The Old Ones

My heart felt like a slab of meat dropped on a butcher's floor when my sister recently looked at my old cat Michael and announced, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Sure, Mikey's 18 years old, he has a right to look rough and the veterinary past with major credentials to back it up. But those words were like putting the kybosh on old Mikey. The last time she said those very same words about Mattie he was dead 3 weeks later. I'm so superstitious you'd think I had Gypsy origins, and hearing that Mikey looks "rough" fills me with dread. She and I share Useless Psychic Events with each other all the time, but I don't want her UPE's suddenly materializing with frightful accuracy on my cats.

Last May I was about to leave for about 5 days for my birthday to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah and Jen was over learning the drill on how to take care of my many cats. Where each one's dish is, who eats in what order, who gets what pill, and a reminder to say hello to Baby who will never venture down from upstairs. Mattie, my yellow dandelion of a cat, shuffled into the kitchen just in case food was involved. That's when Jen declared, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Well, he's old, I countered. Mattie had been limping for years, a sliding shuffle to his gait since toxoplasmosis had attacked his brain, front elbows stuck out from arthritis. He'd never been big on self-grooming since he had a hard time twisting his body around - perhaps from an injury before he adopted Bob & I. All this made him look older than his years, which I presumed to be 15. But could have been more since we would never know how old he was when he wandered into the yard.

Mattie was the appropriate name for him because his long yellow fur was so thick with mats Bob swore he had tumors until I shaved the lumps off. Over the years Mattie also had bouts of asthma that meant he had to live on daily prednisolone for his scarred lungs that worked at only half capacity. Sometimes he'd even had fluid build up in his lung cavity which doctors removed with a needle and tested ad nauseum for fear of lymphoma, heart disease, etc. None of which he had. At long last a heart specialist realized that Mattie's diaphragm was perforated, probably all his life, and some organ had pushed through it. All the more reason Mattie had more difficulty than most cats in breathing. But that precious sunflower of a cat dealt courageously with every physical challenge that came his way, and never took the easy way around, even when we made the house handi-cat accessible.

When Bob died I relied on Mattie's loving, consoling nature more than ever. Bob had nicknamed him Matt Matt the Comfort Cat, and he was exactly that. Mattie would stare at me with huge alien eyes and wait for me to get comfortable so that he could then get comfortable. Usually that was under my left armpit or directly on my chest where he could continue to stare at me. Then that purr, that big rumbling, two-tiered purr, would start up. No mistaking his happiness. If by chance you did miss it, then the strings of drool would clue you in. Always had tissues nearby to mop up the drool. Since Mattie granted me one kiss per day I preferred them to be dry. Mattie lived 18 months after Bob died. He got out of the animal hospital the same night as Bob first went in to the people hospital. He'd had fluid removed again and in retrospect I guess it was miraculous that he lived another 18 months without the fluid recurring. When it did so, it was with a vengeance. One very hot morning about 2 weeks after my return from Utah Mattie kind of jumped toward me on the mattress, an odd move for him. He always moved methodically and slowly. When I turned toward him in surprise I saw that he was open-mouth breathing.

There's no time to wasted with a cat in that condition. I didn't even know cat mouth-to-mouth if he died. I threw him in a cat cage and raced down to the cat hospital in the Jeep, not giving a shit how late I'd be for work. We were sent on to the Emergency Hospital where Mattie stayed for work-ups and fluid removal. He came home, only to have it return again. Unable to sleep one night (sometimes I swear I could sense things) I noticed his sides heaving in and out with difficulty and off we rushed at 1 AM to the Emergency Hospital yet again. Despite the declaration 18 months earlier that Mattie did not have heart failure, the vets wanted to check again and so he was scheduled for an ultrasound. In and out of the hospital so many times, all I remember was a $1200 bill and the feeling that he was worth any amount of money, as long as he lived.

It began on a Thursday. By Wednesday evening the following week the vet somberly told me that they had accidentally pricked Matt's lung while aspirating fluid so now his lung cavity was refilling with both fluid and air. I brought Mattie Fancy Feast because no matter how sick he ever was, he always had an appetite. I brought my camera, feeling that this may be my last night with him (just as I brought my camera inexplicably that last night Bob was alive). Matt was confused. Why was he on a metal table? Why was I taking pictures of him? Why wasn't I taking him home? For such a sick cat he was restless. If I'd been allowed to bring him home he would have punished me when we got there by laying on the floor with his ass facing in my direction. That was his way of telling me I was on his shit list. The shit list never lasted long, though, and I was always back to being his favorite mattress before long. It broke my fucking heart every time I left him at the hospital. Doubly so because I'd only lost Bob, my human soul-mate, 18 months earlier. It was impossible to accept that I could now lose my feline soul-mate.



