I remember the day after Gizmo, my first cat, had passed away. It was a sunny day and I was at the playground during recess. I remember going down the slide, at the top of it I was fine, but by the time I had reached the bottom I was crying my eyes out.
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The Foresight
This period began two weeks prior, where I began to cry in front of my parents following an overwrought drama about a curmudgeonly bookshop owner who accepts his mortality. I cry a handful of times per year, so each time is a momentous occasion. Importantly, this was on a weekend where I was visiting my parents so I could finally share my emotionality with them the way I was asking them to do with me. Their response was sympathetic, but distanced, like a guidance counselor commiserating with a student just rejected from their top school.
But these were not simply tears in response to a movie–I have a particular weakness for movies in which the grumpy characters you’ve come to love accept their mortality. For I see myself in these characters–I’m someone who is emotionally unemotional and empathetically unempathetic and I yearn for the day when a manic pixie dream girl comes into my life (again) and helps me see life in a new way. The inspiration for tears that day was a reflection on mortality, not my own–it’s never about me, rather about that of my immediate family.
There are coasts that separate me from my extended web of cousins second and third, so just as France relies on nuclear energy, I rely on nuclear family. At 24, every year has felt momentous–from a new grade to driving to drinking, even post graduation, we had covid, and new jobs, and breakups. But something about your mid-20s makes you realize there’s no clear division between the years anymore, no summer break to reflect on relationships, just an unending, uneasy float down the river of life. However, this varies dramatically by age.
You see, people live in a superposition from 30 to 50 where they’re parents and only their children really change (save for some achy joints and gray hairs), but at 50 they know their decline is imminent. It could be sudden and tragic, it could be agonizingly prolonged, but the end is somewhat in sight. Particularly for men who retire because society (and men) define men by their professions–women with children will always be mothers, but men can only toggle between being labeled as their profession or being retired from their profession.
And the damndest thing of all is that once you notice the decline, it’s too late (you know it will never be the way that it was), a reflection that admittedly sounds a bit too much like a certain Harry Styles lyric. In all honesty, my parents are in enviable health for their age- they exercise frequently, cycling and pickle ball respectively, and have several close family and friend relationships. So the dread I feel for their mortality is more of a future-looking protective measure than an immediate necessity.
However, the same is not the case for cats. Because of their shorter lifespan, their deaths often punctuate eras of our life. Additionally, they have internal mechanisms that tell them to seek shelter away from home if they are truly unwell until they return to the Earth–the kind of fact that can only be learned through trauma. While my parents sat comfortably with their back pain and wrinkles, our feline family member, Cleo (short for Cleopatra) was not doing well. She had been a lifelong overeater, a trait she took from our family, so it was strange to hear that she was not eating much at all anymore. Additionally, she had once been a manic kitty- a fierce hunter full of playfulness, but we saw her become a lap kitty, almost compulsively seeking the comfort of another’s legs under her own. We attributed this to age, but there was a strangely sudden nature to these new traits.
My time with Cleo in this period was admittedly episodic, while she had been a daily presence in my early years, we lived in separate cities, And while I was just a short drive away, Cleo lived with my parents and I didn’t have a good way of visiting her absent them, so my memories of Cleo were monthly checkpoints. So it was especially obvious to me to see the decline in these last few checkpoints as my frames of reference were spaced apart, providing a clear picture of the decline.
Which brings us to my post-midnight tears–I cried not for the fact that death exists and is inescapable, but for the knowledge that death would be an exclamation point on a sentence I would never finish writing. You see, what's scary to me, and probably anyone, about visual indicators of old age is that they remind us that death is coming. It’s important to me to clarify that I’m not afraid of death, it makes no sense to me to be afraid of getting hit by a bus tomorrow–it could happen. But when someone else dies, in a way that could be sudden or quick, there’s a realization that any interaction could be your last. Tomorrow, you could be wishing for the chance to return to today, returning to when their functioning was a little bit better, and there were just a few more things you could do with them.
At that moment, my fear was largely theoretical–Cleo was not doing well, but my parents were taking her to specialist vets (who cost hundreds of dollars, my mother made sure to tell me). She may have to have a few teeth pulled, but my cat is still my cat even if she is missing a few teeth. Trajectory is fickle however, as what onsets suddenly can also vanish suddenly, or not. Compound this with the fact that my cat has not yet learned how to speak English, meaning we were relying on behavioral indicators and kitty-to-person sign language as a way to communicate.
