#long ass stream of consciousness poem i wrote about this because i needed to. put it down somewhere

[boyfrienby]

we euthanized my cat at home

on my dad's bed.

it started with a single checkup.

cancer, inoperable. causing irreparable pain

it had been causing pain for a while

"cats are so good at hiding pain," see,

and "we don't exactly know what causes this."

when i was a kid, my mom had a cat

the tiniest, meanest cat imaginable.

when she was 4 months old, her leg was shattered.

the fear and pain she went through made her mean.

the cage she had to stay in to heal stunted her growth.

when it happened, my mom had to make a decision;

"we can fix this, for $3000 dollars. we can euthanize her if you can't pay."

my mom had this tiny, breakable thing, in indescribable pain, and had to choose.

$3000 was a heartbreaking amount of money for us at the time. having $3000 at all would have changed our lives.

my grandma paid the bill.

we adopted my girl at 6 weeks old.

she was so tiny, soft, easily damaged.

the first few weeks in her strange new home,

she slunk under the cedar chest in the living room.

there couldn't have been more than an inch of space under there,

watching her shimmy and shift her tiny body under it was incredible.

they say cats can fit into a space no wider than their heads,

it's because of how their collarbones and shoulders are set up.

they're like a liquid,

they fill any shape they want to,

so i guess, likewise,

they absorb any blow with the surface tension of tides at sea.

i had this tiny, breakable thing suddenly.

she was always my sister's cat.

we adopted her alongside her brother.

they were pair bonded, they needed each other,

and when i chose him, the woman who fostered them since birth

became almost to the brink of tears

at the idea that we'd only take him.

they needed each other, we had to take both.

we intended to adopt one for each myself and my sister.

but the woman who had fostered them was so intensely stricken, she cut the adoption fee in half for his sister.

she was the freebie cat, the hideaway, the one who was too afraid to deal with us,

while her brother was the star that shown.

my dad and i spent so much affection on him those first years,

that naturally my sister cared for the one left out.

she ran away a couple of times.

i always went out to find her.

one time she'd gotten outside, and stayed out for six days on her own.

i went out every few hours to look for her.

i finally found her, afraid, cold, hungry,

laying right in the open in our apartment parking lot.

she saw me and ran.

a wild animal, with only instinctual sense of the wild, and not a learned one.

it took ninety minutes of slowly following her,

tempting her with food, treats, companionship,

for her to stop running. she took my food,

and remembered she was home.

she let me scoop her up and take her there.

she didn't run away anymore after that.

in the vet's office, after receiving the bad news,

left alone by the vet who knew we would need time,

discussing options, trying not to sound too heartless in our talks about costs and money,

i told my dad, "call adrianne.

"it's as much her choice as ours. it's her cat."

goddamn this happening two days before thanksgiving,

when the vet would be closed.

it could only be today or tomorrow.

they were about to close for four days.

the vet said,

"we can poke a hole in her abdomen,

to drain the urine,

and send her home for tonight on sedatives.

she'd be pretty loopy,

and you could take her back here tomorrow..."

it wasn't a question of how much time we had left.

it was a question of how much longer we were willing to prolong it.

i told my dad to call adrianne.

when he makes calls, it goes through his hearing aids.

and though i couldn't hear her softly through the other line, i knew she was sobbing.

as the adult son of a father you've spent so much time with,

you don't have to hear the conversation to know when his daughter is sobbing.

i had said, maybe if we bring our girl home tonight,

adrianne can come say goodbye.

i knew it was hollow to say that.

my sister lives 125 miles away now.

i'm glad i didn't have to make that call.

she couldn't come.

i told them i needed some air

i left the clinic, and sat on the curb.

it was closing time, the vets remaining inside

were checking on us between working on paperwork.

i was raised by my dad,

and so we were both apologetic about how long our grief went on.

it's november. it's already fully dark at 6:45.

a vet tech, going home for the day,

one i hadnt seen before at all,

says "i'm very sorry."

i say "thank you."

choosing between the prolonged suffering of a loved one,

and letting them pass on is impossible.

the entire time we went home on the bus,

i wondered if maybe, miraculously, she could just get better.

maybe the cancer in her bladder would suddenly pop out when we got home,

like a cork,

and her suffering would go away,

so we could cancel the euthanasia we scheduled at home.

we just wanted to take her home one last time.

when we got home, i cleaned.

i gave only one of my cats their daily meds. i wanted my girl to enjoy her food without the taste of pills one more time.

she only ate a quarter of her meal, so i gave her her favorite treat.

she ate it halfheartedly,

dripping scraps she wouldn't pick up.

i thought to myself,

"the animal grim reaper is coming to our house."

i cleaned to make us look less like animals ourselves.

i cooked my dad and myself dinner.

i kept thinking, is it awful of me to feel so hungry?

they would be here at 9:30.

they texted me at 8:30, saying they'd be here at 9.

she was allowed in my dad's room for this.

she usually wasn't.

he kicked himself, over and over,

about what an asshole he'd been to deny her being in his room all this time,

because of something she couldn't control.

