My cat is going to die
Just like me, you, and all the rest of us
Humans hem and haw and hide from age, doing everything we can to avoid the subject, stop the fine lines, and pretend we are not dying from the moment we’re born. And yet, we invite these living reminders into our homes freely. We let them snuggle in our laps, crap in our bathrooms, and live in our beds for free just so we can watch them lounge around, deteriorate, and die costly deaths right before our eyes.
Stay with me, will ya? I have only had this cat here for what seems like a handful of years, but already, we are the same age in human years. We adopted him from the Humane Society when he was still a kitten. The litter obviously came from a well-loved home, as he was in the display window with his siblings, none of whom showed signs of being prematurely stripped away from their mother. (Don’t shoot me, cat lovers, but if a rescue kitten starts nursing your ear, it's obviously going to have some mental health issues later on.) Most of the litter were black and longhaired, and all were named after characters from Harry Potter. I believe his original name was Hippogriff, but we immediately renamed him Russell after my mother (her middle name) and the little boy from Up (his first name). He used to be rambunctious and skittish, but in his middle age, he’s taken to curling up against my arm on the dining room table when I’m trying to eat breakfast. He doesn’t care much for our dogs. Speaking of which…
Pickle, also a rescue, was adopted as a puppy around the same time we got Russell and shows all the signs of being neglected in his youth. Frightened by new people, especially men. Bites if you scare or piss him off (he’s drawn blood once on a person—my son—though, in all fairness, Pickle warned the in-his-face preteen to back off with three pointed growls before he attacked) and once on a West Highland White Terrier (an angel in dog form who is so kind and gentle he makes friends with mice.)
Our other dog, Reepeegee, is kind of an asshole, too (though he’s only drawn blood once on a child for zero reason at all, but that was years ago). A Lhasa Apso gifted to us by a “friend”, his terrible demeanor comes from breeding, not parental neglect. He’s in his 80s in human years, and although it is hard to say for sure, he is likely blind and deaf and hardly ever growls anymore except when you accidentally step on him, which you will because he’s always underfoot. He’s mellowed in his old age.
I love animals, but I don’t get overly sentimental. Again, don’t shoot me, but if our dogs get really sick, we are never doing endless blood tests and trying to find cures for cancer because, at the end of the day, it’s expensive, and who wants to put an animal through all that? A $5,000 bill at an emergency vet clinic for a rattlesnake bite 20 years ago cured me of thinking too preciously about it. (From the hourly breakdown given to us by the tech, it’s clear that he didn’t get the antivenom until way way too late, so he would have survived just fine if we’d kept him home to ride it out.)
Now, I know that is an unpopular opinion. Most people I know would spend any amount of money to keep their pets alive, but in my mind, as pet owners, it’s what we signed up for. It sucks, and it's awful, but what did we think was going to happen? As humans, we get the luxury of a long life so we can delude ourselves into thinking we’ll always be supple and tight, that we look young for 40, that those pains in our hip are just because we slept on it wrong, and that we’ll live forever and ever and ever with a full head of hair and tits that point to the moon. We spend zillions of dollars a year to maintain the charade while those little ticking time bombs age in our laps, showing us our futures in fast forward. What will I be like when I’m 82? According to Reepigee, I’ll be bumping into everything and getting in everyone’s way, and yet somehow, still act like I’m five if someone puts a squeaky toy in my mouth. Based on what I know about myself, all this checks out.
I am a good pet owner. I take them to the vet annually. If they get sick, I buy them medicine. They get their shots, monthly heartworm/flea pills, and slightly upgraded pet food from the grocery store. The cat stays in so it doesn’t harm the bird population, and I keep the dogs inside as much as I can lest they get in a barking match with the neighbors’ golden retrievers, which is fine with me because when you snuggle Pickle long enough his eyes close and his tongue sticks out like a little bit of strawberry.
Rather than battle time, I’ve learned to appreciate the wisdom their aging has brought to my life. In the case of my most beloved dog, Sugar, I did all the things to keep him alive when he got cancer. That dog was my soul mate, and even with all the shots, surgery, and pills, I still watched him die a slow and miserable death on my living room floor. I won’t do that to a pet again. (My husband had to take him to the vet to put him down because I couldn’t bear it.) Soon after, when our dog Spanky started pushing his insides out, the look on his face told me all I needed to know to let go. He was tired and in pain. He was ready. I was there when that dog breathed his last breath, and his sweet golden face relaxed into my palm. I was thankful I got to know him and was honored that I was there to watch him go.
There is no buying minutes when the time comes. We have so few moments on this earth to do what we want with our lives. Let these creatures who come and go so quickly teach us not to waste a minute.