My Poor Old Dumb Dead Cat.

Over the weekend I had to put my old cat Lilith to sleep. She had been a rescue from a shelter in San Diego seven years ago, so I had never known how old she was exactly. It was time for her though and I had maybe even put it off by a few months. She had never liked the vet and she buried her scrawny little head in my hand while she was on the table. This was her way of hiding, burying her head in my hand. This was nothing new. I made sure to look at her when the syringe of grape-juice-looking purple slid into the little catheter they’re attached. Part of me thinks that I wanted to be looking at her to encourage her in some way, It will be okay, I might have been whispering, but I wasn’t. Part of me thinks that I wanted to be there looking at her to make sure that she wasn’t afraid anymore. But I know that the real reason I wanted to be looking at her was because I wanted to make sure she wasn’t angry with me. I think that maybe I was trying to get her permission to not feel guilty.

We ascribe so much emotion and intellect to animals and quite a lot of that is just us, doing what we do. Having a cat is often just the adult way of having an imaginary friend. But I grew up in a dairy family and if cows can have personalities - which they very much do - then obviously cats can too. But is that enough? Does that mean she has the faculty to make me not feel guilty? The ability to know that she could release me from it?

Probably not.

Later I ended up going through old photos - always a dangerous proposition if your life has had as many hairpin turns as mine has - and I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried. And not just a little. But that’s the thing about crying, isn’t it? We try so hard not to and then once we get going, the crying seems to be self-justifying and then we just go ahead and have ourselves an emotional fire sale and we cry out whatever we need to. I’m a pretty tightly wound guy and I had a ton of stuff to cry out, so I did. And felt better afterward.

When all of that was done I was able to track down the cat pictures I was looking for. I was able to flip through them and be reminded of the way she was back before she was sick. That wiry little cat had been my companion through some tough times and though I miss her, I know that it was the right thing to do. And not just because that’s what we always say to eachother in these situations, but because it is actually true. Funny that we so seldom encounter that which is actually true unless there is some crying involved.

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