What Got Me Through Wasn’t Human
From Socksie to Roger, with many stops in-between.
July 25, 2023
I’m in the Weehawken Library awaiting the relinquishing of the “round room” where I hope to sit and write for NIHILISTIC in quietude, unavailable an our block the past three weeks. An invading army replacing ancient sewers descends eight AM each morning, departs five PM each afternoon, the intervening hours a cacophony of digging, pounding, scraping, whirring, shouting until you can’t form a coherent thought. Then there’s the daily two-step of where to park one or both of our cars. Add another rough night with Roger and I’m in bad shape.
Roger’s our little ray of orange sunshine who came home with us as a kitten from PAWS in Montclair sixteen years ago. A true friend and companion since, our tight bond now loosens more each day as we lose him to that great vanquisher, time. We naively thought treating his hyperthyroidism with an expensive radioactive iodine treatment back in March might give him another four or five years. But this past month he’s gone into decline, wandering the house confused, like an old man with Alzheimer’s. I spent the morning reading about Feline Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome (CDS): Roger’s symptoms tick many boxes. Nighttime vocalizations? Check. Acting confused, bewildered, startled? Check. Freezing, like he’s not sure where to go or what to do next? Check. He’s also enfeebled, having difficulty jumping up or down to and from his favorite perches. We made an appointment at Animal General next Wednesday to rule out other possible causes (like his kidney disease). Unfortunately, there’s no cure for CDS. It gets progressively worse until the animal can no longer function. Poor, poor Roger. I’m torn between wanting more time with my pal and feeling selfish for doing so. The key is to come around to a feeling of gratitude for having Roger in our lives this long. Sixteen years with an exceptional animal is not to be taken lightly. It’ll break my heart to say goodbye but who could watch him suffer?
Why am I writing about a cat in a newsletter about my memoir? Because I’m excavating all aspects of my childhood and Roger reminds me the pivotal role cats played in keeping me sane. Roger’s forefather Socksie was who I had in mind when we went looking for an orange tabby. His white paws provided his name but the rest of Socksie was a deep shade of rust and his outgoing, malleable nature – supposed orange tabby traits – never failed to make me smile. Socksie, like Roger, loved doing “social rolls”: laying on his back and lolling to one side, then the other, offering up his belly in a show of trust. In Lindenhurst we always had a family dog or two – Daphne, a gray Weimaraner; Peppy, a chihuahua/dachshund come to mind – but there were so many felines fucking in our backyard and producing regular litters (we once tallied thirty-six, my parents unable or unwilling to pay for spaying and neutering), I soon agitated for my own kitten. Woodstock, named after the yellow bird in Peanuts, was black and white with a touch of Calico. When I felt utterly alone – which was often – I’d curl up with Woodstock. He’d purr, do cute cat shit and help me feel a bit less the monster. A therapy animals long before they coined the phrase. Woodstock disappeared one Fourth of July when I was twelve, thirteen. We’d gone to Sue and Virgil’s* in Bellport for the holiday and when we got back to Lindenhurst, Woodstock was nowhere to be found. I searched every corner of the house and yard, then rode out on my Schwinn and combed the neighborhood. I never found Woodstock. I’m sure a local serial killer in training blew him up for shits and giggles.
In that time and place a boy’s preference for cats marked you a “pussy”. Actual red-blooded males would “naturally” prefer macho, personable dogs (this nonsense persists: while at SiriusXM, the host of the Professional Wrestling talk show told me “Yeah, but cats don’t have personalities, right?”). Crazy came into the picture next but I don’t remember how long he was around. Cats were constantly arriving and departing from our house, the black ones mys sisters preferred often taken out by speeding drivers on our block. All along Socksie hung in, living to a ripe old age. I’m not sure the same will hold true for Roger, about to turn sixteen.
I’m not sure how I could’ve gotten through those Lindenhurst years without a cat. Life after Roger will be much dimmer, too. I hold my breath waiting to hear the vet’s report after next Wednesday’s visit, bracing myself for the worst.
