roadrunnertwice | Entries tagged with death

Our cat Halla died last night. She was getting a promising new treatment for her lifelong painful mouth issues, and had a violent reaction to it that no cat has ever had before, and it damaged her lungs. The drug company paid to rush her to critical care at the emergency vet (this was a final-stage approval trial for the treatment), and the vets did everything possible to stabilize her and give her a chance to recover, but it wasn’t in the cards; she died a day and a half later. It was one of those times where something random and bad happens for no comprehensible reason, and you just don't have any agency to stop it or fix it.

(How rare and random? Our emergency vet ran a lit search and found exactly ONE paper about a human experiencing something vaguely similar after a somewhat related treatment. Why did you have to be special this one last time, kitty?)

We already miss her a ton, and I think Annabel does too. It sucks so much! She was the sweetest and weirdest little cat, a perfect and unique being in this world full of perfect and unique beings. We wanted another seven years with her, but even that wouldn't have satisfied.

I'll try and do a memorial post with photos at some point.

David Foster Wallace is dead. Suicide. FUCK.

2008 has got a LOT to answer for.

tomax, a dear and old friend of mine, has died in his sleep. He was a grand fellow, and was always ready with bizarre and impractical advice. And now he's gone, and it's not bloody fair.

Sheldon Brown died.

He was the patron internet saint of bicycles, and his site taught me shitloads. Not having him around anymore is going to suck.

Current Music: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists—The Unwanted Things

One of our cats, you'll remember, died last week, and we buried her in the back corner of the yard. It's a nice place: it's nestled behind the garden, and is shaded by a fir, a pine, and a dogwood. On the few real sunny days of winter, the sunlight slides under the boughs from out of the south and warms the damp ground. Right nearby is the foot of a staircase, and if you want to be alone, you can climb up to the treehouse, unfold a chair, and stare out through the branches at the strawberry fields.

It's the same part of the yard where we've buried all our cats, or at least the ones who weren't taken by coyotes. But when we went out there to dig Annie her hole, I noticed that the other graves (and there were several) were gone -- the ground had leveled out, and the wooden markers had fallen apart and vanished; whether into the ground or to other parts, I can't say.

And I was surprised, though I really shouldn't have been. It's been at least six years since we've buried a pet, and this is the Pacific Northwest, where We Take Decay Seriously. I bet if we were to excavate the whole thing, we'd hard-pressed to even find bones. But it kind of got my attention, and I've been watching how quickly Annie's presence fades from this place.

And how quickly is that, you ask? Pretty quickly. Cats aren't much for material possessions; you don't end up telling your kids that this was their great grand-cat's antique dresser. What Annie left in this house was a smattering of hair (gone with the next load of laundry), some spilled kitty litter (gone with the next vacuuming), a shed claw-sheathing and a shed whisker (they're on my desk right now), and the presence of two chairs in this room (she'd take the warm one over as soon as I got up, so I kept a spare around for myself). Once those are gone, all that'll be left are some photos, some turned earth and wood (for the next five years, at least), and the electrical impulses in the brainmeat of one cat and a small tribe of plains apes, the lot of whom'll be wormfood within the century anyhow.

Well, and this. Whatever the hell it's worth.

You die, and whoever's still standing moves on. I don't reckon it's the best deal I've ever been offered -- about all you can say for it is that it beats forcing your loved ones to spend eternity feeling how I felt on the morning of the 27th. But those are the cards we're dealt, and you know, maybe being forgotten is as much a part of life as eating, breathing, fucking, and dying are.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, when the Christians contemplate their own mortality. It's also Wotansday, which, for all that it happens every week, still belongs by name-right to the one-eyed lord of battle and death. I intend to celebrate by thinking about those who I am not called upon to forget, just yet.

Dust we art, yes. But not today. Amen.

Current Music: Sondre Lerche—Face the Blood

I hope, in the interest of cosmic balance, that someone around here had a really good Saturday night. Myself, I stayed up 'til dawn watching my cat die.

Annie was pushing 17, and had been in her querulous old age for a while, but the transition from "old and tired" to "dying" was startlingly fast. Thursday, when I was cleaning my room, she just acted more tired than she'd recently been, and had a bit more trouble moving around. Friday, maybe a little more so. Saturday morning, she ate her thyroid pill with salmon about as cheerfully as she usually would. (The last thing she'd eat or drink.) Midmorning, she could no longer walk and had trouble standing, and was refusing water. In the afternoon, we were still talking about taking her to the vet on Sunday. By evening, all that remained was to lay her on a towel by the pellet stove, lavish attention on her, and wait.

On Wednesday, she seemed perfectly fine. So all told, I suppose it was about as merciful as death by old age and organ failure gets.

I don't know what it is about those few minutes right before dawn that makes them such a popular time to breathe one's last, but Annie did it by the book. After growing steadily weaker all night as Mom and I held vigil and stroked her fur, she opened her eyes, twitched legs she hadn't moved for hours, gasped, and died. The sky in the east had brightened into a flat, exhausted indigo, and that was the end of our cat.

Annie was a coyote-colored cat with a ringed tail and fine tufted ears, and in her youth, she had a blocky sort of physique that made her look partially unfinished. (Her sister, who died when we were in high school, looked much the same, though a little bit rounder.) In her old age, she grew rather thin and bony, giving her a long-limbed poise that was oddly lupine.

She was by turns clingy and standoffish, and maintained a peevish attitude toward Stefan, the younger and more gregarious boy cat she shared our house with. (Stefan quietly joined in last night's vigil. He came and went, but was standing right there at the last. Then he joined me for the five hours of sleep I got this morning, burrowing in hard against my back.) She adopted Mom and myself as her favorites, for reasons she never deigned to explain, and spent the moiety of her last several months in my room.

She may have been the most awkward cat I've yet known, and she never quite got the knack of sitting on one's lap without making all parties uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she had a powerfully un-catlike flair for showing she was glad to have you in the room.

She had a deep and abiding love of all People Food, especially cheeses and smoked meats. There was some problem with her vocal cords, and instead of meowing, she used this two-parted squeak that is most closely transcribed as "Ree-eew."

She was a pain in the ass and a delight. When she would carefully eat every piece of cheese on her plate except the one with the pill in it, I would huff an irritated sigh, rub her ears and the side of her face, and proclaim her the "Worst Cat Ever." She wasn't, though. She was a Good Kitty, and damned if I won't miss her.

Annie and Stefan, asleep on our old couch. Photo taken four years ago.

Current Mood: 2008 is awesome.
Current Location: a hole in the backyard, marked with a rude square cross
Current Music: Broken Social Scene—Superconnected

Roadrunner Twice

Entries tagged with death

RIP Halla

Oh, DAMMIT.

Sail easy, Bikke

Shit.

Fading

Annie

Profile

Static and Noise

Expand Cut Tags

Syndicate

Ppl are Talking

Wet Paint