Looking back at the twenty year old me – I don’t recognise her. She was fearless and opinionated. Knowing not only how to make decisions but to how to defend them: vehemently.
The twenty year old me would have known, without a doubt, that now is the time for me to take my beloved cat to the vet for his final visit – to end his life. All my cats have either had a stroke, water on the lungs, kidney failure or cancer. One cat had a brain haemorrhage but they’ve all have a thing, a defining moment when you’ve known that’s it. They’ve reached the end.
Not with old age. In cat years my cat is 96, the same age as the Queen was and like the Queen faded away, he’s doing the same.
As I write this he’s on my lap and I’m straining over him, trying to make my fingertips reach that extra inch they don’t have. Which is how I always write with him. Which considering he’s been on my lap for every word I’ve written in the last eighteen months (we adopted an ancient moggy) – is a lot of words. What’s made me start writing this blog is that I’m here, now, trying to convince myself that tomorrow night, when he won’t be here, that I’ve made the correct decision. That that final appointment with the vet tomorrow at 10.45 is the correct thing to do.
Trust me, this isn’t a decision I’ve taken lightly.
I love my cat.
I love his nuzzles, his smell.
The way he’s been deaf for so long that he doesn’t meow. Instead he makes noises of emotion. He’s trained me. He knows where he wants me and what he wants me to do and I’m there, willingly. It’s a mutual love.
But his personality is fading away. As I’m typing this he’s not making his ‘you’re disturbing me’ grumpy noises and I’ve had no sidelong glance.
He’s barely eating.
He’s sleeping 99% of the time.
And his bowels haven’t moved for over a week.
Before when we’ve been to the vets she’s always taken blood tests, been positive, found the problem and fixed it. However this wasn’t the case when we went a few days ago. His body is wearing out. He’s not an old motor which I can wear down. I don’t want him to struggle. He’s existing. Not living. Barley participating.
I’ve spent almost a week wondering about this moment and far longer fearing it. All he has to do is eat properly and for his bowels to start moving again. Be his usual self. Tell me off. Anything more than raising his head and making a ‘hello, you’re there and I like it’ noise, before he falls back to sleep. I tried to take a video of him before writing this. His head was up for a couple of seconds then he nestled it back into his paw. That’s existing. Not living.
I told the vet that I hate playing God. She said with animals we are lucky. We can help try to stop them from being in pain. She’s right, though I don’t think he’s in pain. If he was I’d have already made that journey to the vet.
It’s thirteen hours – exactly – until 10.45 tomorrow morning. His appointment. I don’t need to decide a thing until I’m there. I can even cancel the appointment in the morning if I want.
The twenty years ago me would have been definite, bold. Known what to do. The premenopausal, creeping towards fifty me feels awful. Full of an emotional understanding. Full of a dread of tomorrow, of coming home, of there being no cat. My cat. Gone.
I ask myself if it’s so much harder this time due to my raging hormones – I don’t know.
I ask myself if it’s experience? As we get older do we have a greater appreciation of life? Of what we’ll lose? I don’t know.
Since the age of six death has always been a part of my life, scaring and spurring me forwards – so I’ve been aware of it and had a strong concept of it for a long time.
My first experience with death was when I was six. I was staying with my grandparents when one of my great aunts died. She passed away peacefully while another great aunt was talking so much (she was a terrible egotist) that she didn’t notice at first.
I remember asking my mother if I could see my dead great aunt. My mother said no but I persisted. She said it would put me off eating my beans on toast. I said it wouldn’t. My mother had a chat with another great aunt (there were many). This one had been a matron during WWII war and she said she thought I should see my dead great aunt.
I promised to eat my beans on toast and my mother took me to say goodbye to my dead great aunt. She was still sitting upright in the dining room chair by the doorway where she’d sat down while helping to lay the dining room table. I said I thought she looked as if she was sleeping. Eyes shut. Upright. Unmoving in a dark greenish brown jacket and skirt. An extremely devout lady who may have left Wales but still lapsed into Welsh unknowingly – peacefully she’d gone to meet her maker.
I wasn’t traumatised by the experience but it left a lasting impression on me. My matron great aunt was right, it began to help me to understand what death was. Which was just as well as my grandparents and remaining great aunts soon joined her.
As for the beans on toast, my mother had been right. I really couldn’t finish them.
Like my devout great aunt, it’s how I’ve been hoping my cat will go. Peacefully. If he goes tonight in his sleep then he’ll have been at home. On his favourite blanket on my lap (we’ll spend the night together). I’d like this because it takes the decision, the guilt away from me. He will have absolved me from taking him; the person he trusts and relies on the most, the person who knows when his ears need cleaning by the way he only has to raise his back paw slightly while looking at me, the person who he has spent eighteen months training and trusts: completely.
I don’t want to be the person who takes him to the vet to stop him from breathing, thinking, being no more; I feel as if I’m betraying him.
He’s just shuffled on my lap and made his little happy noise. He’s as content as you can be if you haven’t pooed for over a week and you’ve barely eaten all day despite handpicked meals being brought to you.
Maybe this is that stroke, brain haemorrhage, that crunch moment. Knowing that he is just existing, not living, not participating. The twenty year ago me knows the truth and in my heart I know she is right.