*Sister Diana’s boyfriend Keith’s brother and sister-in-law’s.
Saturday, September 2
I’ve never felt so helpless. Roger appears to be dying. It’s just after one AM and I’m in a recliner in our living room waiting for him to pass. Which seems imminent. He’s been in bad shape this past month. We thought he was done at the end of July. He was listless, lethargic, non-responsive. Monday, July 31 we rushed him to Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG) in Hoboken, convinced he wouldn’t last until Wednesday’s scheduled Animal General appointment. VEG took his vitals, said he had high blood pressure, may have had a stroke, and – by the way – what you thought was dementia is profound vision loss. August 31 we brought him to Dr. Ng at Animal General and she prescribed daily blood pressure and Plavix pills and we discussed treatment for Roger’s early stage kidney disease. For the past month we’ve watched him adjust fittingly to his new reality, using his whiskers and other senses to get around. He was able to find his water, food, litter box... even make his way up and down stairs to join us in the basement or visit the second floor (we’d praise him effusively with “Good boy! What a good, good boy!”). Now he won’t go up or down unless carried and despite the meds and Hill’s Science Diet Kidney Diet (two flavors), Purina Hydracare packets and Astro’s Oil (renal care), the trend is not good. It’s like someone flipped a switch and Roger suddenly got old.
When our boy came home from his week-long Oradell Animal Hospital hyperthyroidism treatment in March we convinced ourselves Roger would be around another four or five years. That he was an outlier, a cat who’d live to nineteen, twenty. But we were warned his hyperthyroidism probably masked the degree of his underlying kidney disease. Is that what caused his blood pressure to spike? And did the onset of blindness (which surely stressed him out) and our cruel summer – three and half weeks of noisy brick/masonry work on our house, followed by six weeks (and counting) of loud house-shaking sewer and storm drain replacement out front – exacerbate the issue? It’s impossible to find any peace of mind here weekdays between eight AM and five PM, hours I’ve wanted to scream out of sheer frustration and exhaustion (I can only imagine how it affected Roger and Marty, his three year-old brother). Add never-ending guilt over wondering, fruitlessly, how this might’ve gone had we intervened sooner – could we have saved Roger’s eyesight? – and we’re basket cases. We try to remind ourselves: cats are expert at covering up infirmity. And we lulled ourselves into thinking he’d be okay post-Oradell… but the end result is the same: Roger’s on a one way trip to oblivion.
When an adult adopts a pet we understand, if only subconsciously, “I’ll outlive this creature.” Did we admit as much that bright day in August 2007 when we found a friendly orange tabby kitten (not yet named Roger) at PAWS in Montclair? No. In a grand act of forestalling, we thought He’ll live to a ripe old age. And what IS that for a cat? One March morning a few days prior to COVID-19 lockdown, our lovely gray tabby Violet – also suffering from hyperthyroidism and receiving daily meds AND subcutaneous fluids – soiled herself, then let out a cry Sweet T. described as “HELP ME!” We cleaned up the mess, told ourselves Violet would be okay, and Sweet T. went off to work. An hour later our girl collapsed and I rushed her to Animal General. The vet examined Violet, said “Her systems are shutting down.” I texted my wife, told her we had an impossible decision to make. In an empty exam room I held Violet tight one last time, telling her it’d be okay as they took her from me. Prompted by LITE-FM’s ill-timed airing of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” over ceiling speakers, I began bawling. Collecting myself enough to leave with Violet’s empty cat carrier, I hit the bagel place next door for a cleansing cold beverage only to hear the same damn song playing there. Fuck LITE-FM. When I told Sweet T. She couldn’t believe it, telling me it was her late mother’s favorite song of her late mother’s and must’ve been a final message from Violet.
This past month has been marked by unending sadness and worry. Earlier today we both broke down crying, clutching each other, saying how terrible this is and repeating two torturous questions:
“Did we do all we could for Roger?”
