My sense of humour is calling in sick for a few more days. Please check back later, the funny stuff will return, I promise.

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When I began writing this story it was purely for myself and I only intended to put it into my private journal. I changed my mind when I realised that many of you have either gone through this or will go through it at some point. As always, you have the freedom to choose whether or not to read my story . . .

When I was a little girl my family had a black kat. We named her “Lucky” because in England, black kats are considered to be lucky — unlike in America where they have the superstition backwards. Since then, I have had three more black kats in my life, two of whom I “lost” in my divorce.

For the past twelve and a half years I have had the sheer luck to have shared a home with a beautiful black kat named Jazz. He was one of a litter of six kittens that my former husband and I adopted when their feral mother gave birth in our back garden. We didn’t actually plan to adopt the entire litter as we had already rescued five other kittens and becoming The Crazy Kat Couple did not particularly hold great appeal. Initially, the kittens lived outdoors with their mother and auntie — who would squabble over whether the kittens should spend that day in the old irrigation tunnel, the kennel we had purchased for them, or in the woodpile. Jazzie was always the friendliest and most outgoing, popping out of the piled logs and allowing us to stroke him. I named him Jazz because he was black but had long gray hairs in his ears, which somehow made me think of an old-time jazz musician. When Mama-Kitty started to move the kittens out of our garden we decided it was time to take them inside and find them homes. As it turned out, our grandiose plan for finding loving homes for the kittens failed to come to fruition and there we were with eleven house kats! Thankfully, we had a 2,500 square-foot split-level house.

When I left behind my life with my former husband, I took two of our kats with me. I chose Jazz because he had the most gloriously rich baritone miaow. He was barely a year old then and of average size. When he reached full growth, however, he measured 36″ from perky nose to tip of waggy tail and weighed in at a sturdy 24-lbs. Several years ago he lost a frightening 7-lbs over the course of six months and he was so thin that his spine looked like clenched knuckles. He was diagnosed with diabetes and we were relegated to a lifetime regimen of twice-daily insulin shots. About three years after that, Jazz began having seizures during which he would shake and pant and YOOOOWWWWLLLL at the top of his lungs. He would also lose control of his bladder. His insulin was adjusted and I discovered that if I could coax him into drinking a little cream it would almost always avert the seizure. After a while that trick no longer worked so well and in the past year his seizures became terrifying for both of us. His back legs were so weak that he could no longer jump onto the bed or sofa. Instead, he would totter onto his back legs and place his front paws neatly on the edge and wait patiently until I picked him up. He would then snuggle up to me, patting my leg, and purring as loudly as the rumblings of some of the earthquakes I lived through in my L.A. years. I took to placing a pillow on the floor next to my bed so that when he jumped — or more accurately, tumbled, to the floor he had a soft landing spot. I was terrified that he would break a leg or hip. Approximately six weeks ago I took him to see my beloved V.E.T. I came home $250 further in debt and with the knowledge that his diabetes had worsened, his potassium was low, and his heart was enlarged. He had also been getting senile lately, he would wander off into adjacent rooms and just miaow on and on at high volume. I found myself getting paranoid that the neighbours would overhear and call the police to report animal abuse, when all he was doing was chatting or perhaps singing to me or paging the other kats to come see him.

In the past few months, the seizures also caused Jazz to start losing control of his bowels. He tried to get to the litter box, but his back legs were so very weak. I spent hours and hours, week after week, cleaning my carpet, replacing bath mats, bathing him while he screamed bloody murder. I went through cycles of fury and depression at the constant cleaning of feline diarreah. It can truly wear a person down to have to clean that much shit, even knowing it was not his fault. It also caused me to be late for work several times and I am so grateful that I am presently at a job where I have some flexibility with my arrival time. I understand now why the Universe steered me to this job even though I believe the job itself is not meant to be long-term. The V.E.T. put him on twice-daily phenobarbital and I purchased a new litter box with a lower entrance. Nothing helped. I made a euthanasia appointment at the SPCA although I would much rather have taken him to my own V.E.T., but sadly, my finances are at an all-time low. I canceled the appointment. I remade it. I canceled it again.

