A Tribute to Issa Bubba
Today I will be saying goodbye to Issa.
I made a separate entry about what's been going on with her health-wise. But today we will be saying our final goodbye to one another. In just a few hours we will be going to the vet where she'll be put to sleep. Our appointment is at 3:30pm today, October 16th.
As devastated as I am at this moment, I'm just now realizing how fitting of a moment this is. Writing on Livejournal with Issa laying on my lap and purring. It has been so long since I've really sat down to journal anything. But it's bringing me back to our original times together. How many times in the last 15 years have I sat down at a computer to journal, play video games, or do any number of other things, while Issa laid on my lap keeping me company?
November of 2009 I was going to the Bradshaw Animal Shelter mainly just to look around. I don't think Ma was with me, but I do remember she had mentioned wanting to go there to potentially get a new dog. While there, I went around the place to look at the dogs. I had never really been a cat person, but I decided to go check out the cats anyway. Afterall, why not?
I went into one of the condominiums in the middle of the building. There were 2 little cats in there. One was an energetic orange cat zooming around and having fun with it's toys. I bent down to play with it a while with the little cat fishing toy. After I'd hd my fill a few minutes, I noticed the other little cat laying on a little cushion on the floor. I sat down, did a little "psstpsstpsst" rubbing my fingers together, and she got right up, lazily and nonchalantly. She rubbed against my fingers for a few moments, and then just as lazily and casually as she had originally stood up, she calmly climbed up onto my lap, curled up to lay down, and put her paw on my other hand that was on my knee. Before closing her eyes, she looked up at me. And I told this little cat, "I guess I can't leave here without you, huh?"
And so it was. I inquired about adopting her and it turns out she was sleepy and lazy because she had just been spayed earlier that day. They had also just happened to know her exact birthday of August 28, 2009 because the mother had been pregnant when she came into the shelter. I adopted this little 3-month-old kitten. At the time, there was this kid I worked with who was a big fan of Dora the Explorer. Natalie, my friend & coworker at the time loved hanging out with this kid as much as I did. She had recently gotten her own cat and named him Tico after one of the minor Dora characters. So in kind, I named this little cat Issa.
At the time, I was living with Ryan in house on Sunfire Way. It only occurred to impulsive 23-year-old me after the fact that we were not permitted to have pets in this house, and I worried how Ryan would react and whether or not we'd get in trouble with the landlord.
Nonetheless, in I strolled into this house with brand new kitten. Ryan was surprised, indeed, but he didn't show any negative reaction. In fact, I remember Ryan had later posted a video to YouTube of Issa being on his lap and he was coaxing her into chasing her tail.
Around that time, Ryan's friend and coworker, Ant, had moved in with us. Having adopted Issa on an impulse, for a few days the only toy Issa had was an orange jellybean one of us had dropped on the floor, and she loved the hell out of that thing.
From the very beginning she was a perfect mix of energetic and playful and lazy and chill. And from then on, Issa lived with me everywhere I had gone.
Issa was with me for quite a few transitions. After my lease was up with Ryan, I moved back in with my mom for a little while. Then in the spring of 2010 I moved in with Tara. Issa wasn't even a year old when I first started dating Amy in the summer of 2010. After 6 months and a chaotic ending to that lease with Tara (and a chaotic ending to that friendship), I moved back in with my mom yet again, Issa in tow. By that point, the end of September 2010, Amy and I had been an official couple for less than 2 weeks. After a couple of months living t my mom's and it not going well with her dog, Amy, my brand-new girlfriend, allowed me to move Issa into her apartment in North Highlands.
It was January 2011 when Amy and I had decided to live together. I was sick of living with my mom, and Amy's ex, she had discovered, was driving by her apartment frequently and stalking her. We had each attempted to find other friends to move in with, and loathing the idea of finding strangers as roommates, we decided it made sense to move in together, even though we'd only been dating less than 4 months at that point.
And Issa was there through it all. Later that year, I believe in the summer of 2011, we went to the Petco by our apartment to get some litter/food for Issa, and a lady happened to be there adopting off a bunch of cats. And Amy, seemingly on just about as much of an impulse as I had adopted Issa, looked at the ugliest runt of the litter and just had to adopt that cat.
