I had a lot of ideas rolling around in my head for this weeks post, but as of this morning none of them seem to matter. That's because playing pretend for credit, writing about wands for a grade, and making house bracelets all pale in comparison to the fact that at 10am this morning I went with my family to the local vet and put my cat Curious to sleep.
I got Curious for my sixth birthday and he has been my cat, and my best friend, for almost 17 years. I remember clearly the day I went with my mom to the animal shelter to pick him out. There were two white kittens to choose from, one male and one female. I distinctly remember wanting the female kitten before we arrived, but lots of people wanted the female and the male kitten had such an adorable kink in his tail. I was smitten. We paid $22 for that tiny white ball of fur, of which $12 was returned to my parents when they neutered him a few days later.
We packed him into a carrier and headed for home, and we only made it halfway when I started spoiling him. It started small. He was crying because he hated the carrier, so I opened it up and let him out. After all, he was my cat and I wanted to play with him. It didn't matter to me that we were driving and he was small enough to crawl under the seats of the car and that my mother was going to get upset and we'd have to spend a lot of time coaxing him back into the carrier to get him inside; I just wanted him to be happy.
The instant we arrived inside our house I let him loose, and away he went. He ran through every room and outside in our fenced in yard. He was excited to explore everything and I was excited to follow him around and watch him be adorable. I watched as he attacked bedspreads and chased a bird in the yard and batted at himself in the mirror. He seemed to be infinitely curious, and I remember saying "You're really curious." Within about an hour that was not only a description of the way my kitten acted but also his name.
Curious went through a lot as a young kitten. He had to deal with an overbearing older cat who didn't like to share her food or her water or her scratching post of her humans. He was chased by and excited 3-year-old (my brother) who thought that the kink in his tail was a great handle. He was carried around and forced to spend time playing "house" with a young girl who shall remain nameless.* Then, when he'd been with us for less than a year, he was packed into a carrier and moved from California to Iowa.
Living in Iowa brought a lot of changes for Curious. Treca (the older cat) passed away and suddenly he went from second fiddle to king of the house. He wasn't allowed outside anymore, and he had to be declawed, but he had free reign of the house. He soon took possession of all the best seats in the house and carved out a great spot under the table, right next to my chair, where he could easily be given table scraps. He spent his nights sleeping with me or my parents and most of his days sleeping in a sunny spot on the furniture. He became an excellent mouser and would often drop his kills by my bed so when I awoke in the morning I would know what a good hunter he was. Curious even tried catching the various rats and hamsters I kept as pets over the years. He never managed to catch any of them, although he did manage to knock one of my hamsters down the stairs in its exercise ball.
As Curious grew he gained a few nicknames. Annoying was added to his name because of his tendency to whine to be pet and whine to be fed and whine to eat human food and whine because he just felt like it. My brother added Road Runner to the list because Curious had a way of tearing through the house like a rocket. Ankle Biter was my mom's contribution because she was always up earliest in the morning and Curious would often nip at her ankles to make sure she knew she should hurry up and feed him. He was a family cat. That is until his litter needed cleaning, at which point he became exclusively my cat.
As I started getting older things changed. I went off to college and only saw Curious every few weeks. He'd still sleep in my bed sometimes, but more and more he spent his time with my parents or my brother. I would celebrate the moments at school when I'd pull our clothes covered in white cat hair, because it would remind me of him.** He stomach got sensitive and suddenly he was also my cat when he threw up. We started giving him special food and more and more often gave into his demands for part of our dinner, well at least I did.
Then this November things started to change. Curious stopped eating for days, and while before I'd always been able to convince him to eat even when my parents couldn't, this time was different. Curious lost all the hair on half his face. He spent most of his time lying in front of the heater vent in the kitchen or sleeping with me or my parents at night. I dug a grave, prepared for him to die, but then he didn't. In fact he made a huge turn around and by New Years most of the hair had grown back and he was eating and running up and down the stairs. I went back to school thinking he might live until I moved to Florida.
A few weeks into school my parents called to say that Curious had gotten much worse. His face had swollen up, he had trouble breathing, and the only thing they could get him to eat was canned tuna. They got antibiotics from our local vet, but they didn't seem to make any difference. My mom took Curious to a specialist and after running a few tests they determined that Curious had cancer and it was a tumor that was growing inside of his nose. At that point my mom thought they might have to put him down without me, but he came home from the vet and ate a whole bowl of food. Things seemed to be at an equilibrium until this Wednesday, when my dad called to say that Curious had stopped eating and was having trouble walking and did I want them to put him down. I said that I wanted to be there, and so they waited until I could come home this weekend.
When I arrived home yesterday Curious was almost unrecognizable as my loving energetic playful best friend. The tumor was so big that it had almost swollen one of his eyes shut. He'd always been a big cat, and a diet of table scraps had meant he had some meat on his bones, but not anymore. I could see his skeleton when he walked and when I pet him he was nothing but skin and bone. It was hard for me to look at him sometimes, it just made me so sad. Petting him as he passed at the vets and burying him was one of the saddest things I've ever had to do, but it wasn't nearly as sad as listening to his labored breathing and watching him weave back and forth as he walked. I know that letting him go was the right thing to do. I'll miss him terribly.
RIP Curious Annoying Road Runner Ankle Biter Vance. I'll always love you. <3
*It's me. I hope you got that.
**While back home my parents would lament my decision to get a white cat that sheds CONSTANTLY
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment