Several years ago I owned a big tabby cat. He had dark brown fur mixed with some splotches of gold and white. I got him at a animal shelter outside of Charleston, IL on a cold winter day. I think it was right after Christmas, maybe right after New Year's.
I also believe my friend James was visiting from Pennsylvania. He took a bus all the way from Pennsylvania. That is how desperate he was to get out of his home. I was in graduate school at the time and had recently broken things off with a girl. We were still close, though. In fact, close enough that I drove up to her hometown an hour-and-half away to pick her up and bring her back to Charleston after she got into a horrible fight with her family. I think James was with me the whole time, too. Man, he had to spend a lot of time on the road.
At any rate, the three of us drove out to the animal shelter on a cold and blustery day. We shouldn't have been on the roads. The shelter was in the country, so the roads out there were still covered in snow. In fact, I remember driving around a curve and putting the car in a ditch. We were stuck for awhile before someone drove along and helped us out.
When we arrived at the shelter, we took a tour of the rooms with cats. They were good-sized rooms with half-doors on each one so you could peer in and check out the cats. It was like a mix between a zoo and a prison cell block. Maybe those are the same thing, though. The unspoken message between you and the cats is the fact that they were all pretty much on death row.
I went down the entire row looking in both rooms. I remember asking for thoughts or opinions from my friends, but they kind of gave me the "Are you really asking me what kind of cat you should get and live with for the next five to ten years?" It's a confused and pressured look.
I remember Buddy was sitting in the back of one of the rooms. He wasn't overly social, but he wasn't completely stand offish either. I guess you could say that he was a typical cat.
We brought him home that day. He would still need a good vet check up, and later I would find out that he had FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). It's pretty similar to HIV for humans. The cats can live a pretty long time with the disease, as long as they are indoor cats. And Buddy was primarily an indoor cat with a few exceptions.
There were a few times I chased him outside, but he really just meandered. And then there was the time I thought I would try to walk Buddy. Not sure if you have ever walked a cat, but it's just, well, it's just a stupid idea. Imagine walking a dog, but the animal is smaller, has greater will power and doesn't view "being walked" as the most awesome event of its life. In fact, I think the cat believes its walking you. When I have walked a dog, you jerk the leash and say, "Come on!" and the dog usually responds my moving on. Unless it senses that you have no idea what you're doing, then it just keeps on sniffing.
But when I walked Buddy, he, well, he would lie on the ground, growl and hiss, or basically twist himself in the leash so much that he almost asphyxiated himself. Cats are not meant to be walked. Cats are truly curious creatures. They are always exploring, prowling, and pushing the boundaries of known territory. If there is a room beyond a door, the cat wants in that room. The cat may have no idea what it's going to do there, but it will go for it.
A few years after I got Buddy I got another cat named Cynthia. She was a small female calico. She and Buddy were a good fit. A great fit, actually. But this post is about Buddy, so let's get back to him.
He was a great cat. I loved it when he walked across my legs while I was in bed. He would knead them for awhile and then lay across my calves. It was comforting. And then in the morning, he usually woke me up from my nice slumber by nosing me. I usually swatted him away the way I would hit the snooze button. But he kept coming back. He would meow and look at me. I would check his food and water bowl. Undoubtedly he almost always had food and water, but this was his way. Cats are mysterious creatures. They wake you up for no reason. They sit and stare at you for hours. They meow at doors and walls without any known reason. I can see why some of the puritans thought they were witches.
Then Buddy started to get sick. He started peeing everywhere in my apartment. He was even defecating in a few places as well. He wasn't coming upstairs to my bedroom either. I knew what it probably was. He was getting older, too. I took him to the Vet.
The Vet was incredibly nice. She told me what my options were. We could begin a grueling, weekly treatment that involved shots and intense hydration. And it would be uncomfortable for Buddy and expensive for me. And it still would probably only prolonging things for a few months, if that. I knew what I probably had to do, but I wanted to think and pray about it for a few days, maybe a week.
The vet gave Buddy some shots and fluids and sent him home with me. I was pretty upset. I knew how this was going to end, but I really wanted to give him a chance. I wanted to see if he would turn around. I didn't want to be a cat owner that gave up easily.
He didn't get better. He got weaker. So I made the decision to send Buddy to his Rest. I don't remember a lot about the day except that it was a normal day. I picked him up in the afternoon and took him to the vet. I felt sick about the whole thing. I took him into the patient room and waited on the vet. She brought in the syringe and other items she needed for this process. My first job was working at a vet clinic, so I was familiar with this process. Even then it was hard to be a part of the process of putting an animal down. You can't really communicate with the animal, or at least know if your words are getting through. They seem to look innocently the entire time. All the way to the end.
This is how Buddy was for the most part. The vet placed the syringe into his fur, petted him softly and laid him down on the table. I kept petting him and saying he was a good boy. Not sure why I said that. I told him I loved him. He started to growl, much like he did when I tried to walk him. Maybe he knew what was going on. Maybe he was raging against the dying of the light. I don't really know. I remember that I was crying. I remember the vet was crying. She was crying. I was really touched by that.
Buddy was a good cat. He had a great personality. He was a good friend to Cynthia.
The End.
Director's Cut Ending:
If there is a twist to this blog post, here it is.
I found out later that the vet who euthanized Buddy was involved in an apparent murder-suicide. Apparently she came home after work, shot her husband and then shot herself. The suicide note revealed there were some marital problems.
The End?
