Rooms You Left

 I found you at an adoption fair at a pet store in St. Paul. You had a beautiful orange and white coat and looked out from a carrier with sad, green eyes. The woman in charge of adoptions called you Nala, and said you were found on a farm with other kittens where the neighbor kids wanted to use the kittens as "target practice."

Being someone who makes up stories, I knew in my heart it wasn't just a story someone made up. And I knew I wanted to take you home. When I reached for you, there was a step back as you recoiled. I put you down down and vowed you would be safe with our family.

I brought you home and we decided you were a Sydney. When my son and I left for a visit with his grandfather, you emerged from my son's room and jumped onto the couch to curl up next to my husband, Pete. Of course, he is the one person in our family with cat allergies - though he said he wanted a cat and told me it was okay to adopt one.

I worried about how Pete would react to you, but he insisted it was going to be okay. He took Allegra, which seemed to help, and in the past few years, air purifiers helped too. I always felt a bit guilty, but he loved you so much and you were such a constant presence in our lives, curling your tail around our wrists and filling our lives with cuddle purrs. It was impossible to sit down without you being there--and that's how we wanted it, anyway.  As the years passed, your fear of people got better, to where you were fine with strangers petting you and eeryone did, as captivated as I had been.

Some people say animals have no souls but I can't believe that, seeing yours. Sweet, gentle, loving, playful soul. We've had seventeen years, with the grace cats bring to daily life that makes it shine in ways it never would otherwise. 

Three months ago, we discovered you had bladder cancer, and tried the medicine available to us to slow down the spread. Today, we had to say goodbye to keep you from suffering. Yet your presence is still all around us and I can feel the lack of it on my lap everywhere I go.

I know we had to give you up, Sydney, and we'll always cherish our time with you. But right now, the rooms you left are filled with tears.

No-Shop November

As we surge toward Thanksgiving--and it feels like a real surge this year--signs are everywhere that this is the month for shopping. People start talking about Black Friday more than they do about family get-togethers and in this second year of the pandemic, I get it. Hard to get on a plane to see family; easier to order stuff to make you feel better when you can't see them.

The only thing is, my husband and I just spent $1500 in the last two weeks on our seventeen-year-old cat, and there's nothing left to shop with. Our Sydney has cancer, and we are going to try to shrink the tumor(s) if we can, though if we can't there's a terrible decision to make, and we're trying to avoid making it. I'd say at all costs, but I've already given you an idea of the costs.

I'm guessing some of you (many)? reading this have faced the same dilemmas and were as messy as we are about solving them. Thing is, our animal companions are more than animals to us--they are family. If they were human, we would leave the decisions up to them and that, of course, would be easier. But in the case of animals, we can't.

Sydney was about six months old when I brought her home after falling in love with her at an adoption fair at a pet store. She was skittish, hated being held, ran around the house at breakneck speed and captivated my husband and son from the very first moment she stepped inside our door.

She is quieter now and not nearly as spry, but she still jumps up onto our laps and purrs and eats and drinks, and it seems crazy that she's "old" in cat years and has cancer. It's also scary in a whole other way that veterinary services are so expensive and we are spending money we really don't have.

I have friends that tell me their dogs last barely ten years and I don't know how they do that? I am such a mess and it's been seventeen years. I could never deal with a dog dying after ten years.

If you have any words of wisdom about your pet growing older (and sicker) or losing a pet and want to share, please feel free to send your thoughts here. I'd love to know them.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a good month--shopping or no--and that your family continues to grow and expand--and most of all--stays healthy.

Kitty Blues

Worried as I'm writing this; my cat is getting older and arthritis is setting in. Our vet has given us these options:

Chiropractic care (who knew there were chiropracters for animals?!?)
Spinal surgery

My husband and I are trying to figure out what to do.

There are people who say, "It's just a cat, why bother?"

I can't talk to those people, or make them understand. Sydney is a cat, but what cat is "just a cat?" Can you honestly live with an animal in your home many years and not consider him or her to be part of your family?

Our Sydney is magically able to know your moods and manifest them. She is a lovely nurse when you need one, and can always be relied on to lift your spirits and comfort you when you're down. Until her recent illness she routinely slept on my hair. This is a trait I adapted into The Beat on Ruby's Street with Ruby's cat Solange.

This week she has stayed with me on the couch in the evening, but won't sleep near me and mostly hides in the closet. And I can't help feeling sad and helpless while I'm trying to sort through the options we have (and how much we can afford).

A friend told me last week that while cats can live 15 to 20 years, dogs live more like 10 years. I cannot imagine losing a dog after 10 years - I think it would be horrible. I would hate it even more if I had a young child or if our cat had died when our son was small.

I know things like this can be "opportunities" to talk to kids about loss; but what Sydney is bringing home to me is how unutterably hard grief is, how much loss really affects us, and how much animal companions bring to our lives.

I think whatever kids learn about these issues, they will have to learn this. As do we all.