“Is it time?”
To the first, Sweet T. answered “We did… we looked after Roger’s health and gave him a nice life.” The second question? Who knows? Weeks ago, my friend Caryl suggested I visit the website of the traveling pet euthanasia vets she used for her beloved cats to take their “Quality of Life” quiz. On a scale of eighty-eight Roger scored thirty-two, surely higher than he would now. But let’s say it IS time. When we contemplate the inhumanity of putting poor, ailing Roger in a cat carrier to run him back to VEG on Labor Day weekend to be put down, it makes us woozy. After the godawful Violet experience we told ourselves any other cats will pass at home if possible. Still, I needed more opinions about timing, so I called our cat expert Kathleen (she works for Bide-a-Wee and has been involved in cat rescue for decades). She asked if Roger was in distress or pain.
“No. I wouldn’t say so.”
She agreed: Why put blind Roger through a harrowing trip to Hoboken to die? Just keep him comfortable. Nature will take its course. My friend Jim said the same. So did Caryl, who I’ve called multiple times over the last month, trying to puzzle this out.
Let him pass at home.
“He’s trying. I think he’s looking for a place to hide so he can die.”
Kathleen defined this behavior: predators don’t want to show weakness to fellow predators, so they slip away, find a quiet, hidden spot to die. Since three-thirty PM yesterday, when I first noticed Roger trying to hide, I’ve kept vigil because he’s so blind he keeps getting stuck under chairs and in tight corners. Then he’ll yowl and we’ll free him. When not wandering the first floor Roger lets me put him on his favorite porch chair or in my lap. Then he gets restless, wants up again, wanders off and the cycle repeats. This is tearing us up. We tried to eat, couldn’t. Tried to watch a movie, bailed out. When I came upstairs from the basement to use the bathroom I found Roger pressing his head into the open back of the pedestal sink’s base. I extracted him, carried him to a living room recliner, thought he might pass peacefully just then curled up on my lap. He had other plans. After making sounds I’d describe as “giving up the ghost” he pushed hard against me, wanting to be on the floor to go off on his own. Now I’m in this recliner at one-thirty AM waiting for our little ray of orange sunshine to fade away. I wish I could lie, say he’ll soon “cross over” the “Rainbow Bridge” but my lapsed Catholicism means I’m unable to comfort myself with thoughts of an afterlife. Watching him move glacially from room to room, looking for the spot where he can let go (I almost wrote “of this realm” but there’s that pesky afterlife problem again), is a lesson in pain. For weeks I’ve soothed myself with shit like “I’m coming around to a Native American point of view where I can appreciate Roger for the time he gave us, not selfishly desire more.” and “Our pets teach us again about impermanence and non-attachment.” Apparently, when not stealing lines from Reservation Dogs I’m cribbing from Buddhists. But Roger is real, our bond is tight and I don’t want him to go, now or ever. And I’m probably fucking up his departure by staying up with him, waiting. How many times did Sweet T. and I remark about family members on their deathbeds, waiting for visitors to leave so they can die? Right now I can see Roger, in the corner of the dining room, frozen in place, already a ghost. And I can’t leave him.
It’s true, the Neil Young line my niece cited in a text: “Yes, only love can break your heart.”
