, though, that Spanky was going to die, which forced me to consider whether to euthanise him or wait to see if he would die on his own.
The problem with the latter is that dying on his own might well be a painful process, and under no circumstances do I allow my animals to suffer. So I rang the mobile vet and told her what I needed her to do. Unfortunately, she was away through the weekend, which meant that either I wait until Monday – and if Spanky started suffering before then, he and I would both be out of luck – or take him to the dreaded clinic on Saturday (dreaded because all they seem to care about is how you’re going to pay the bill). I chose Saturday.
The thing I’ve learned, during the course of my years with animals, and having had to euthanize all of them as no one ever died in their sleep, is that there is no good time to say good-bye. You can sit there in the examination room holding them for hours before the deed is done, and there will still be no good time to give your vet the nod to begin the euthanasia procedure. Because of this, I held Spanky in my arms for a relatively short (for me) time before I laid him on the table. After the doctor finished, she and her assistant quietly withdrew, urging me to take as much time as I needed with the body. I stood over that body and wept. Those 19 years had gone by so very fast – indeed, they suddenly seemed in my mind a blur, and I was grateful for the memories I had made with Spanky, during the last two months of his life.
Spanky used to be the head-butter in the family. No one else seemed inclined to make such a gesture, but Spanky would butt my head most emphatically, given the opportunity. In the last two months of his life, I frequently picked him up and cradled him in my arms as you would an infant. Instead of butting, though, he chose to rub his mouth on my nose, marking me with his scent. By then, his breath was terrible – those sores made his mouth smell like poo. I let him do it anyway, because it was a gesture of love, and I wasn’t about to discourage those. As I stood over his body that Saturday, I recalled all of those marking sessions, and my heart was gladdened that I had had sense enough to see how important those gestures were to Spanky, and to me
In my May column, I wrote that I would bury Spanky next to the bones of three-legged Gracie Ellen, whom he had adored. Instead, I decided to have him cremated, with the ultimate goal being to combine the ashes of all of those cats (Gracie excepted) into one big decorative urn. Having their ashes close to hand may not seem like much, but to me, that urn will serve as a reminder of those glorious days when we were all young together. One day, those ashes will be combined with mine, too, so that we’ll never have to say good-bye again.
