My baby's gone.
Shirley Manson or Garbage Head
b: 1997 - d: 03-06-2007
Rest in Peace
This morning at 10:30 am the vet pricked the wrist of Garbagehead's shaved, right forpaw with an overdose of painkiller that stopped her heart before the needle had been removed. I was kneeling beside her, eye to eye. She never blinked. There was a moment in her eyes resembling mild surprise and then she was gone. I've never seen it work so fast before, so I asked the doctor, 'is she fading already?'
The vet replied, "I think she's gone."
Although she had a lot of nicknames -some people called her Garbage, Garbo, G-hed or lil'g- her real name was Shirley Manson.
Last night, on the floor of my room, I laid out Garbagehead's last meal. A bowl of sardine chunks, a plate of chicken liver cat food, her usual dry food, a bowl of water and a bowl of milk. She ate first the sardines, then most of the chicken liver and proceeded to drink three bowls of milk. When I woke up 3 hours later, she was begging from more milk. This time however, she only drank about half the bowl, leaving behind a pink mix of milky-blood. I allowed her to rest in her little red-paisley bed, while I collected things I'd need to see her off. Before loading her into Jacques old carrier, I wiped her chin as best I could and snapped a few pictures of her in the little bed.
We sat for awhile in the parking lot of the vet's office. I used my phone again to record a small, poor quality video of this scene... in it, she's alert, calm, and very affectionate. Now I wish I'd used a real video camera, though I doubt I could ever bring myself to watch it again.
After the lethal injection, the doctor checked Garbagehead for a heartbeat twice and found none. Before I could bundle lil' G up in her cat-bed, the vet asked if she could check something else. With two fingers she gently opened the limp jaw, hummed an affirmative and pointed at a bulging patch of tissue enveloping the tongue on either side and growing back toward her throat.
"Cancer" she said.
Actually she called it squishy carcinoma or something (Squamous Cell Carcinoma?)... but at this point such information seemed futile. The vet went on to explain that this type of cancer is commonly found in the mouths of cats with feline leukemia. She said Garbagehead wouldn't have lasted long with such heavy growth and that I had done the right thing.
I buried G-hed behind the IHOB, alongside her friend, Jacques Faux Cliche, the same cat she contracted feline leukimia from. Garbage was curled up, as if sleeping, with Catnip Tuck (her mouse, who died on Saturday) under her paw. beachsomewhere laid a Peace Lily over her, and I covered the odd pair with an old towel.
~1997~
Heather and I found Garbagehead, along with her brother NikNud and sister Ruby, in 1997, living under the old house we were moving into. As we were carrying the first load of boxes inside, all three kittens poked their heads from between the lattice work by our stairs. I managed to grab Garbagehead first, and she was so tiny that she slipped through the lattice without a struggle.
Taking her inside what would become my artroom, we looked her over carefully and tried to calm her. Even for a kitten, her head and eyes were so large, and her mouth so small that she looked like a caricature. I told Heather, 'she's reminds me of that singer, that girl with the big eyes... you know from Garbage... she's got garbage head!" And the name stuck.
Of all the cats I've ever had, G-hed was the sweetest, and most gentle. She was ambassador and surrogate mother, often adopting orphanned kittens as her own. When her mother gave birth to a second litter, G-hed would serve as a relief nurse, allowing the kittens to suckle on her even though she had no milk.
She is the only cat I've ever known who would sleep in the crook of my elbow, resting her head on my shoulder or pillow, and even get under the covers with me (as in the photo above).
Goodbye sweetheart, I'm so sorry that it went this way...
You deserved a better end than this.