i don't know if i can tell him that

one of the last experiences i had with her today, pre-vet visit,

was catching her in my room,

and scolding her as i scooped her into my arms,

and set her outside the door that i closed on her.

she was in my dad's bed,

purring in the way she does.

she's always been a motorboat,

or a monster truck engine.

she was so loud, and she'd start up the second you just looked at her.

she was laying with her brother, right next to each other,

no conflict between them,

and she purred the second we came in.

we cooed over her, and held her, and cried.

and he said,

"it's like the animal grim reaper is coming."

the euthanasia nurse got there too fast for us to process.

she was so soft spoken and gentle-voiced,

that my dad couldn't hear a word of it.

even as an adult, i've rarely seen my dad cry. never more than this day.

she explained,

she would inject our cat with a powerful sedative.

it'd hurt for a few seconds.

she'd be shocked by the injection.

she'd go limp within a few minutes.

at that point, she would be alive, but unconscious. unable to feel or experience a thing.

her eyes would still likely be open.

then she would inject the euthanasia.

she would die in seconds.

when she injected the sedative, my girl ran around. she was afraid.

i was crying too hard to handle it.

i held her against the bed. she was so scared.

i felt her start to go limp in my arms and miscalculated.

as soon as i moved away from my grip on her, she ran again.

when she ran away those six days, i was worried sick.

i was terrified for her. she was still the shutaway cat, afraid of people.

i was afraid of her getting hit by a car,

or eaten by coyotes,

or mauled by raccoons.

i went out in the dark more often than the day.

i waved cans of her favorite food,

the stuff she'd devour in seconds.

i knew there were feline personality types:

her type, inquisitive, scared, restless,

was bound to travel the furthest.

but i found her right near home.

she let me take her home again.

and after that, she was less of a shut-away.

she opened up and bloomed.

she became happier and friendlier than ever.

when she ran in my dad's bedroom,

he caught her.

he held her in his arms,

and said all the ways he loved her.

he wasn't trying to hide his sobs at this point

the euthanasia vet stood respectfully in the hall,

which i neglected to clean.

i realized that that was for psychology's sake.

they needed to give us the space of the room to ourselves.

between every monologue about what would happen,

the signing of papers,

the sedation, and then,

the euthanasia itself.

they stood in that hall

to give us the space we needed.

my coworker used to be a vet tech.

he quit because of all the dead bodies.

but he's told me that in veterinary degrees,

you're required to take a course on grief counseling.

crisis management.

psychology.

you can't work with animals without an understanding of those core tenets,

because the animals don't have voices,

the humans do.

my dad held her in his arms and sobbed.

and he apologized,

and he told her how he loved her.

he told her he loved that when he got home from work,

she sat in his lap like a ritual.

no matter what place or how she got to sit there,

she had to, and how it made space in her day for her.

he told her he loved how she always grabbed us from a perch to get petted.

she would reach out her paws no matter what we were doing, guiding us to scratch her.

he held her, sobbing, back turned to me and the outsider, spectre of death in the room,

in a kind of confessional.

between crying, i looked up,

and she was looking at me, head rested on his shoulder,

slowly going dimmer by the second.

i think that's when i actually realized,

she wasn't going to suddenly get better.

i had known she wouldn't for hours at least,

probably weeks,

maybe months, if i'm being honest,

but it's the moment i could fully conceptualize it,

in its true and honest state,

that she was going to die.

as she went limp, my dad said, "i don't want this"

he said "i wish i wasn't the one doing this."

his name was on the consent sheet.

he signed it.

and again, i was glad i wasn't the one

who had to make that call.

even though i had been the one to urge it.

she was asleep. her eyes were open.

she was breathing. the euthanasia nurse held back. we had to tell her what to do next.

she waited.

she was on the bed, the pee-pad under her, in case.

of course, in death you let go of your bladder.

she didn't. she couldn't.

we both finally said it was time.

the nurse injected the euthanasia.

she said, in her softspoken voice,

if we didn't want to look, to look away.

my dad didn't hear her. he watched

i cried, and i refused to see it.

but he watched.

he told me afterward how hard it was to watch.

he told the euthanasia nurse the happy times.

he told her the bad times.

he told her about a lot.

he hugged me while i sobbed.

and i left the room to get tissues.

i met my other cat on the way,

and was fully struck by the fact that,

him, with his separation anxiety,

and inability to conceptualize death,

how on earth he would cope with that loss.

i sat with him a second,

hearing the hum of my dad's voice,

worrying that the nurse

would be late to her next appointment.

i went back to the room,

dead cat on the bed,

and my dad was finally able to decide it was time.

the nurse wasn't going to take her until we had a chance to see her away.

she gently lifted her head and eased her limp body up,

and wrapped her in a baby blanket.

it looked so soft and cozy that she could have been sleeping.

she asked if he wanted to carry her outside.

and he did.

wrapped in that blanket,

and for a split second i saw her eyes.

she always loved to watch the snow.

she was fascinated by it.

she'd stand by the window for hours, and stare.

she didn't get to see the snow this year.

but today, it was foggy all day.