How do I accept that Roger as physical entity will soon cease to be? And that we’ll have him cremated and buried in the backyard (we told Roger this is his forever home and mean it). We’ve loved Roger from the moment we met him, not acknowledging our hearts would someday break and all we’d have left is memories and photographs (thousands upon thousands… and video, GIGABYTES of video) of Roger being amazing. He’d greet us with what we dubbed “Cute Boy Shows”: endless social rolls, first to one side, then the other, offering up his belly to be rubbed and enjoying the display as much as we did. Once, I watched as he reached up with one paw, snatched a bothersome fly out of the air, then popped it into his mouth. Roger was nimble, athletic, sending several uninvited mice to their reward. If we came home with fresh produce he loved to roll around in it, especially lettuce and carrots (orange recognizes orange). But I first suspected a downturn when Roger was no longer able to indulge his all-time favorite activity: drinking from the sink. He’d jump up on either bathroom sink (but preferred the one upstairs due to its wide rim), arch down, swivel his mouth into place beneath the tap’s trickle and slurp. Our little Sink Drinker, just one of the copious nicknames Roger acquired over sixteen years. His main, used more often than Roger, was “Puji”. Pronounced “Poo-Gee” and often shortened to “Puj” (pronounced “Pooj”), we don’t remember its origin. A definite appeal? We could easily swap “Puj” for “You” in any song and sing it to him:
And I’ll send it along with love from me to Puj
Oh won’t Puj show me the way
And I will always love Puj
Someday I’ll catalog all his other nicknames but most were variants on Puji. I joked, told Sweet T. our next orange tabby will be named Puji and Roger can be a nickname. But how can we even think of the next cat? Marty may be solo awhile. Roger’s a tough act to follow.
Good night, Puji. Thanks for being with us all these years. You’re a good, good boy. Now go. We release you.
Sunday, September 3
I was falling asleep in the recliner but finally went upstairs to bed at three-fifteen AM, utterly drained. After a fitful night’s “rest” I got up at seven AM, tuxedo cat Marty coming to find me with a friendly trill. The two of us (Sweet T. still asleep) went downstairs for the grim task of locating Roger’s body (I actually asked Marty to help). Instead, we found our friend lapping up water from the bowl in the kitchen. Holy shit. How many lives has Roger used? I opened some cat food, poured half a packet of Hydracare into a bowl and Roger ate some of each while Marty looked on. Then I brought Puji out to the porch and put him on his favorite chair. Our boy lives to fight one more day.
Monday, September 4
Sunday night into Monday morning was hell. In an effort to keep Roger from getting his head stuck under a chair or anywhere else, I brought him up to the bedroom. He wouldn’t settle down and I eventually carried him back downstairs so we could sit in a recliner together. We stayed there until eight AM when Sweet T. awakened. She came downstairs and I told her I needed to get some sleep and went off to bed until 12:30 PM. Then I came downstairs and she asked if I saw her text. I hadn’t. She pointed to a low cardboard box Roger lay in.l and said “I think he’s passing away.” When Roger heard my voice he began to rouse. Then he wanted out of the box but was too weak to pull himself up. Again I sat with him in the recliner until he dozed off on my lap. When I needed a break I put him on his porch chair. If he wanted down from there I’d sit with him in the recliner. Now he’s back in the box and neither of us know if he’ll make it to Wednesday for the Vet On Wheels visit. Please, for fuck’s sake Roger, do
Tuesday, September 5
I got the only birthday gift I wanted: Roger lives. Sweet T. took the overnight vigil, sleeping on the living room couch as Roger paced all night. We still wonder if his high blood pressure meds are over-correcting, making him catatonic (he has “White Coat Syndrome” and does not like going to the vet, indicated by a galloping heart and high blood pressure). We remain watchful until the traveling vet arrives tomorrow. Depending on her diagnosis, we'll have a big decision to make. But, man, Roger’s a fighter and by our count has gone through four or five of his nine lives (I’m beginning to think there’s something to that). Forgive me for counting him out prematurely but we DID think it was the end for him yesterday. He could barely stay upright and seemed ready to leave. Now he has an appetite (even eating his brother’s breakfast) and is drinking lots of water. This has been an emotional roller coaster (my least favorite kind) and we’re both utterly wiped out. I’ll report back after Wednesday’s vet diagnosis, so keep good thoughts and hold some light for our little fighter.
Wednesday, September 6
VOW just left and what we thought was happening with Roger is correct: his blood pressure is normal and we were giving him unnecessary meds. The vet also said he does have some sight but probably won’t regain any lost. Roger was also dehydrated and she gave him fluids. We may have to start doing the same. Finally, she left us with a liquid supplement and a probiotic pill for his gut biome. She took blood and will let us know the results of the lab work soon. All in all, a good spa day for Roger.