We brought him home, somewhat worried how Issa would receive him. They stood off for a bit, circled each other from a distance. Issa tried out some quick short movements to test his reaction. They wound up running around and playing together, using the laundry basket as a fort, reaching their paws through the holes to poke and playfully swipe at one another. We have photos of that first interaction, which eventually ended with the new little kitten climbing up into the cat tree, Issa following him up there, laying down with him and bathing and grooming him.
After a couple of weeks of debating names, we finally settled on naming him Trouble, for obvious reasons. But from that first moment, Issa didn't just accept Trouble. She adopted him as her own little baby kitten, acting as his mother and protector.
We had our first health scare with Issa in early 2016. Over the years she had worked her way up to bout 10 or 10.5 pounds. Enough for the vet to say she isn't obese, but she would not want her to gain anymore weight. That was in the fall of 2015 the vet told us that, and within few short months in February 2016, Issa had dropped down to about 4 pounds.
After several rounds of bloodwork, urine tests, an x-ray and ultrasound, they discovered Issa had Infiltrative Bowel Disease (IBD) and prescribed us Predinsolone (steroids) and B-12 injections. It worked like a cham and later that year, she was back up to a normal weight, though she never got back up to that "Big Butt Bubba" weight she'd been at previously.
From my first place to my mom's, to 2nd apartment, back to my mom's, to Amy's, then to our apartment for 6 years, then to extended stay for 2 weeks, mine and Amy's first home, 2nd home, and now our 3rd home (with few weeks' stint to Amy's parents' place in there at one point), she's lived a lot of places with me and been by my side.
And it's not just the physical locations. Issa has been with me for 15 years, and been present for some of the most pivotal and consequential moments of my life. When I first adopted her, I was still in college and hadn't gotten my bachelor's yet. When I was a single guy in my early 20s, she was my nightly and daily companion. Plying with me and keeping me entertained and supported during the days, and always curled up somewhere on my bed at night.
Issa was there all the way back in my rave days. The days where I hd n "open door policy" for any of my ftiends to drop in anytime for video games, hookah, whatever. Issa was there when I chose my budding relationship with Amy over moving to Long Beach to start a new job and a new life. I'd be kidding myself if I tried to say the thought of driving my cat in the car for 6+ hours didn't factor into that decision either.
Through graduation, career changes, trying out being an EMT, deciding to get my Masters, get my BCBA, she was always there, giving me a break, company, and a lap companion during study time and video game time or really anything else.
I even remember when I'd decided to ask Amy to marry me. I'd had the ring for a couple weeks and would practice the proposal with Issa.
Issa accepted Milo when we got him, and she outlasted his stint in our lives (Milo is still currently alive, by the way, just living in a different place with Tim still).
So many things have changed over the years. I can look at old photos and see old friend, furniture, clothing, jewelry, and items of mine that have come and gone. Looking back to when I first got her, all the possessions I had in my home and in my room have almost all left my life. Issa is the real, last physical reminder of the life I once had and all the transitions that have occurred throughout that whole period of my life. And I'm forever grateful for your presence in my life throughout all of it.
It's so weird. On face value it seems like it shouldn't be this hard. I mean, it's a stupid cat. Cats and dogs die all the time. They have way shorter lifespans, and every pet owner knows, and accepts when they get their pet that there's inevitably going to come a day when they have to decide to say goodbye for the final time. We know that, we should be prepared, and shouldn't have such a hard time, or such huge emotional upheaval.
But it's not that way at all. Issa has been such a rock and a reliable presence in my life, and we've had such a close bond that it's hard to put into words. It would be unfair to compare cat to a child, but Issa is undoubtedly family. And losing family leaves a mark.
It's been a rough few weeks for you here, Issa. Even more scary for me than that time in 2022 when you got out of the house and went missing for a couple days (only to be found lounging peacefully on a neighbor's porch furniture). I've been worried, scared, and saddened by the idea that the day we need to say our final goodbye is likely soon approaching.