The morning of Mattie's ultrasound the vet called my cell phone at work and told me to come as fast as possible, Mattie was not going to last long. The same words I'd heard the morning Bob died. The air would not stop bubbling into Mattie's chest and they had him in an oxygen box so he could breathe. On my way I drove madly, running up over curbs, sobbing "Please don't die before I get there. Please wait for me, Matt". And he was alive in his glass oxygenated box when I arrived, but only because they'd saved his life one more time by aspiration before I got there. His big black eyes widened when he saw me, like he thought I was there to save him.

But they'd already saved him so I could be with him when he died.

I had no time to question the vet's decision. Although Matt looked fine (his lungs temporarily able to move freely), I didn't have much time before he'd struggle to breathe, then suffer. I didn't want him to even get as far as a struggle. If he had to die it should be peacefully, in my arms. I wrapped that beloved creature in his favorite pale yellow fleece blanket and held him in the crook of my arm. Cradled. He rested his head on my heart, just as he'd always liked to do. All his life he'd been like a baby, needing to feel my heartbeat. The staff gave us some time alone together and I cried and apologized.

I did everything I could to save you. I am so sorry.

I let the vet know when it was time. When his lungs started expanding more. Before either of us could panic. Before it could be any more traumatic than it already was. She knelt in front of us and Mattie was still, no longer restless like last night, just seemingly content to be in my arms, wrapped in his blanket. If the fluid didn't return, he'd be he same healthy, albeit old, Matt he was just last week. But we knew it was coming and nothing could stop it. So she inserted the needle and injected the concoction of soft, quiet death, then left us alone together again.

Neither of us had moved. I could pretend he was still alive. It was easy. I could pretend that he could still feel my heart beating and that it had simply lulled him to sleep. But I knew the truth and so I wept. I sat so still. He's asleep . . . don't break the spell. The vet padded back in after a while and I nodded. She could take him. I should have let the dream remain, that Mattie had just gone to sleep in my arms, that the pretend was real, he was just alive and asleep. I never should have looked. But I cursed myself with a look as she rose with my baby in her arms and I saw his head limply slide. That broke the spell. He was dead and there was no way I could pretend otherwise. Once I saw that limp head roll the way the living's never do, the spell was over.

My Mattie's spirit lives on in my heart. I like to think he slipped into my heart when he died against its beat. I believe he valiantly lived those 18 months after Bob died because he knew I desperately needed him. I think animals are greater, more mystical beings than we humans, and they can do things we cannot. Except live forever.

I knew he was getting old and decrepit. It's not like I was in denial. But when Jennifer said "he's looking pretty rough" I felt two things: defensive and a fear that she saw something I hadn't recognized. All I know is that within weeks he was dead and those words have haunted me since. If only I'd known, I never would have gone away for even a few days when Mattie only had weeks to live.

Mikey is old. He was here before Mattie and somehow he outlived both Mattie and Bob. He's still Top Cat in the household, but he's 6 pounds less cat than he used to be and had to go to the vet today for a strange new drag in one back leg. Perhaps injured in a fall from my too-tall bed. He blatted like a baby lamb all the way too and from the vet in the W. B. Mason cardboard box I had him in. I was afraid stuffing him in a standard carrier would hurt him more. When he got home and ate in ravenous relief, he then went upstairs to vomit all over my bedroom rug. His eyes are cloudy these days, i'm not sure he can hear much besides a can opening. He's got slow, chronic kidney failure and manageable hyperthroidism. Hell, the old guy isn't going to live forever but his quality of life is still very good even as the equivalent of a hundred year old man. Every night when he settles on my right shoulder I remind myself of this: treasure every moment, tell him I love him all the time, because he could go at any time.

After all, he's looking pretty rough. And I feel like the Grim Reaper follows those words.

three dollar cat

(i wrote this one night in 1986 on an old-fashioned typewriter and haven't changed a thing just because. it's nothing more than my farewell to my devoted cat, from childhood to adulthood.)

i remember how i cut off his long white whiskers and kept them in an old cardboard jewelry store box so that if he ever died i would have something to remember him by. that was when he was barely more than a kitten, a three dollar cat my father bought for me to replace a cat that disappeared on Halloween night. now the three dollar cat and i are sixteen years older and we are looking at each other over expanse of of my white sheeted bed. i start to cry and Fearless looks at me, his yellow-green eyes rheumy with age. understanding.