Thursday, September 7
I got up again several times overnight after hearing Roger yowling, only to come downstairs and find him circling in the kitchen. At least he’s not trapped anywhere. We’ve rearranged the entire first floor to accommodate Roger’s blindness. Books and seat cushions were stuffed under the two recliners in the living room so he could no longer get his head wedged beneath them. We blocked off access to the back of the radiators (he got caught behind the dining room radiator and I had to lift him out). I spent thirty minutes eliminating the power cords hanging down below the china cabinet because he got entangled. I also removed the Christmas lights hanging in the dining room since December for the same reason. Anything near a wall with no escape route was pulled away to create a path. I even moved the Victrola phonograph from under the living room end table because he got trapped behind it. Out on the porch he got stuck in the triangular corner where our vintage coolers are displayed: those had to be reconfigured. But beyond missing the ability to recline in our recliners, we can live with these changes. I do worry what happens when we turn on the heat and everything jammed against the radiators also heats up… or how we keep Roger from potentially burning himself (we may need radiator covers to solve both problems). Meanwhile, he just keeps pacing the perimeter, occasionally yowling if he gets into a jam. He’ll also freeze, like he’s having a seizure or unsure what to do next or is exhausted. We can relate. I can’t remember feeling this fatigued. I’m beginning to worry about the impact on our health from lack of sleep. The unrelenting stress goes back to the third week of July when we first noticed Roger’s condition. In all this time we’ve thought of little else and Roger’s full-time care is grinding us down. Despite the good Vet On Wheels news yesterday I feel no sense of relief. And I’m still not convinced we’re doing right by Roger. The vet said “Don’t keep him alive for you.” Is that what we’re doing? Keeping him around so we can congratulate ourselves on being good pet owners and caring people? What if he’s fucking miserable? What if he never adjusts to his blindness and just paces a hole in the carpet, losing more and more weight until nothing’s left on his bones?
Friday, September 8
Another tough overnight. Roger woke us three times yowling. He’s doing better since the vet gave him fluids and we started him on the products she prescribed. When one of us checks on him he’s not caught anywhere, just vocalizing. Sometimes it’s hunger, other times (forgive me my projection) he seems to be raging against the injustice of it all. He’s gotten a bum deal and I joked to Janet “He’s wandering around trying to find his eyesight.” Jokes don’t alleviate the profound helplessness of watching our friend go through this. Or our worrying (the expression “Worry yourself sick” keeps popping into my brain). I’m trying to stay strong but I feel I’m failing and remain haunted by the idea we’re doing the utterly wrong thing for Roger.
Saturday, September 9
Another sleepless night worrying about Roger. Woke up a few times, went downstairs to see him pacing, circling, bumping into things and something new: pressing his forehead against a solid object and staying there minutes at a time. He ‘d seemingly fall asleep, then come to and move on to some other spot. We looked it up online and none of the causes of head pressing are benign – encephalitis, viral or fungal infection, brain tumor, neurological disorder – or treatable in a sixteen year-old cat. We’re so exhausted we can no longer think straight or know what to do to help our boy. When we pick him up and hold him tight to console him he wants away and back on the floor in moments. If he’s not asleep he's agitated, restless, can find no peace. This morning we gave him the two Vets On Wheels meds and two Astro's Oil products (administered via pipettes because he now spits out the Pill Pockets) and he fought it all to the point we were afraid we hurt him. Is this all in vain now? We’re back to where we were five days ago, thinking it's the end for Roger. He's pulled out of more than one dive, though, so we watch and wait and hope for positive signs.
Sunday, September 10
Dear Vet On Wheels:
It’s been a rough day for our poor Roger. He had a tarry poop outside the box and let out with a sustained yowl. He keeps seeming like he wants to crawl off somewhere and give up the ghost. If we try to pick him up and console him he uses whatever strength he has to get away from us. Forgive us for writing like this but we’re concerned this isn’t like the other times we thought he was done. What is your availability for an in-home euthanasia in the next day or two?
