Secrets of the Cat_ Its Lore, Legend, and Lives - Barbara Holland [79]
A cat in extremis will manage to get to the front door, even if it has never been outside, and scratch at it, begging permission to go away and be alone with dying. Go out and meet it halfway.
All the more urgency for professional medical care, with cats; for doctors to grab the departing cat by the scruff of the neck, so to speak, overrule its decision, and snatch it back to us.
Sometimes. Not always, of course. Not forever.
Sidney is sick. Sidney, who has never been sick for a moment in his seventeen years, has one of the swift and sudden cancers of feline leukemia virus. One day he was playing with the kitten and wolfing down his dinner, and the next day he sat hunched between his elbows looking at the floor. The cancer can be treated to a certain extent, but only until the kidneys go.
The kidneys go.
Two Siamese cats, kindly young Morgan and cross old Corvo, sit one on each side of him and lick him tirelessly. His white patches have never been so clean.
You’ll know, the vet says; his back legs will give out.
His back legs give out. Flopping and staggering, he makes his way to the front door and asks permission to leave.
Morgan, Corvo, and my daughter sit up with him all night. He sighs, he moves from one position to another, uncomfortable everywhere. He goes back to the door and hooks a paw under it. Morning comes. Wrapped in a bright red towel, he makes his last trip to the vet.
It’s a decision often described as harrowing, but not now, not here. It’s almost a joy, and a fine thing we have in our hands here for our cats, to shorten the hard journey. Lift them over the last bad mile.
We can’t do this for people we love, but we can do it for our cats and rejoice. We can’t give our children a good life, either; all we can do is start them on their way and hope: we can give our cats a good life. We cry, of course, everyone cries, but we keep saying to each other, Didn’t he have a grand time of it, though? Didn’t we spoil him, the old slob? He was always petted and babied, even the other cats babied him, in all his life he never once washed his own face. He was an uncomplicated cat, and easily content. He loved to eat and to sit in the sun. He had a fine time.
The saddest note is young Morgan, who searches the house for days, upstairs and down, wearing herself to a rag and pausing only to stand in front of me and shout angrily into my face; she seems to think I have lost him, and forgotten about him. All she knows is that he was sick and she was taking care of him, and now he’s nowhere to be found; perhaps in the basement, weak and forgotten behind some boxes? Perhaps up on the third floor accidentally closed in a closet? How can I sit there, and not join her in looking? She is furious with me and will not be touched.
I hope someday there will be a pill for home use, and that last frightening trip not be necessary, and the cats and people gather around the familiar couch to say good-bye, and the cats know what became of a friend.
After a week or so she stops looking. Life goes on.
The first rule of cat ownership is to protect ourselves from guilt. “Well, we did everything possible …” is sad enough to have to say, but it doesn’t sting like “If only we’d …”
When things end badly, it helps to know we had the world’s best vet. It’s important to be sure. Most of them are conscientious, but some are more skillful surgeons, and better informed. Some are principally interested in dogs and don’t make the steady effort to keep up with fast-breaking