I cried, and I was happy that I cried, and my parents comforted me in their patented “we’re not really emotional but we support you, even though we’re really tired" way. What struck me was that my mother still wanted to watch her television show afterwards, I suppose it was a nightly routine for her (and I’m no stranger to the siren’s call of screens), but I was struck by her desire to maintain a routine in the face of an unprecedented outpouring of emotion. Admittedly, I was resentful but my sadness is mine to deal with, and the sleep following a good cry always hits differently so I headed to bed.
In leaving my family home in San Jose and returning to mine in San Francisco, I asked them to keep me apprised of how Cleo was doing, my way of checking in. My father did so dutifully, telling me about vet appointments and his own research so we could understand how to help her. They moved her from dry food to wet food to just snacks, they set up a permanent heated blanket station, they did what they thought might help.
And what was strange was the specificity of the issue- she was walking around fine and sleeping well, the problem seemed to be concentrated in her mouth. Around this time, I even confided to a friend of mine that I felt an immense weight of guilt that my cat was sick and I was just living my life and not really thinking about it that much. If you’re wondering why I was feeling guilty about not being guilty even after I had cried, congratulations on not having anxiety and take care to be empathetic with those around you who do. The friend told me there was nothing I could do and clearly I did care, as evidenced by my tears and by my thinking about it, the meta-cognition was not necessary and simply, not warranted. And so we chatted every few days about her progress, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but largely unchanged over the following 14 or so days.
The Return
And then my father called.
Unsuccessfully choking back tears, he told me that Cleo had a growth on her tongue, a growth so large, she could not even be intubated (they had planned to put her under anesthesia to remove teeth, but it was in attempting to prepare for this surgery that revealed the true issue). Callously, the vets told my father it was time to say goodbye and that it would be humane to begin preparations in the moment.
Shock gave way to tears a few minutes in, once the thinking could set back in. As someone who is neurotic, unemotional, and neurotic about being unemotional it’s funny how all of that bullshit just faded away as I cried alongside my father. My mother was unreachable, so my own father was asking me if we should make the call in that very moment, because she was in real pain and she couldn’t eat and we didn’t really realize. It’s one of those impossible questions: extend a life that may carry more pain and worry about being selfish, or end a life with still decent functioning and worry about being cold-hearted. I told him to wait until I could get there, thankfully only an hour's drive. I told him it would be ok, and I would get in touch with my mom. It was one of those rare moments where I felt less like my father’s son and more like his confidant.
It turns out what we thought was a tooth or gum issue turned out to simply be a physical impediment. It’s not that she wasn’t eating, it's that she could not eat–it hurts to think that we didn't notice and it burns to know that the vets did not notice until now. There’s only ever a single question when you hear about a growth–one you don’t want to ask but is all that matters– was it cancer? The vets don’t know, but it’s big and they don’t think they can operate on it. Even worse, it didn’t matter, once a cat cannot physically swallow food, they cannot function independently, so regardless of the nature of the impediment, the question before us was still the same–should we end our cat’s life?
I called the pickleball court where my mother was, since she was not answering her phone. Breathlessly, I asked the front desk attendant to fetch her. She asked for a description so she knew who to look for and I realized how hard it was to describe my own mom? “60-something, brown hair, short” is the best I could come up with, hoping a broad description would be enough to pick her out of however many seniors were in the court area. I felt like a parent calling out for their lost children over the loudspeaker in a store, helpless. In a stroke of what seemed genius at the time, the front desk attendant asked what my mom’s name was so she could shout it to get her attention. And so, Marcia was found and instructed to return home to meet my father.
Meanwhile, I was whipping around my house in a frenzy–getting dressed while I brushed my teeth, logging a sick day while packing my suitcase, calling an uber while I put my shoes on. Crying and sniffling, I paced ferociously around my house going over the conversation and what would happen next. I had the foresight to bring a box of tissues based on my current snot and tear output, tucking it safely in my backpack (a box that was emptied by the end of the weekend). And so, my uber driver arrived and I began the journey home.
There was clear emotional whiplash–I had gone from the abstract idea of mortality for my cat who wasn’t doing well right now to a pet doctor telling my father to end her life. It was so fucking fast, and I had known, before even my parents, I had seen the signs and the feelings welled up inside of me and released like a pressure valve just two weeks ago. But here we were, nonetheless.