All best,
Chris
Monday, September 11
On Sep 11, 2023, at 10:13 AM, Vet On Wheels wrote:
I just left you a message but was cut off so not sure you received it. If I need to authorize prescription you need to write my name, Vet on Wheels. Otherwise I won’t receive it. I can also bring fluids if he starts to improve and you wish to continue. You can let me know. Here are some other alternatives if you feel you need someone there sooner.
TLC In home euthanasia
Venturing Vet
Dear VOW:
We did all that on Chewy. They had you in their system. But we couldn’t upload the prescription anywhere.
While he did show some improvement after you were here Wednesday, the last two to three days he’s slower, weaker, and seems to be looking to go off and hide to die. He’s only eating if we put him right over his bowl, only drinking if we hold the water under his chin. And he can no longer locate the litter box. He only seems at peace when sleeping. Otherwise, he’s pacing slowly, going in circles or trying to burrow in somewhere to hide from us. If we pick him up to hold him he wants to get away. This morning he let out more heartbreaking yowls. He may be trying to tell us he’s done.
All best,
Chris
Tuesday, September 12
Vet On Wheels comes tomorrow morning to euthanize Roger. Can it be he’ll only be with us one more day? I keep searching for loopholes, to no avail. The signs all point to the same conclusion: his race is run. He’s barely able to stand. He lets loose with human-like howls of pure pain, sounding for all the world like he’s telling us “I can’t take this any more!” But still we’re torn, wondering if he has one more return from the brink in him. Maybe it’s just dehydration, I tell myself. Maybe the head pressing is from an infection we can treat with antibiotics. Maybe he’ll get better if we just figure out what’s wrong and treat it. I have to stop this. How is it good for Roger or us? Yes, it’s hard to say goodbye to our little ray of orange sunshine… but for his sake and ours, we must. This isn’t Roger but Roger’s Ghost and we don’t want to remember him this way. We want fond memories of Roger, King Of Cats, doing endless Cute Boy Shows, slurping up tuna juice, purring like a fine diesel engine, leaping straight up six feet, balancing himself on a sink’s edge to drink endlessly from the tap and loving us unconditionally, as we do him. We will stay up with him tonight as long as we can, pet him if he’ll allow us, tell him how grateful we are to have known him. We’ll cry an ocean of tears and rail against the injustice of his end. Such a dignified creature brought so low.
We sat in our recliners that no longer recline because we Roger-proofed them. Sweet T. did her embroidery, I read the final chapters of Inside Story, the final Martin Amis book. Of course the end is all about aging, death and dying. Of course. Several times I was struck by a passage, to the point of taking a picture with my phone (that’s how I found the T.S. Eliot citation, below). When he let us we’d hold Roger, whisper in his ear how happy he made us, what a miracle it was that we met, how he can go now. Sometimes he’d be so weak he’d fall asleep, other times he’d push away, go back to his pacing. Several times he couldn’t stay upright and fell over on his side. He let loose with more howls of pain and indignation. We shed yet more tears. Sweet T. wanted to stay up with him or sleep in the living room, taking the couch while I attempted to drift off in the recliner. Around one AM in persuaded her we needed to get to bed. She began crying and said “But I don’t want to find him sprawled out in the morning.” Roger let me lift him and place him in a low rattan basket lined with a hand-knitted blue blanket. When he closed his eyes and drifted off we crept upstairs as quietly as possible.
