My Bobby
The sun is brightly shining, and because of this week's rain, every green thing is glowing in the light. And my cat Bobby is dying.
I don't have a scanner, so I can't post a photo of him. He is a grey and white charmer with lime-green eyes. Domestic shorthair, I guess, barn cat really, for that is what he was born to be. He rid every country house I lived in of mice with an efficiency and speed that was breathtaking. He endured many years of living with herding dogs who failed to grasp that the expression "herding cats" refers to something being impossible. Not much irony appreciation in dogs, really. Cats, on the other hand, probably invented both irony and sarcasm.
He never scratched the dogs - that's the amazing thing - though my Belgian Tervuren, Shekinah, in particular, really deserved to be walloped for how she tried to boss him around.
This was a cat who, like a stage magician doing the tablecloth thing, could twitch a slice of cheese from an untended sandwich without disturbing the bread on top He could jump to the top of the refrigerator with ease. He could slither under the bedspread and be nowhere to be found - until you noticed a lump in the middle of the bed (Shekinah would see it, jump up, and settle on top of him. See what I mean?). He was, like all cats, a heat-seeking missile who was delighted with the new apartment which, because it is directly above the boiler room, has a floor that is always warm.
I think he missed his dogs when they died, Shekinah in 2004, the noble Shadow in 2006. But he liked the freedom of being able to race around the place without being herded, leaping up, jumping down, yowling when he caught the rare city mouse that was foolish enough to come his realm. He was such a good hunter that my former landlord used to borrow him whenever there was a rodent issue. Bobby made "mouse calls". If you have animals in your life in any meaningful way, you'll find that they will enhance the macabre portion of your sense of humor. When you can share a joke with a cat, you have entered a rarefied level of mirth.
But he has run out of mirth now, and I am about to lose my companion of 18 years. He is old, and he is failing, and he has had enough. It was easier to call the lawyer for a divorce than to make this call to the vet. Not because of having to put my cat down. I have had a lot of pets; I know it most often goes this way. Hard because I want the right to do this myself. I have done everything I can to ensure that Bobby is comfortable and not afraid. I hoped he would die here, in his sleep. Instead, he has shifted from discomfort to suffering. Now, at the almost-end of his road, I have to take him to a veterinary clinic, a place that frightens him, and he will suffer more before he gets to suffer less.
But then, sweet freedom. He will not suffer in this life anymore, and all things shall be well with him. With me? Not so, for a while at least, but then, yes. Well enough. Because I know that this, too, most often goes this way.