I'm grateful you don't seem to be in pain. But I can see you're not yourself. Whatever is ailing you, I'm so sorry that it has made you lose your appetite, weakened your body, and is now affecting your bodily functions. You're not obviously in pain, but you are unhappy. You are weak, you are so tired, and unable to move and clean yourself. I'm so sorry this has happened to you.
In your true fashion, of course you are seeming to moderately improve, just enough to make me second-guess myself today. But I know we are past the point where you'll be back to your old self again. Although you'd tolerate it, it hurts me to see you shuffle along arduously day after day. I know when you are seeking the solitude under the bed that you scarcely sought before all this happened, you're telling me that something is wrong, and you want to be alone.
I can't keep poking and prodding at you. I can't keep taking you to the vet to get fluids to stay hydrated. I can't keep giving you shots and forcing medicine down your throat just to keep what little motor you have left puttering along for just a little longer.
I can't keep watching your quality-of-life decline and your enjoyment for snuggles, cuddles, and rubs and a lap to claim - whenever the hell you demand it - fade away. It isn't fair for me to watch you struggle to move, eat, barely drink, and now show the inability to clean yourself. It's more than you just not acting like yourself anymore, soon your dignity will go away too.
I know Amy and I have done what we can to try to treat what is ailing you to the best of our ability. While it might sustain your life a bit longer, it wouldn't be fair to put you through some expensive, invasive tests and treatments at such an advanced age. To continue to do all this, while you continue to struggle and decline and cease to live the existence you once did would no longer be to help you, but to just keep you going, miserably, just so I can have more time. Just because I'm not ready to say goodbye. That isn't fair. That isn't love. I'm not ready, and I don't think I'll ever be ready to say goodbye. But it's the compassionate thing to do. I need to let you go. I need to let you be at peace and to stop struggling through life.
It' now 1:30pm. I started writing this over an hour ago and you're still resting peacefully and loyally on my lap, doing something I once loved so incredibly much when you came into my life: journaling about my life with you keeping me company.
We've said some goodbyes before. We say short goodbyes every day when I leave the house to go to work or go run errands or go out for some kind of hangout or recreation. I said goodbye to you briefly when you went to live with Amy. We said goodbye when you went to live with Jim any Lynn for a few weeks between moves. We said goodbye for longer periods when Amy and I went to Ireland in 2016 and to Scotland for our honeymoon. We said goodbye for a few days when we went to the hospital 3.5 years ago. And you lovingly greeted your new little sister, Olive.
Each time we've said goodbye, we were both always ready to greet each other again. But this goodbye is difficult. It's more difficult that I ever could have anticipated. After this goodbye, there won't be a later greeting. After we say goodbye in a few short hours, we'll never see each other again. You'll never sleep on my lap again. You'll never get a hold of some kind of string or ribbon and throwing it up, pissing me off, gain. You'll never have a 4am catfight with trouble waking everybody up again. You'll never rub your head on my hand again. You'll never wake me up on the morning with your face inches from mine, purring like you own me again.
When we go out that door, you'll never come back home again. It will be the last time you'll need to yowl and complain through a car ride. It will be the last time you'll ever need to go to the vet.
It will be the last time you'll need to struggle. You won't need to struggle to move, or to get up the stairs anymore. You won't have to hang on just because your dad wants a little more time. Your job is done, and your love has been pure.
Just as I'm not ready to say goodbye, I'm not ready to end this journal entry. The finality is painful. But just like the decision I've had to make to put you to rest, it must be done.
I love you, Issa. My stupid, beloved cat. You were my first pet, and what a wonderful first pet you've been. While your physical body will be gone, the love you've allowed me to feel for you will live on. Our memories will live on. You'll always be a part of my family, and I will remember you always.
Thank you for being with me, and - honestly - helping me make some of the most important decisions of my life. From the moment you first climbed casually onto my lap 15 years ago, you latched onto my heart and you haven't let go. Now it's my turn to latch onto yours. And I'll never let go.
Goodbye, Issa. You'll always be my Bubba.