The uber ride to San Jose, the city of my birth, felt endless. My mind kept going into the same well-worn grooves of surprise and shock and prediction. The toggle for my cat had very clearly shifted from not doing well to dying, and there’s no easy way to make that kind of a transition. And I was crying and googling the entire uber ride down to San Jose, as though reading every self-help article about how to deal with the end of a cat’s life would help. But I knew I couldn’t listen to music or watch youtube at a time like this–you can’t enjoy your life when a family member is dying, everyone knows you’re not allowed to feel release–so I felt trapped in my cycle of thoughts, but it felt appropriate given the circumstances.
I’d never been less happy to return home. I had something of a fear that my parents would have made an impulsive decision and I would be returning home to only two souls, but I entered and my cat was there. I don’t think she knew, sitting on my parent’s lap on the couch. She had a bit of drool leaking from her mouth, but she was still Cleo, my Cleo, and she still looked ok. She was on pain medication (now that my parents knew about the lump) and they had prepared every variety of liquid food they could provide her.
The Days Preceding
Hugs and tears were exchanged, and in that moment I was grateful–grateful Cleo was here, grateful my parents were here, grateful we could be together. She was a little bit affected, but more than anything she seemed surprised by the amount of attention she was receiving, six hands at once. And in the quiet moments I forgot why I was there. I forgot she was sick, I forgot I was crying, and I just was with my family, a welcome respite from what would have been a workday.
Feeling smothered, Cleo sauntered to the screen door, so I could slide it open for her (wondering in the back of my mind if it would be the last time). She sniffed the grass on the sunny day, moseying about. I sat outside with my father, feet in the grass, head in hands. To see my father, the emotional in words only, ex-Israeli army medic, calm and measured man that he is beginning to bawl, I couldn’t help but join in. In that moment, I knew what it meant to be human and I knew what it was to share loss. There was a syncing up of our hearts, from the synchronized crying on the phone call through to the hugs we exchanged upon my arrival. I had the sense that I was not grieving as his son, I was grieving as another family member who loved Cleo, but the pain of the situation far outweighed the sense of commiseration.
We returned to the room, our lungs scarred from crying, the air heavy with anticipation, and we sat together, mostly in silence. No one dared ask the question of what would happen next, but no one dared escape from it by suggesting a game or turning on a tv. And for the first time, I saw Cleo not doing well. I saw the matted fur. I saw her loopy from the anesthesia, darting her eyes back and forth, acting skittishly. I saw her beg and beg but receive no gratification from the food we offered. I saw her try to eat, but have the food fall through her mouth, again and again. I saw her struggle to drink water from the large container. Food streamed down my cat’s face and mucus streamed down mine, both for the same reason.
And in these moments, there’s a strong desire to look for clues. A student of psychology, I tried to study the body language of my family member from another species–did she seem defeated or in pain? Was she trying to communicate with us? Did she want us to fight with her or let her go? I saw her pain, but I also saw her determination, she continued to walk around and beg, and act like any other cat. I had no idea what to do, nor did my parents, though we were the ones to decide what would happen next.
Finally the pressure got to me and I did what anyone would do when faced with an impossible decision, which is to say that I decided today would not be the day to make it. I did not want today to be the last day, and my parents agreed, so we decided it would not be. And the weird part of pre-mourning and anticipatory grief is that though it exists across hours that comprise days, it can’t exist in every single moment within those hours. I still had moments of gratitude and laughter and distraction. I still checked my phone and I even watched some Ted Lasso, the first show that I could think of that was uplifting.
And I felt quite odd about it–how could I check my phone when my cat is dying? When I reflect on this day afterwards, would I feel guilt or would I understand? (Future me does understand for the record). And why was I allowing anxiety to drive so much meta-cognition instead of being with my cat? So I resolved that I couldn’t stop from overthinking but I could make peace with it–however I spent my day would be ok and I would know that even far into the future.
Really the anxiety behind wanting to make the most of that period drove productive behavior–I spent time with Cleo, soaking up the sun with her, petting her, having conversations with her. I cried into her soft fur as she tried to lick me but couldn’t since her tongue would not extend far enough. I had this desire to do everything for the last time, take a photo from every angle, pet her in every single way, play with her, take her in the car, go on a walk, and do everything I possibly could, but you can’t live years in minutes. But just because you can’t live years in minutes shouldn’t stop you from trying.
And even in this most trying of weekends, it was still a Friday, and it wouldn’t be today. Even tomorrow felt so distant, as I clung to the present in appreciation of what it was. Cleo’s life had overlapped with my own so significantly, we picked her and her brother, Kobe (I got to name him too), up in 2008, when I was 10. From fifth grade through senior year of high school, Cleo was my everyday cat. A tiny ball of fur and energy I showed off to my friends to the wise companion she became. College was a time of distance as I was off to Michigan, so I would think of her occasionally and see her a few times a year. Save for a year of living at home during covid, she became a monthly cat and mostly she looked the same each time. Her birthday was on February 28th on a leap year, so I secretly wished she would only age every four years. She didn’t jump or play quite as much in recent years, but age suited her well and she assumed the role of chief executive lap kitty.
