Apologies in advance.
I have been wanting to write the second half of this entry but have been completely unable to go there until I wrote the first half.
Totally ridiculous, of that I am aware, but I don’t seem to be in control of these things.
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I was sweeping the kitchen floor when it happened, a sudden paroxysm of sadness caused by the smallest thing. I’m such a bad housekeeper and this whole house is boobytrapped. I don’t go a day without encountering the flufts, the featherlight grey tufts with which Tessa cushioned the world around her. As I swept another bit of her into the dustpan, the trash can, and eventually out of my house and my life, I thought of how much I miss her sweet face.
- Himalayan that she was, she didn’t have the extreme flat face that is the current Persian breed standard, the perpetual scowl fanciers seem to fancy now. No, Tessa actually had a tiny little button of a nose between her dark-lined blue eyes and she was both physically and tempermentally unable to scowl. That tiny nose is a less popular standard of the breed and those with it are called “doll-faced.” I always thought that was so appropriate. Tessa was extremely sweet faced. -
I carry a lot of guilt with me. It’s who I am, so, of course, I have guilt about Tess. I’ve never had a pet so long or so old and I’ve never had to put one down. I know that helping her to die was the right thing, the only thing to do. She had finally been diagnosed with intestinal cancer and while she didn’t seem to be in pain until the last day, she had lost a dramatic amount of weight.
As I carried her to her last vet visit, lying in a sling around my neck (I couldn’t bear to put her into the hated carrier), my once magnificent 9-pounder weighed less than 4. She purred softly, a faint echo or her usual thunderpurr, attempting to comfort herself, I am certain, in her pain and confusion. All I could think was, had I been so selfish as to hold on to her too long?
The vet was incredibly kind. She only asked me two questions, very gently. Did I want to be with her and what would I want to do with her body? Such hard questions with such simple answers.
Of course I had to be with her. No matter how hard it was for me, how could I not be there for her, possibly her only comfort in her darkness and pain? I couldn’t help her but I could be there. It was my responsibility, she was my responsibility, from the moment I chose to adopt her. It was only thing I could do. Just curl myself over her and whisper “goodbye my baby girl” as the vet pushed the liquid into her vein that stopped her tiny heart.
I heard her last breath, a minute whisper of air, and she was gone.
– The mind will do as it will and mine suddenly pulled me into another quiet room. The curtains drawn, the ceiling fan slowly turning in the semi-dark, I was lying in my father’s bed, next to my mother. Her hand so cool, the bones under her fragile skin so thinly sheathed, curled into a small fist like a bird’s closed claws. It was my turn to sit with her, to be beside her during her long week of dying.
Mom had chosen her time. She had been through so much unrelenting pain with no hope of recovery. She was tired. She was done. Dying was her choice and being able to refuse dialysis made the choice simple in some, mostly legal, ways.
We, my marvelously dysfunctional family of on-again, off-again feuding siblings, came together in that final week, to help her through and to support my poor grieving collapsing father. The first few days we invited all the people that she loved to eat favorite foods with her, to drink a some sherry, to share stories of years and loved ones long past, to say goodbyes.
The last few days, though, the last few days were all about the dying. Mom drifted in and out, making sense then not, then drifting farther and longer and never back in. The last night and day was simply about the blood and the waiting, the holding her hand and listening to her laboured breathing.
And I was there when she breathed her last, a ragged guttural exhalation followed by - nothing. I kissed her and said my goodbye.
The ceiling fan kept turning and I somehow kept breathing even though she’d stopped. I’d never laugh at her wicked sharp wit again. No one else would ever understand those insane inside jokes we’d spent my whole life embroidering. No one in the world would ever see me the same way she did and forgive me everything I condemned myself for. She was my constant and she was gone.
Had I ever done enough for her? Was it ever possible that I could have?
I don’t know how much later I closed the door behind me.
I left it to Donnal to call whoever needed calling.
....
It wasn’t the same thing, Tessa’s passing, nothing near, but I cannot deny the echoes.
I kissed the fluffy grey head and left the room.
Tessa was gone. There was nothing of her left in the body that had failed her.
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When you take on a pet, you adopt them in an even more permanent sense than you adopt a child. A good parent raises a child up so that he will be self-sufficient, so that by small degrees she will leave you and eventually live a good life on her own. A pet is different. To be a good pet owner you take responsibility for the care and comfort of that animal for the rest of its life. If you don’t realize that and take it seriously, you really shouldn’t have pets.
I usually refer to myself as my cats’ lifetime jailer. I try to be a benevolent tyrant, but I am, without a doubt, the sole decider of their fates, the only one who decides whether they live happy healthy lives or dismal ones. I try to live up to the trust they cannot help but have in me.
Tessa was my first cat, a full grown Persian fallen into the misfortune of homelessness. She sucked me into adopting her with her big blue eyes, her gorgeous cloud of fur, and her sweet personality. She made cat-owning seem easy. I simply fell in love with her and did my best for her, learning as I went.
