10.17.2003
12:04 p.m.
Sad news about the cat
This weekend is going to be sad. Very sad. Probably one of the saddest of my life.
My parents, my sister and I are finally all in agreement about putting the kitty to sleep. Popcorn (shut up, I was 6 years old when I named him, okay?) is now 18 years old, and in pretty much constant pain. He's completely deaf, arthritic, and has a heart murmur since he was a kitten. He's gotten SO SKINNY and he can barely move anymore. He also drools everywhere. Poor kitty.
The sad thing is that he still eats and drinks, still goes to the bathroom, and still seeks out affection. He's only really happy when he's on someone's lap. The last time I was at my parents, I held him on my lap forever, and he just purred like a motor, and kneaded my arm with his paws. And drooled all over me. And licked me with his stinky cat tongue, leaving his stinky cat smell all over me.
It was SO sweet.
This is going to be so hard.
He will forever be the cat we got when he was 9 weeks old, and we were turning 6, and we thought he was going to eat us. He will forever be the cat who used to climb trees, even though he had no front claws. He will be the cat that used to spend most nights sleeping wrapped around my head, with his paw across my throat, and his nose in my ear, purring loud enough to wake the dead. He's the cat who used to find whoever was crying, and do his best to comfort them. He's the one who we used to buy collars with bells for, until he had "lost" his 10th or so one, and we finally gave up. (Somewhere near a tree there's a big stack of kitty collars with bells on them.)
He's the cat who brought a live woodpecker and a live mouse into the house to play with, which freaked out me and my mom, respectively. He killed and brought in a GIANT rabbit while we were in Kentucky, took it down to the laundry room, and slit open its belly so we'd find it when he got home. (I think he was either expressing his displeasure at our vacation, or giving us a present to bribe us when we got home so we wouldn't go away again.) He used to find baby bunnies that he'd play with until we heard their screams, and my dad would take them away from the cat, and try to put them where he wouldn't find them again. HE HAD NO FRONT CLAWS. I still have no idea how he would catch and kill the animals he did without claws.
He was a Great Hunter. Now he can barely get in and out of the box he spends 23.5 hours a day sleeping in.
The good news is that we found a vet willing to come to the house to put him to sleep. He HATES going to the vet, and we figured this would be easier for him. Plus, we can sob and wail in the privacy of our own house, and bury him in the backyard after it's done.
So, tomorrow night at 7 pm, it'll be time. Time to say good-bye to the companion who has been in my life since I was 6 years old. Time to end his suffering, and begin mine.
God, do we know how to have fun on a Saturday night, or what?
I'll always love you, Popcorn. May you now find peace.
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