And just because the circumstances of my visit were the end of her life did not stop me from reflecting on all of the life we had shared leading up to this moment. I remembered her comforting me after family arguments. I remembered her bringing home still-alive creatures she had hunted in the early morning hours. I remembered her falling asleep at the foot of my bed every time I visited. I just remembered it in a different way, knowing her career would be over soon and give these precious moments so much more importance. And I realized how overlapped and intertwined and bundled together our lives were, she felt like a piece of who I was.
Once it got late we headed upstairs and Cleo headed for the master bathroom, so I said my goodnights and made my peace to end the night. I even returned 10 minutes later after brushing my teeth to check on her to make sure she was ok. And I still fell asleep that night, and it wasn’t even difficult. I hoped she would appear in my dreams or that she would sleep alongside me, but neither happened. But she was there when I awoke, doing about as well as the day before. Such was the first day, knowing the end was in sight, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it, and trying to squeeze in every moment I could until the end.
I awoke with a jolt of sickening anxiety the following morning, quickly heading over to my parent’s room to look for signs of life. Thankfully Cleo was doing ok and was downstairs. She looked even better than the day before, her fur slightly less matted, her eyes more present, but not that much more so, just enough to cause me to extend my hope. My father and I sat together pampering her–offering every morsel we could think of (chicken, cheese, milk, yogurt) in the hopes that she would be able to swallow some of the food, but she mostly turned it away.
My mother was conspicuously absent, as ever, having left to attend to her daily activities. My father and I indulged in commiserating over our lack of understanding for what appeared to be callousness on her part. But while it was fun to bond, we both knew it wasn’t fair to attack her for her different presentation of grief behind her back. And her emotional distance was at times an asset in helping us retain our objectivity in these trying times.
Ever a feline in nature, my cat appreciated the scratching and attention, but only to a point and sauntered away from us where she was free to be by herself. Throughout the day I found myself gravitating towards her–seeking her out in rooms and trying to scratch her in every way I could remember. True to form, I imagine what I would be thinking about a week after her passing and many years after her passing to try to envision the most meaningful activities would be.
I knew my anxiety would punish me if I didn’t at least try to do everything right, and likely would punish me even if I was able to, so I made peace with the overthinking and predictive heartbreak and mental exhaustion. I tried to take solace in the fact that everything would be ok and draw from my past experiences of healing after pain. But you can’t begin to scab over a wound that hasn’t happened yet, so I was tortured in this liminal state: thoughts racing, heartbeat pounding, tears falling. And I kept telling myself it would be ok, and ultimately it would be, however much it did not feel that way in the moment.
It was around this time my thoughts shifted from the idea that my cat was dying to the idea that my cat was going to die, knowing full well that the latter was partially in my control. I longed for the time when I was a child, somewhat unaware of the mortality of life, certainly unaware of the clandestine conversations my parents held around the end of Gizmo’s life. You see when he had started doing worse, it took them several months to consider end of care options. They even went so far as to call someone to help usher him to the other side. The day the appointment was scheduled was the day Gizmo in fact passed away (a fact that was only revealed to me several years later).
You see I knew the Gizmo story only through my own eyes–I knew he got older and slower and deafer, and I knew one day he was gone. But I had no idea my parents had planned for his demise without telling me. It was strange to feel retroactively betrayed 15 years later, but there’s no statute of limitations on feeling left out. I was shocked they had made the decision and decided on the timing without even telling me–I wondered if they even would have informed me in advance so I could be there for the moment. How could I know to make a decision about the last few days of Cleo’s life with these two people who went behind my back to end the life of my first pet?
I remember feeling a bit of shock then crying my eyes out that day–in fact it was the first time I remember seeing my father truly cry. This cat had traveled with him from one continent to another, Gizmo had even been with him across two marriages. I remember holding his curled-up, lifeless body on my lap–finally, he was sitting on my lap only in the worst of circumstances. I remember wrapping him to rest in a shoebox and I remember laying the shoebox in a plot in our backyard, on a quiet, sunny day.