After a while I began to think that I was really being rather cruel to Tessa though. Here was this active, curious, intelligent animal that I was leaving alone almost all day every day - in a quiet house. Surely I had set her up for a life of boredom. And that was when I made the mistake of Lucy.
Do not get me wrong - I love Lucy. (How long have I waited to write that particular phrase here?) I really do love her, but I am afraid that I mishandled her from the beginning and it shows in her, well let’s face it, less than lovely personality. Everyone marveled about how sweet Tessa, the rescued stray, was and how difficult Lucy, the cat I raised from tiny, turned out to be. (One of Lucy’s former vets actually changed her name on her file from “Lucy” to “Lucyfer.” He’d earned the right when Lucy slashed him - out of fear, of course.)
I went out looking for an adult cat to keep Tessa company. I admit that I didn’t know what I was doing. My main concern was, I am embarrassed to admit, looks. Tessa was so magnificent. I wanted a complementary cat, sweet, beautiful, and having blue eyes would have been a definite bonus. There wasn’t a single cat in the shelter who even came close.
I had nearly decided to continue the search another day when I saw a kitten cage on my way out. I’d decided against kittens out of deference to Tessa’s maturity, but what did it hurt to look I thought. (Whoops. There it is.)
I didn’t know her name yet. She wouldn’t be Lucy for a couple of weeks. What I noticed was that she and her litter mate were incredibly tiny and, to my untutored eyes, absolutely exotic in appearance. In addition to her baby blue eyes, she was mainly black with what I would have called a white blaze, muzzle, belly, and four white stockings had she been a horse. That shows just how uneducated in all things felis catus I was. What I thought was exotic colouring was just your average everyday run-of-the-mill tuxedo cat. Common as any cat could be, though more stylishly attired.
And those blue eyes? Total bait and switch. Those baby blues actually were baby blues. She soon grew out of those and into her present amber-golds. Still, even though I know that she’s far from exotic, I think she’s quite visually striking and I absolutely adore her black and white splotched Rorschach belly.
So I chose 5-week old Lucy over her brother and brought her home to be Tessa’s new friend and anti-boredom device. Looking back I can see all my mistakes in that one sentence. Things did not go well between the two of them, not well at all.
First off, Lucy was only five weeks old. She fit in the palm of my hand and weighed just under a pound. She should never have been adopted out at that age. That she was weaned at all tells me now that something bad had happened to her mother. At five weeks old she still needed to be with her mother or a foster cat. At the very least she should have stayed with litter mates her own size for at least a few more weeks. It’s not a matter of weaning. It’s a matter of socialization, learning cat rules through play and tussle with siblings and the affection and admonition of the mother cat. Lucy was taken from that too early.
I didn’t know better. I made it even worse by bringing her home to Tessa. Tessa, I learned from the woman who fostered her, had had a litter of her own when she was captured and then been foster nurse mommy to another litter whose mother died. I’d thought for certain Tessa would take to the bouncing tribble I brought home for her amusement. Wrong again.
Any maternal instinct Tess had shown before seemed to have left with the hormones she no longer had after her little operation. Throwing a 5 week old kitten at a five year old cat and expecting friendship to blossom is kind of like tossing a hyperactive toddler at a woman and saying, “Here. Babysit this perpetual motion machine - forever.” Tessa forgot to be the queen that she was and to comport herself with grace. She hissed and spat and swatted at little Lucy every time LuLu dared come near her.
In effect, I had gone from having one possibly bored cat to having two probably unhappy cats while I was away all day. I took precautions, quarantining the two in separate spaces for weeks, but eventually they shared the house and Lucy survived.
But you can’t return an animal you’ve adopted unless the situation is severe, so the three of us moved on. Lucy and Tessa came to a truce and eventually some sort of understanding. Though they were never affectionate to each other, their personal space whittled down over time and I think they ended up used to each other’s company. In the last few years, I’d often find them lounging or sleeping on the same piece of furniture, never touching but near.
With Tessa’s passing, the dilemma arises again. Is it fair to leave Lucy all alone in a quiet house? Even though she’s thirteen, a senior cat herself, she’s still very healthy and active. Losing Tessa is a major change in her life. I don’t know if she misses the only other living creature she’s known her whole life - besides me, of course.
Well, call me an idiot if you must, but I decided that Lucy shouldn’t be all alone, even if she is an antisocial cantankerous vet-scratching severely change averse agoraphobe. (Yep, she’s terrified of the open door to the outside world. The hurrication we took after Katrina damn near killed her.) I do, however, learn from past mistakes. A little at least.
To get Lucy, a far more aggressive cat than Tessa ever was, a kitten would be asking for a one kitten massacre. Even if Lucy could refrain from a death blow, it would be cruel to the kitten. Lucy’s first months with Tessa proved that. All the kitten wants is to play with the most fascinating moving object in her world, the older cat and all the older cat wants is to get rid of the kitten.
Nope. Not making that particular mistake again.
I decided I definitely wasn’t going to get Lucy a kitten…
I was going to get her TWO!
Lucy…
… Meet Coco & Esme.
Let the games begin!
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