I haven't posted in over a month. In that time, many things have happened that should have been written about, but I always felt they were trivial and unimportant. I felt like I didn't really have anything important to share on my blog.
Well.. until today...
At around three o'clock, I was called over by my mother because she thought our cat Fluffy was having trouble with his leg. My mother thought someone hurt him while he was outside and she kept saying that his leg was broken. We scrambled to take him to the vet.
On the way, Fluffy was crying, shedding hair and breathing rapidly. My mother kept annoying the piss out of me with her attempts at placating his meows. Her tone of voice was shrill and ended up amping up the tension on the way. Thanks a fucking lot, mom.
As we waited for the xrays and general examination to finish, my mother engaged in conversation with some of the people there about the cruelty of our neighbors. Though I kept reminding her that I didn't think someone hurt him, she was clinging to her train of thought regardless. Fluffy was always the type to be fearful of strangers, he'd run away from the slightest movement of someone he didn't know, which is why I deduced that it couldn't have been inflicted by some lowlife in the neighborhood.
Later this assumption would prove correct, but I was unprepared for the shock that the veterinarian brought us.
Fluffy had a stroke.
A blood clot formed in his body and paralyzed both his hind legs. Xrays revealed that there weren't any fractures in his bones, but that a clot has cut off the blood flow to his limbs and killed his nerves, paralyzing his lower-half.
We were offered the chance to take him to a specialist where they would give him an MRI among other things, but the chances of him surviving would be at around five to ten-percent and the cost of the treatment would be over two thousand dollars.
When the vet told us all this, I could see my mother collapse in tears. I felt choked up but didn't want to start bawling along with her. It took a lot of fucking self control to keep myself in check. I had to keep my head down and push those feelings deep within me while all this was going on.
It looked like we were going to have to put him down.
My mother left the vet room when I asked if I could see Fluffy one more time, and I don't blame her. I felt that I may have made a mistake in requesting to do so, thinking that I would just fucking crumble in a mess of my own tears, but I was able to keep it together somehow.
They brought him to the room wrapped in a pink blanket, he was sedated, and wasn't meowing his heart out like before. I kneeled at the table, watching him and petting his little furry head. I just looked into his big green eyes for about ten minutes. Stroking his head, knowing that this would be the last time I'd ever do it for him. He didn't purr once. At this point I was getting choked up and I could feel myself blinking back a few stray tears as I watched the best pet I've ever had drool uncontrollably in front of me. This entire time he only looked me once into my eyes, seemingly unaware of who I was. I felt shamed. I took an extra minute to collect myself and knocked on the vet's door. They asked if I wanted to witness the euthanasia, and I knew I had to refuse. It would've killed me.
When we first got Fluffy in 1997--and when I started getting really attached to him-- I knew he was going to die someday and it would be emotionally painful for me. But I've always reminded myself that I would be around thirty-five years old before his fifteen-year life span might conceivably end.
I am twenty-seven fucking years old, this has happened eight years behind fucking schedule. EIGHT YEARS. Why the fuck did it have to happen so early? It seemed like only a short while ago that I held him in the palm of my hand when he was three-weeks old. He was so tiny.
I remember how he'd hide in the corner of the room for the first few days, scared like hell until he finally got used to the new place. I remember when I'd pet him by the window, for an hour at times, getting a kick out of the way he'd purr so loudly. He was the cutest little guy. I always liked calling him my little furry monkey.
Once we had to get his coat shaved, and I was pissed off that my mother brought him to some cheap pet grooming place. They took him downstairs into the pet-grooming dungeon while he was meowing and meowing and clawing ferociously at whoever was holding him. An hour later when I went to pick him up, he was hiding in the back of a cage, half the size he was before and he just JUMPED onto my shoulder, purring like mad, meowing and rubbing his face against mine. If I had any doubt that animals were incapable of love, I didn't have any since that day.
I'll miss the way he'd rub his face against mine, doing that cute thing with his nose. I'll miss the way he'd run away from just about anyone who'd try to pet him, but was always so affectionate towards me. I'll miss the way he'd run up to meet me just as I parked my truck outside. I'll miss how he'd flip on his back in all sorts of crazy directions, like a fish out of water whenever he sees me coming towards him.
I'll miss the way he'd let me pick out the boogers from around his eyes and not flinching like our other cat.
I'll miss his purring, loud purrs that I didn't think cats were capable of making. I'll miss the way he'd spread his legs out when I'd hold him in my lap like a baby, dangling into the air. I'll miss the racket he makes every morning when he wants to be let outside. I'll miss the way he'd stare at you from just outside an open door and won't come in.
I'll miss the mice he used to bring home to play with. The way he'd jump three feet in the air. The lazy, half-shut eyes he had when he sat around the house. The way he'd sleep on my mother's pillow. How he jumped onto my bed and laid curled under my arm as I watched tv. I'll miss the way we used to play hide and seek, I'd peek around a corner at him and when I hide, he'll come running up to me and purring. I'll miss his fear of furry objects (especially the living room rug) and how he gets panicky if you try to place him on something hairy.
I'll miss the clumps in his fur. I'll even miss that time he threw up on me, as I lifted him up into the air while laying in bed.
I loved him so much.
I'll miss you Fluffy.
