A good death
I wrote this months ago, but other stuff got in the way of posting it.
It was a good death. We should all be so lucky. Who would have known, 19 years ago? Pretty and bulimic. Her old owner met me in the subway, reached into her backpack and handed the cat over to me. One year old, spayed and no longer cute enough. The woman mentioned a new baby. She didn't mention how the cat had acquired a taste for garbage, but I have my suspicions.
She came into this world as Nisse and wasn't revealed as Nissa until after getting her first shots. In my eyes she was neither. She hissed at her new roomate, Stella, ate until she puked, and then ate some more, even though I never left the food bowl empty. This went on for weeks. Stella liked to play and cuddle and talk. The new cat posed in the window, listened to the toilet or the shower drain, or made a noise that was neither hissing nor meowing. If you have read “Bloom County” and seen strips with Bill the Cat, you know what mean. I named her Lula.
How can a cat that sounds like this...
Look like this?
Stella's place was by my pillow, so Lula slept by my feet. If was cold, I would awaken to her purring between my shoulder-blades. If I went away, Stella would sulk, but Lula was happy as long as she had fresh food and water... and Stella kept her distance. Some of you may remember their boxing matches. Lula and Stella didn't really form a truce until we moved across the country and acquired more than 26 square meters (280 sq. feet) of living space. When Stella passed away from liver failure in 2000, Lula almost seemed giddy. But by then I had Hoshi, so there was still someone to be peeved at.
Inky joined us only weeks after Stella's passing, and Simba came to stay for good within the following year. It would be years before any of them dared to come within striking distance of Lula's claws. Lula wasn't very fond of people either. She was well-behaved, like all of my cats, but she could pick out the true cat people from the merely cat-tolerant. I think the only person she genuinely liked was probably my mother, who fed her cream and cheese while I was away in Norway for a semester.
In 2002, Lula was finally given the option of spending time outdoors. Although she enjoyed a nap in the sunshine or a little bird-watching, she never learned to hunt and generally kept herself out of trouble. When she turned 13 or 14, I finally stopped paying for her insurance. Three months later, she needed medical attention for the first time in her life. After some blood tests that were extremely painful to my wallet, it was concluded that she needed special cat food. Her cream and cheese days were over.
For the last two years, the signs of Lula's decline became more pronounced: the other cats could approach her, she sometimes slept next to the dog, or she would sometimes need help remembering where her food dish was. She came to seek out warm spots like never before, and made her permanent bed on top of the broadband modem. She might go out for a breath of fresh air once or twice a summer, but otherwise she preferred the indoors. Her limbs seemed stiff - she was grateful to be carried to the catbox. Then, in early July, she ditched the catbox altogether. The vet's vacation bought her another two weeks of life, but then it was time.
On Monday, July 18, I fed her tuna, lined a cat cage with her favorite blankets and put a warm wheat pillow underneath. She made herself comfortable inside and didn't meow at all in the car. At the vet's she came out curiously and let herself be pet. She was quite relaxed, just a little annoyed at the pinch in her belly from the injection. She climbed back into her warm bed and stretched her head out towards me. I held it in my hand and scratched her ears. I could swear she was smiling, squinting at me still as she stopped breathing.
I have had cats shot at, run over, eaten by coyotes and/or stolen. I have seen them get liver disease and cat-AIDS. Every day there are cats abandoned, thrown away like garbage, drowned and tortured. I see feral cats every day and look away because we just can't take in one more. To adopt a cat, or any other animal, is to make a promise to feed and house it, keep it healthy, and make sure that the animal never has to suffer, no matter what. For the first time, I managed to keep that promise well. Lula rests in peace.
Lula's final resting place, beneath the Acer