“I need something to blog about,” I told my family, immediate members of which said, “the new cat.” No way, I said, can a cat provide enough material for a blog.
I’ve had three cats in my life. The first was a stray calico cat that wandered past my kindergarten bus stop. I don’t remember much about this cat except that she didn’t really like people, and my dad hated her so much, I spent the majority of my life believing he hated cats. (Also, he told me a lot that he hated cats and that dogs were much better. He’s had three cats now and zero dogs, so I guess he was gaslighting me? NBD. Parents do it all the time.) The realities of taking care of the cat no doubt landed on my mother’s plate. I remember Taffy – that was the cat’s name – having diarrhea on a homemade quilt and being very angry and distraught. I do not remember being the person who washed the quilt. The cat lived about 12 years, until I was a junior or senior in high school. She developed a tumor and we had to put her down.
I left the vet empty-handed, in tears. I cried about the cat for two days. And then I went about my catless life for 10 years. In 2007, after moving into our current house, I told my husband we were getting a cat. We went to the Humane Society and procured Sid. Sid also lasted 12 years, and Sid also got a tumor. Not only that, but for the last year of his life, we watched him deteriorate from kidney disease. He went from over-grooming to not grooming at all. He disappeared for days at a time. He would sit in the middle of the road and not move for cars, which seemed suicidal. Logically, it was probably poor eyesight and painful reluctance to move. Occasionally, and secretly, I hoped that he would disappear in the night and save me the decision to put him down.
Though I am an adult, making a vet appointment from which I was sure the cat would not return was not an adulting task I wanted. My mom made and came to the appointment, with the same vet that put Taffy down. A long-time friend of my parents, Dr. Shirley is partially retired. She lived on the same street as my dad, who is now 75, and was a few grades behind him in school. She gained some level of notoriety as the first woman to be admitted to the veterinary school she attended. With just a quick touch of Sid’s belly, she diagnoses the cancer. She’s obviously seen this before in thousands of cats, and she is confident and assured that euthanasia is the right thing to do. She explains to me that I can bury my cat at home, or he can be part of a singular or group cremation. Dr. Shirley then turns to my mother, another gray-haired, partially retired woman, and asks, “What’s it going to be for you, Shellie?” “What?” my mother asked. “Group cremation?” the vet replied. Suddenly, I was concerned that I might have to leave the cat just to get my mother out alive.
I said I wanted to be with the cat during the procedure, and then, through tears, I changed my mind. I wanted to comfort him, naturally, but then I thought about what being there might be like. I had to remind myself over and over again that I was not a monster and I’m still not 100% sure I believe myself. We are conditioned from an early age to think that a cat sitting in the road is suicidal or that a stray cat avoids animal control because he knows if he winds up in the pound, he’s a goner. But this is not true. My cat knew he was in pain, and I think he knew it was time to go, but I don’t think he needed me to be there. Maybe he did. I don’t know. All I knew was that I could not be there as the light went out of his eyes. I blame Pixar for having genuinely good storylines about talking fish and cooking rats.
I wasn’t there for it but I did the right thing; I put the cat out of its misery. My friend said he was probably long overdue and she was probably right. I cried for two days. I do not remember what I was thinking when I put my cat to sleep as a teenager, but I know what I was thinking this time. I was thinking about death. Specifically, my death. Perhaps I was thinking about that as a teenager too, but it sure seems a fuck of a lot closer now. Not close enough to make morbid jokes about cremation, but close enough that it set off a mini-existential crisis. It’s very unlikely the cat was thinking deep thoughts about mortality, but his impending doom caused me to conjecture the types of thoughts that would be going through his head as he neared death, if he had thoughts. Which again, we’ve established that he didn’t, because he was not a cartoon. But I spent two sleepless nights thinking about how scared he must have been, and how sad. And how it didn’t matter if he didn’t have any thoughts or emotions, because I loved him and I was scared and sad for him.
Ashes to ashes. For every deadly winter there is a blooming spring, and for every dead cat, a new kitten. Sonja was sort of sad that Sid was gone, but she only cried when I said we wouldn’t be getting a new cat right away. A new cat could be a reward for Sonja at the end of the school year, I said. How much money I’ll save, I thought. How much aggravation I’ll be spared at the responsibility of emptying the litter box and cleaning up unexpected vomit. How grand the next cat-free year will be, I thought. For two whole weeks I thought that. Then I took my dog to the vet and came home with a kitten. Of course, it was not my fault. Not my fault that a woman in the waiting room was holding Sid reincarnate. Not my fault that I oohed and aahed. Not my fault that she asked me if I wanted it. Not my fault that there was literally no way I could say no.
As cats go, this one seems pretty good. She’s a standard, short-haired black cat so I often call her Sid, instead of Ding Ding, which is what Sonja named her. And I can’t help but compare the two cats, or maybe I should say I contrast them. She has darker eyes than Sid. She smells different. She eats way more. She poops way more. She’s only mildly interested in the outdoors (so far.) She wants to be around all the people, not just the immediate family. Sid was better looking and feistier, but I also secretly suspected he wanted to murder me, and it made me feel crazy. He’d ask to be petted and then he’d turn around a bite me. And he’d bite hard. I’d cry out, but my husband would say he was only play biting. And I thought for twelve years that I was overreacting to this cat. Ding Ding bites me sometimes when she’s playing. It does not hurt. When she wants to be petted, she lets you pet her. She likes to cuddle up with you all throughout the day (which has the effect of making some very unproductive days.) However, she also likes to knead on my neck, which has the effect of choking me, so maybe she is trying to kill me but has a different set of skills.
Despite all that, I still call her Sid because she’s black and she’s a cat. If this cat could just live a healthy life and silently keel over in the laundry room from heart failure at a ripe old age, that would be really fantastic. Come to think of it, I’d like the same for myself. And when it’s all over, I’ll take the group cremation.
Suite Story Productions 