This might sound way too poetic for an often indifferent spitfire that hissed at most of my friends and lately required me to cover all corners and soft surfaces of the house to protect them from her effluvia, but it was what I felt -- and believed -- at the time:
"As she nears the end of her ninth life, Friska the demon cat from hell has finally embraced her docile side. She will now go gentle into that good night."I was wrong. While she did turn a bit nicer as her health faded, she was anything but docile in defying two death sentences in her last month, and even this morning as her time finally drew near, she let it be known that this wasn't part of her plan. Forget the dismal diagnoses; the kid went out with moxie.
First thing this morning I found her on the living room sofa in the Buddha-cat pose. She opened her eyes to acknowledge my existence then resumed meditation or whatever it is that cats do when they're upright but idling. Out of habit I removed the nighttime barricade to the backyard cat door even though yucky weather would repel the wellest of cats, and went to take a shower.
A half-hour later, she was no longer on the sofa, or in her closet nook, or anywhere else I looked ... until I opened the blinds and saw her sitting in a cushioned chair on the covered patio. The temperature was 57 degrees and it was raining all around her, but she stayed put even after I tapped on the window to get her attention. I left her as she was because it seemed right to give her that one last commune with the yard she had explored and patrolled and fearlessly defended from interlopers for the four years we've lived here. By then it was 7:30 and we would be leaving for her last visit to the vet in less than two hours.
I turned on my work computer and tried to concentrate on my overdue deadlines, but nothing I wrote came out right.
Friska had put on such a stellar performance of spunk at the original appointment for her dispatch that, with the mobile vet's blessing, she cheated death that day. After good days and bad, her second d-day was scheduled for last Friday, but this time her vet couldn't feel her tumors at all and she had been 95% her old self for the days leading up to it, so in the absence of the hard data I needed to make the final decision, I took her home thinking I'd revisit my decision in a couple of weeks if she didn't tell me otherwise sooner.
She did. That night she took a turn for the worse brought on by the corned beef I had given her earlier thinking it would be her last supper. She appeared to be on her last legs by the next morning -- although she was still breathing, she didn't open her eyes and her usually twitchy tail didn't move an inch when I talked to her, and that had never happened before. (Friska had the most aggressively opinionated tail I'd ever seen attached to an animal.) I called the vet and took the soonest appointment they had, which was two days away.
Let me now attest to the restorative powers of chicken tenders and whitefish to a diminished cat. After I hung up the phone, I started rummaging through the refrigerator to try to come up with something palatable to fortify her for the next two days. At the first open container she was up and begging again. And she scarfed up various white meats for the next 10 minutes.
I was so impressed by her latest comeback that I left to pick up some more meat for her and get myself a turkey sandwich along the way. When I got home, the old normal happened for the first time in weeks: My little white ghost had left her haunt in her old habit of escaping to the driveway as soon as the garage door opened. For that, she deserved to share a bit of my sandwich.
Aptly rewarded, she took advantage of the one nice, semi-warm day of the week to renew her acquaintance with her backyard domain, somehow avoiding the hole that was already dug for her inevitable fate.
Make no mistake, Friska was one sick kitty toward the end despite her Saturday afternoon revival. But even when she could barely keep her food down, she never lost interest in whatever I was eating, and right up to her last moments was susceptible to bribing with a nice, meaty nosh.
So I'm not sure I can cook dinner tonight knowing there won't be a soft, furry rub against my ankles to remind me that her supper must come first. It's been strange enough working in the living room all afternoon with rain and wind taunting the window where she used to sleep and making noises that I have to force myself to accept aren't the sounds of a restless feline across the room.
She was just a cat, but she was also my housemate, responsibility, companion, albatross and footwarmer. She was just a cat, but she was also my little girl who brought out the nursemaid in me when feline independence no longer carried her. Besides, anyone who lives with a pet knows that there's no such thing as "just a cat," "just a dog" -- heck, "just a ferret" -- anyway.
All cats love to find a dark, quiet place to wedge themselves into now and then. I'm grateful that Friska found her way into the dark, quiet place that my heart can be, and reminded me to open it up now and then, too.
Thank you for letting me love you, sweet girl, and for granting me the great favor of loving me back sometimes. See you in the next go-round ... as always, you'll be the one with the moxie.