he is dying and i no longer have the long white whiskers to keep to remember him by. i lost them years ago, perhaps believing that he would live forever. other cats have come and gone, but Fearless has alwaysbeen here. he's never been sick, never injured, never beat up. he's always been a fat lump of black fur sitting at the edge of the garage, waiting for somebody to let him in and feed him. he's led an ever-hopeful life, walking in his funny stiff-legged way to meet me half-way up the driveway. looking expectantly up at my face as if this was the night he was sure he'd be let in. that fat cat never knew when to stop eating, and when he'd demolished everything within his reach he'd settle his bulk at the end of my bed so that i would have to arrange my sleeping position to lay around him. "Put him on a diet," my family would say as Fearless benignly licked the last of a Friskies Buffet dinner from his lips, his stomach nearly hanging down to the floor. but how do you put a cat on a diet? i took for granted that Fearless would live forever and remain fat even if he were starving.

my opinion is changed now. my poor, ravaged cat sits before me with bones sticking out. his black fur is dull and lifeless. he is dusty looking and constantly shedding. he seems so very old. i lay with my head close to his, talking to him and petting him, telling him how glad i am to have had him for my cat and how i love him. his back ripples and his purr rumbles throughout his body. he loves me right back. he has been my friend for sixteen years, my buddy. a cat so full of personality you couldn't help but like him, even when he drives you crazy.

i remember leaving him at the vet's to be declawed because he was destroying the front of my parents' house. when i went to pick him up the veterinarian and his assistants gathered to say goodbye to Fearless, telling me they could hardly bear to see him go he was such a characer. i wanted to say "well if he was such a joy, how 'bout destroying his bill?"

Fearless would put up with anything as long as i was paying some semblance of attention to him. when we cut wood and brought it in to the house he would follow me back and forth out to the woods, over and over. "stay," i'd tell him, "i'll be right back." but he'd accompany me roundtrip over and over again. he would hobble out to the pool on the hottest days and sprawl his body under the lounge chair i was sunning myself on so he could shield his black fur from the sun. he was happy as long as i talked to him periodically and didn't splash him when i jumped in the water.

i have a picture of him on my bulletin board. he is buried up to his nek in a pile of fall leaves. he didn't mind it any more than he minded being dressed in a doll's dress and bonnet when i was a girl. he didn't mind it at all compared to the time i dropped him in the pool to see if cats could swim. or as much as he minds it every spring when i put the hose on him and lather him up with shampoo. he always submits with resignation, then looks at me in disgust as he stalks across the patio shaking off droplets of water and licking his fur dry.

he is never mad at me for long. he has always adored me even when i ignored him or refused to let him in. he has always been so definitely my cat and i am reminded of this whenever he does anything particularly offensive like use the bathtub as a litterbox. i am always urged to take him whenever i've moved away from home, though i am torn because he is so used to that place and its safety. Fearless doesn't fare well away from home. in my first apartment he disappeared for hours and not even the mention of food would draw him out. when he'd grown accustomed to the place he decided that night-time was cat-party-time. he'd howl songs to the moon, bat at the stereo's speaker wires, and scrape kitty litter out of the box and onto the cold bathroom tile just for fun. all this would routine occur at one o'clock in the morning. at another of my apartments he had a horror of the sound of traffic so close to the house. after all, he'd never heard any before. he would press te bulk of his body against the screen door, squawking like a row until i let him in off the porch. it was funny to see him scared of something because he'd always led such a casual 'fearless' life. even my mother's large German Shepards would give up on Fearless when they realized the large lump of black fur would pay them no mind. Fearless even managed to be home by dinner time the day my mother dumped him off on a dirt road over a mile from home after he'd devoured a bag of deli meat left out on the counter. i sat tearfully at the back window that night until i saw the recognizable blur of black and white fur that was his face march with determination across the back pasture.

Fearless eats his can of Friskies in his usual way. with one white paw he scoops out the meat and eats it. He acts like a person. I wish he could talk. i think he would be a riot, witty and sarcastic, commenting sardonically on his failing faculties.

he always seemed so ageless, but age has caught up with him this year. he is an old and decrepit cat now. he seems deaf to anything other than the sound of an electric can opener. his arthritis makes him look like he is walking on eggshells. Fearless has slowed down, if indeed that is possible.

But what a long, rich life he has led. he's been around a lot longer than most cats. he has lived out his nine lives, i am quite sure. yet his impending death to me is like the end of an era. i cannot imagine life without Fearless.

tonight may be the last night we spend together. i am going to shut out my light and pet my old friend until he falls asleep.