As I write this I am sobbing. I have that saline taste in my nose. Tears are burning their way down my face and my stomach and shoulders are contracting. I've had some big losses in the last few years. My mother died on January 12, 2015. Chooch died this past Saturday April 28, 2018. Near as we can figure she started getting sick in late January or early February. She began vomiting. If you are a cat owner, you know that some of this is normal. Hairballs. Eating food too fast. At the beginning of March it became evident that something was wrong. We began to try to work through the problem. Asking around. Doing research. We began to switch foods and to limit portions to see if it would help. It didn't. One night she was on the couch and began to projectile vomit and I told my wife that we needed to take her to the vet. We went a total of three times. The first was about running blood tests. We were so grateful when the tests came back negative. The next involved an x-ray which showed that she had an enlarged stomach. We... I didn't know what that meant. I now know that you need at least two points of reference to correctly identify a problem. When we talked to people at the pet store, they would ask about her age and we would say that we thought she was 15 and they would cast their eyes downward. I didn't understand what that meant either. I do now.
The last vet visit was 3 days ago. It was the third and final. I was frustrated. I had been trying to give her pills to no avail. Gina would crush up her medicine and sit with her and gently plead with her to eat something. I would hear her vomit in the middle night and I would wake up and say, "Nooooo.... please.... " as if that would do anything. The last few days she would even vomit after getting water. It was foam. There was no food in her stomach. she had dropped a pound between the second and final pet visits. The vet was a young woman. She had laryngitis, so her voice was almost a whisper. They took Chooch back for an MRI and another x-ray. They came back to get us and I could see the looks on their faces. We were shown the x-ray and we were told that her liver was failing and that she had a mass in her stomach, most likely cancer. She then showed us how jaundiced Chooch was. Something we hadn't noticed. Her gums were yellow... and around her eyes. I looked at Gina and back to the doctor and I said, "I think we've reached the end." Gina began sobbing. I nodded to the doctor and we went back to the room to spend our last moments with her.
A candle was lit at the main desk to let others know that we were saying goodbye. I held her for a moment and then handed her to Gina. The vet came in to give her an initial sedative. She saw that Chooch was hugging Gina and said, "Oh my God. She's hugging her." Soon Chooch was sedated and we laid her out flat on the table. I want to believe that she was out of pain for the last bit. They gave her another injection and her heart stopped about 45 seconds later. There were no convulsions or strange sounds. Her little body had fought as hard as it could and there was nothing left at the end. They asked if we wanted ashes and I said no. I opted for a paw print in clay. I initialed the paperwork. I paid the bill. I didn't want Gina's hand to it. It was my job as her protector. I couldn't stop her from getting sick, but I wanted to believe that we saved her from the worst of it.
The next morning before I awoke I had a dream that I saw her again and she said she was sorry for getting sick and I started crying and said, "No, no, no my sweet baby girl. It wasn't your fault. You were the best kitty anyone could ever ask for." And then I asked her if she was sick now and she said she wasn't and I said, "That's my good girl." and I began petting her and telling her how much we loved her and that we would always love her.
This morning Gina left for work and had her earrings with the Kurt Vonnegut quote.
She was 1/3 of our family and her loss is devastating. It's not like an engine going out on a plane and the plane keeps flying. The whole fucking plane crashed. Gina and I survived but we are hurt badly and it will be a long recovery. Nothing will ever be the same. Is anything ever?
I keep looking around and seeing her everywhere. There is not a single memory in the last 15 years that she was not a part of.
I think that is what is meant about the death tarot card not being about death. You aren't actually grieving death. You're grieving the loss of an old life. Our family will survive and go on, but we won't be the same as we were before. I told Gina a couple of things as we sat in bed at night that I would like to share. First, we got her as a kitten and I didn't fully realize that our ages had diverged. She was there and I thought she would always be there, even though I knew that wasn't possible on an intellectual level.
Secondly, I think that I understood that time was running out in much the same way as you might hear a conversation while you are underwater in a pool. When the end came, I was so completely unprepared. How can you prepare for a thing like that? As we left, I looked at her lifeless body on the table one last time and I said to myself,"That's not her." Her physical form was how she interfaced with us, but what made her what she was and what we truly loved had departed and exists now only in our hearts.
That is the end of the story. The rest of it is so vast I couldn't tell it in 15 volumes. It was a love as big as the universe. It was a bond. It was... family.
Gina picked her out for me as a Valentine's Day present. She was so tiny. At night she slept on our bed. At first she slept between us, high up on the bed. Gina says that one night I rolled over on her and she mewed and I silently rolled back over. After that she slept in a corner of the bed. Our sleeping arrangements were as follows... Israel (Gina) The West Bank (Chooch) and the Gaza Strip (Me).
Chooch loved Christmas. Here she is tuckered out on her Christmas presents.
She was one of life's great sleepers and she had lots of warm soft places to rest.
She loved my old blanket so much that I ended up making a cat bed out of it.
One of my most favorite things in the whole wide world was to have her beside me on the couch and to rest my hand on her and feel her purr.
One of her favorite spots was my underwear and socks cubby. If there were too many socks for her to fit she would drag them out and make room.
I loved putting toys on her. She was such a good sport about it.
Look how beautiful she was. she had a black farfalla on her forehead. I used to tell her how much I loved her pink nose and her gorgeous green eyes.
Gina and I loved singing songs to her and about her. It was very easy to substitute a "you" in a song with "Chooch".
It's the bargain of life. The more you loved someone the more it hurts to lose them.
I told Gina that I can't stop thinking about when she got sick and that can't be all there is to life. To have a mostly great time and a sucky bit at the end. She told me I was trying to use my logic to process my grief and she was right.
Love is like the concentric circles made from throwing a stone into a pond. The ripples radiate out and touch all shores. Here she is at her most radiant.
I will never forget her or how much she meant as a part of our family. I am a far better person for having that unconditional love in my life.
She was and will always be my sweet, sweet girl.
