I’ve been trying to write this post for over two weeks, and each and every time I sit down to write it, I can’t find the words. Maybe there aren’t any words adequate to express my feelings. I’m at a loss.
Many of you followed the story of my cat, Zelda — her sickness, and her passing — so I feel compelled to finish that story. But these sorts of endings are hard. I can’t seem to find a way to wrap my pain up neatly, to find the language necessary to complete the narrative in any sort of satisfying way — for you, as a reader, or me, as a writer. So I’ll stop trying now.
A few days before her death, Zelda stopped eating and drinking. I remembered the vet saying to me that I should look out for her doing that as a warning sign, a signal that she’d decided, against my will to keep her alive, that she was ready to go. The base, animal instinct to survive, to live, is so powerful that when an animal contradicts that — refuses to do the most basic things they need to in order to live, ie, to eat and drink — it is their way of indicating that we, the humans who love them, need to let them go.
I cried every day, cajoled her in every imaginable way to eat, to drink, and still hoped she’d turn around.
And I watched her fade into the barest shadow of herself.
The night before she died… it became unbearable. She’d lost control of bodily functions, and could barely stand on her own. At bedtime, I put towels on my bed and nestled her up against me. I’ll never forget how she stared at me, almost pleadingly. Let me go. I sobbed the whole night, petting her, talking to her, apologizing for being so selfish, for putting her through so much. In the morning, M, the boyfriend and I went to the vet’s. I stood beside the exam table, stroking her gently and telling her how much I loved her, as the doctor gave her the two injections by IV that would end her life. Then she was gone.
An attendant at the vet’s who’d cared for Zelda the month before then wrapped her body in a threadbare pink towel. I told them that I wanted to take her home to bury her, and asked that they place her in a box for that purpose. When the attendant handed me the box and I saw what was written on it, I burst into tears again.
And she was.
. . . . .
From the earliest days of our relationship, the boyfriend and I had a running joke. Whenever Zelda would jump up on the couch and climb into my lap, as she did daily, we’d whisper to her, conspiratorially, “You’re the number one Kitty. Shh… don’t tell anybody.” As though the other cats might overhear and become jealous. But it was the truth. She was, and she always will be.
The boyfriend dug a grave in our garden and buried her, planting some Black-Eyed Susans above her in remembrance.
We miss you, Zelda. We always will.
