Farewell to a Cat: The First & Last of Sidney

I inherited Sidney the Cat (whom I nicknamed Sidney, Mighty Huntress of the Night for her beautiful black coat and her stealth ways) when she was already middle-aged.  Our time together went something like this . . .

Ben calls, in tears, begging me to take on this cat with the words, “Ma, I know you’re not a cat person, but please take her.  We don’t have anyone else.  If you don’t take her, we’ll have to put her to sleep.”

Who can ignore the tearful pleas of one’s own child calling one to be a rescuing hero in the life of another creature?  Certainly not I.

We meet at one of our many half-way points and Ben hands me over this cat in her cage, along with litter box, food, and many, many, instructions, my favorite still being:

“You must let the water run all the time.  She only drinks running water.”  After a bit of a verbal tussle on this one, I (wisely) simply opted for silence.  About a week in to our new life together, Ben calls to check in on Sid.  He asks how I am doing (notice the emphasis) with the running water thing.  “Not a problem,” I cheerfully reply.  A wise and naturally suspicious child (at least when it comes to his mother), Ben digs deeper: “are you running the water?”  “Of course not.”  “Is she drinking?”  “She is now.”  “What does that mean?”  “It means that I am not leaving the water run 24 hours a day for the cat and that she’s figured that out.  It took her a few days, but she’s drinking from the bowl.”  Suspicious he: “how many days?”  “Oh, about 3.”  “You let my cat go without water for 3 days?!?”  “No, Ben.  I never let your cat go without water.  What I did was put it in a bowl.  She found it.  It took her awhile, but she found it.”  I’m not sure if he’s yet forgiven me for that one, but Sid and I had made our arrangement and Ben was largely beside the point.

Ben instructs me at that fateful exchange meeting that at first, I must restrict Sidney to one room in the house so that she can get accustomed to her new space.  I decide it will be my office.  I get her situated and then I go do some other things.  When I come back, I cannot find Sidney. . . anywhere.  I thoroughly scout the office – no Sid.  I then search the entirety of the house – no small feat – and still, no Sidney.  I call for her.  I listen for any meows.  I hear nothing.  I see nothing.  

I sit down at my office chair, in admitted defeat, pick up the phone to return Ben’s call.  He has left a message that beat us home to see how Sidney is doing.  I am going to have to tell him that I have lost his cat within minutes of our arrival at her new home.  It won’t be pretty.  As the phone is ringing, I sit and ponder, retracing all my own steps since bringing Sidney inside.  A thought enters my mind.  I dismiss it.  And then I act on it, opening the lower drawer where I had thrown my purse.  And there she was.  Apparently the gal had snuck in to the drawer just ahead of my tossing my purse in and there she crouched, silent, like the night.

Ben answers the phone, I tell him everything is fine and then confess the last hour’s horror of lostness.  All is forgiven for all is well.  I am so bucked up in my new confidence that I tease him about never having called to check to make sure that I made it home all right.  We laugh together.

***

I’ve written before about my tendency to Pollyanna things, to be the incurable optimist.  It has a price.

For some time, I had been thinking that Sidney was failing and that it might be time.  You know:  time to put her to sleep.* Yet I resisted, thinking that ‘nature’ should simply take its course.  It did not seem that she suffered, or if so, not much.  She wasn’t complaining.

But I had been thinking on it.

And then came yesterday morning.  When I got up, Sidney was already up, unusual these days.  She was walking in this odd sort of circle, when I realized that one of her back legs wasn’t working.  That leg served as a sort of anchor against which she tried in vain to navigate.  She finally broke the circling and managed to walk down the hall by leaning against the wall on the side of her problem leg.

Her prospects were becoming more clear, yet still I hesitated.  And called and talked to folk.  And read on the internet about geriatric cats.  And made the call – or more accurately had a friend who is a relative of the vet make the call.

Another friend had shared how she received confirmation in a comforting way during the dying process.

I too received confirmation.  But it wasn’t much comfort.  I’ve been there when another pet – a beloved dog, was put down, so I was familiar with the process, a bit different for cats, but not much.

This time, Sidney had lost so much weight that it took several attempts to find a vein for the injection.  There just wasn’t any there there anymore, for she was truly skin and bones.

And I had not noticed.  I noticed her slowing down.  I noticed she was thinner and eating less.  But somehow I failed to even notice that she had no fat, no flesh to her at all.

Ah Sidney, I owed you better than that, sure I did.

Perhaps now you reside in the land of perpetual fresh running water.  I sure hope so.



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*How I do hate that euphemism.  And it is not how I think of it.  But I will spare you the language of my own internal dialogue on the matter.

A(nother) New Day

I love the potential of a new day – opening its sunshine welcome through the curtains – the promise of possibility like an infinite blanket of hope – small things come to mind mostly – maybe today I’ll finish the ironing – I actually like to iron – it’s pleasing somehow to press out the wrinkles and the smell of clean linens a bonus to the senses – maybe I’ll finally begin repairing the quilt I made for Mom and Dad more than 30 years ago – I am old enough to have created something now time worn – how well I remember my own pride at the gift when given – satisfied with what I had made passed down through my grandmother’s hands – maybe I’ll start walking again – it’s been too long – I will mail a letter that needs sending – maybe I’ll actually schedule that long-overdue hair appointment – that will feel like progress – I will look upon the mountains and be refreshed – their presence my comfort – I will listen to cat’s purr and smile benediction upon her contentment – maybe I will tick a few things from the list – my perpetual write-down of the next indicated things – or not – I will read – glad that I finally can again – leaving behind the tens if not hundreds of books begun and set aside – it’s a perfect laundry day – my only regret that I have no laundry to hang – so many roads spread out before me at the beginning of this new day – it matters not much which I take – for now – in this moment – the promise – the possibility – is enough and more than enough – and I am grateful – it is tomorrow and I am begun again.

Five Minutes

Five minutes – that was all it took as I sat on the road today for a crew of fellows with some very cool equipment to bring down a tree – probably 40+ feet tall, cut it into manageable bits and load it into a truck, clearing the road on which the felled tree had landed.

I pulled up as the first car at the stop sign and glanced at my clock.  Then I watched as a CAT frontloader with jaws had a guide wire attached to it to direct the fall of the tree across the road.  Down it came – looking like it moved in slow motion, but landing in a split second.

Then beyond my line of vision the guys must have quick cut the tree into manageable chunks for the CAT to come round and grasp in its claws and carry to the flat bed waiting patiently for its load.

I have no idea why that particular tree was felled.

Maybe it was diseased.

Maybe it was already leaning from this summer’s Derecho, which cut a wide swath through our part of the world.

All I know is that when I got the signal to move on, I looked down at the clock and to my surprise, saw that it was now 4:09 p.m. – exactly 5 minutes from when I pulled up to a stop.

All I can say is that was one cool CAT.


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I know it’s not cool to wax poetic about Caterpillar.  And true to my kind, I support the boycott and divestiture efforts against Caterpillar because of its profits from the home demolitions occurring in the West Bank.  But the engineering of these machines and the skill in the techniques shown by the guys on the road today were something to behold.  And given their efficiency, some in the county where I live are wondering whether they could give some pointers to the folks subcontracted to build the 18-month bridge (so named because of the amount of time it is taking to rebuild it).

See IPMN Divestment Call about divestment from Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlitt-Packard.  See CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) site about CPT's work and the conditions in the West Bank.