For months I have beaten myself into a bloody and broken mess agonising over whether to try to hang on a little longer. The V.E.T. insisted that Jazz was not suffering, but the V.E.T. did not have to live with the seizures, the howling, the terror of my poor baby-kitty. Nor did the V.E.T. have to experience my anger and subsequent guilt for getting angry about the shit-cleaning. I know that Jazzie would never have lived near as long or comfortable of a life if I had left him to the harsh care of nature. Yet I feel selfish for prolonging his life and even more selfish for resenting the decision to end it. Just a few more weeks, I kept telling myself. Maybe after the holiday season . . . When he had a good week I was able to convince myself that all was well and then a seizure would rip us both apart and the anger would take over again. I did not want to let him go out of anger. I did not want to let him go at all. Selfishly I hoped many times that he would just die peacefully in his sleep so that I could shirk my horrible responsibility. Part of what just killed me was that when he was between bouts of sickness he was just the happiest kat you could ever meet. His purr could fill the room with joy, his baritone miaow summoning the other kats to him for a quick face rub. It seemed impossible to snuff out such a bright light . . . but then the next seizure and carpet-soiling would happen and reality would slap me in the face again.

I had surgery a few days ago and my recovery has been brutally and unexpectedly painful. I have been homicidally irritable and suicidally depressed. After my dearest friend, who taxi’d and nursed me, left to return to her own home, I drifted for a day in a fog of painkillers but had to clear my head in order to make a dizzy, light-headed, terrifying drive to the doctor’s office — only to be sent home still in bandages and with a surgical drain still piercing my torso. I cannot take a shower and the “bird baths” still leave me feeling unclean. I spent $50 just to get my hair washed at a salon. Even the most gentle of carpet scrubbing caused more drainage from my incision site. Yesterday morning, Jazz suffered not one, but two, grand mal seizures. I gently bathed him clean both times, murmuring softly to calm him . . . I also dislodged my surgical drain which started to bleed through the bandages and caused a sensation of being stabbed with a knitting needle. I had to arrange an emergency check-up at my surgeon’s office and again came home bandaged and with the drain still in place. I didn’t need any bigger of a sign that it was Time.

If you have never shared the life and love of a kat then you cannot possibly understand . . . and frankly, I pity you. I am sure there are any number of people who would consider me a ridiculous fool for writing a eulogy to my kat. Consider away. He lived with me and loved me unconditionally for more than twelve years. You have not. Each of my kats has represented a baby that was unable to flourish in my womb. Literally.

My sweet black kitty will not see another Halloween. Yesterday we met the executioner at the local SPCA. The walk to my front door seemed a hundred miles away . . . each step taking me closer to a place I did not ever want to go . . . each step threatening to choke me into suffocating on my own emotions.

I was present for the ending. I held him and kissed him and told him I loved him beyond belief. The hardest part of all — if there can be a “hardest part” was leaving his sweet body behind. That cracking sound that some of you may have just imagined was my heart, which has already been shattered into a thousand ragged shreds and yet still fragments into a thousand more. I am drowning in an ocean of salty tears, a lake of anguish and guilt.

I have closed the comments for this article — and possibly for all future ones. I do not intend to stop writing, I need the outlet. I mean no disrespect to those of you who faithfully read here and who appreciate the humour and also my deeper, more reflective musings. I simply do not have the emotional capacity for the sincere well-wishes and sympathy of those who will feel the need to try to comfort me. There is no comfort to be found here other than the gratitude I feel for having had these years with Jazz. Right now I cannot seem to stop crying, but soon I will have to pull myself together for my other three kats.

If you pray, then pray for us. Or light a candle. Or do whatever it is that you do to celebrate a life rather than mourn a death. But please, please do not try to comfort me.

I have never asked anything of my readers . . . rather, I have simply always been — and will continue to be — amazed and grateful to those of you who continue to read my musings and who take some enjoyment from my creativity. But today, I ask you, if you are of a mind or a heart to do so, please make a donation to the Houston SPCA

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 9:21 am and is filed under Kat Tails, Reflective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.