Twice during the night I woke up, went downstairs to check on him. Once, because he yowled again; the other time I was worried he’d died. Sweet T. would hear me on the stairs, join me. The first time we found him, head pressed against a living room wall, and put him back in his basket. The second time he was laying in front of the refrigerator about to fall asleep and we again brought him to his basket. We went back to bed but sleep was hard to come by and we were up by eight AM, holding Roger and sitting in the recliners. He was so weak, so weak, and we kept thinking he might just pass and we’d have to alert Vet On Wheels. His breathing was rapid, shallow, and seemed a great effort. We cried and cried and cried some more, telling him how much we loved him and how hard it was to let him go. I emailed Vet On Wheels for an ETA and they said they’d arrive between eleven fifteen and eleven thirty. One hour to go. When the doorbell finally rang I was so startled I nearly jumped out of the recliner with Roger on my lap. He pushed against me with his back paws as Sweet T. got the door and the vet and her assistant came in, masks on.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to mask up yet. Honey, would you get me the mask on the secretary?”
I put Roger on the down comforter covering the couch and the vet sat next to him, asking some questions about what we want to do with Roger’s cremains, whether or not we want a fancy urn, do you want a paw print? I put on my mask and the finality hit me and I began crying again. Roger lay almost completely still, the fight utterly gone out of him.
“We don’t need a fancy urn. He’ll be buried in the backyard with his sister Violet. This is his forever home.”
Sweet T. demurred on the paw print, too. The vet asked if we wanted some of his fur and we said no.
“Should we do this out on the porch, like last time?”
The vet said yes, there’s more light out there, and I carried Roger out to the porch, placed him on the black towel we spread out in front of the picture window (we made sure to close the blinds). The vet told us she’d begin with a sedative, then they’d find a vein and do the rest. I kneeled down, put my face near Roger’s, told him again how much we loved him, how happy we were to meet him and have him with us all these years. And how he could go now. Go meet Violet in heaven and give her a hard time. It was as if he’d already passed, as if he knew his pain and suffering would soon be over. As the vet and her assistant prepared what was necessary we had a conversation about the head pressing, how it’s a bad sign and there’s nothing to be done if he has a brain tumor.
“Please tell us we did everything we could.”
The vet reassured us, saying You did BEYOND everything you could. Then she gave him the sedative and Roger, eyes open, looked for all the world like he’d already gone. The assistant plugged in a pair of clippers, shaved some fur from one of Roger’s back legs, and the hunt for a vein began. Sweet T. and I began crying beneath our masks, deep, prolonged sobs of regret for our beloved orange ray of sunshine. When a vein was found and the poison administered it was a matter of moments before Roger ceased to be.
“I’m not sure how you can do this on a regular basis.”
The vet said We want to alleviate suffering. That’s what we keep in mind. If someone came to us, said they just couldn’t handle their pet any more, we’d say no. But this is different.
“One of the reasons we wanted to do this at home is because I read that the other cat should see the one who’s passed on so they’re not confused. When Violet went Roger didn’t know what had happened and it took him awhile to adjust. But Marty’s hiding and we’ll never get him out.”
The vet asked if we wanted to go get Marty but I told her he’s good at hiding and would never let me haul him out from his favorite spot.
We paid the vet bill and handed them a box of fluids and accessories from Chewy, an order I tried to cancel Monday that arrived anyway (they’re refunding us).
“We’d like to donate this to you.”
The vet thanked us, told us she’d give the supplies to PAWS in Montclair. Sweet T. said That’s where we found Roger. That’s so nice.
“Sometime in the spring we may be back there looking for a friend for Marty.”
Sweet T. said It’s so painful to know they’ll go before you but there are so many souls that need rescuing.
Before paying the bill we changed course on the paw print and having some of Roger’s fur. We were asked if we wanted a final moment with our boy before they took him but agreed we’d said all there was to say. The assistant told us we didn’t have to watch as she put Roger’s corpse in a bag and carted him away.
“I’ll unlock the door and we’ll go in the living room. Thanks again for everything.”
We sat on the couch and cried and hugged each other tight, saying “Poor, poor Roger. He’s at peace now.” Marty came down and we told him what happened and he mewed at us.
“You’re going to be alone awhile, Marty.”
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
“Preludes” - T.S. Eliot