Another painful revelation that had just come up in the midst of the tears following family movie night was around the circumstances of Cleo’s brother, Kobe. He passed away at only 2 years of age, having been missing for a few weeks before his body was found under a neighbor’s porch. My parents revealed to me that his disappearance was preceded by vet visits because he was not doing well, news to me. In fact, my parents believed he was poisoned, perhaps he ate something he should not have, perhaps intentional (if it was I hope to meet the perpetrators one day to exact justice). So here I was processing sadness over the passing of three different animals, each uniquely tragic circumstances. At this moment, it felt pretty impossible to be me.
Knowing what was coming and wanting to reach out more to others, I began informing my friends. I’m not normally one to want attention from others in difficult moments, too fearful of judgment or worried about other’s indifference. But I was in pain, and I trusted at least a few of my friends to be there for me. “My cat (Cleo) is really not doing well, so we’re saying goodbye soon” was my introductory message, a carefully unemotional text that was also a pretty blatant request for follow up questions. This is the fire in which friendship is forged, a sharing of a painful event. I fought hard with myself to avoid having expectations–I knew I was in pain and I knew there was nothing someone could say to me to solve the situation, so what was important to me was that others knew about the pain I was in.
My brain’s need to structure the world into hierarchy drove me to inadvertently begin comparing the quality of responses I received. Some of my friends disappointed me with their responses, their maleness showing through in their short, blunt replies. I’ve accepted that a majority of friendships, including my own, are rooted in convenience and transactionality (perhaps not shocking that some of my friends didn’t extend much kindness over text given my unfeeling view of friendship, but I digress). As much as I’m not the person who will like your instagram posts or call you just because, I do pride myself on listening exceptionally and being there for my friends when they need support. So to see this not reciprocated was painful–perhaps I didn’t communicate enough of what I was looking for, perhaps the texts read differently from how they really felt, but in any case it was another painful reminder that some of my friendships had lapsed into acquaintanceship.
My female friends stepped up, however. They asked if I wanted to talk, checked in on how I was doing, and even inquired into the circumstances leading up to this moment. They offered support and encouragement and stories of their own. I spoke to a few of them and they provided some great perspective on the scenario and helped me feel better about the situation.
Poignantly, one friend reached out to me and said that we should “talk to each other outside of crisis and mourning” (her father passing, my cat passing, google layoffs, meta layoffs). A direct, albeit made-in-the-dark critique of my view of friendship, but I do agree with her.
Another friend had heard of the circumstances from her mother and reached out proactively to let me know, which I thought was a sweet gesture. How reaffirming it was to rediscover an old friend in the midst of such a hard time.
One message really stuck with me, from a newer friend, saying that I “must love [Cleo] so much to not want her to suffer any longer.” It was a touching way to reframe the choice that our family was leaning towards and helped me forgive myself.
Notably, I thought about my ex (admittedly not such a rare event in the several years it had been since our breakup) and decided that I wanted her to know. I knew as soon as I had that thought, I would eventually text her, so I decided to do so right away to avoid my trademark hemming and hawing.
I made sure to check in with myself and confirm this was not a fucked up way of using the death of a family member as some kind of feeble attempt to garner pity or get her back, and I knew it wasn’t, so it was ok. And fewer than 30 minutes later, I had a sympathetic response from her. It was nice to know she cared and gracious of her to respond, given it had been more than 6 months since we had last spoken. We chatted for a bit over text about the circumstances, and ever the overthinker, she told me she wouldn’t “encourage [my reaching out] as a habit.” I was a bit miffed that she would think that of me, but I respected her desire to guard her sympathies, so I took it in stride.
Truly this list of friends, from childhood classmates to ex-girlfriends to new friends was the summation of my social support. These are the individuals I could message in a time of crisis who would show up for me. I termed them the “Cleo List” and resolved to be good to these friends and maintain our friendships given the kindness they had shown me.
And at this point we had decided. It was the result of several interspersed conversations and none of us were happy about it, but we were resolute saying goodbye to Cleo on our own terms was the right way to go. So we knew the next step we wanted to take, we just hadn’t decided on the details.
It was in the midst of these messages and Saturday’s flavor of anxious overthinking that my mother returned. As we chatted through how Cleo was doing she began complaining. She maligned the vets that had not seen this sooner (valid), herself for not noticing this sooner (less valid), and the price of the end of life vet whose service we had secured to say goodbye (not valid). The in-home vet her friend had recommended charged twice as much as our local traditional vet.
All too eagerly, my despair flipped to rage and I railed back, silencing her by offering to pay the fee myself. How dare she think about money in our stupid 7 figure house with its stupid 6 figure renovations? Weirdly enough she accepted, so I sent her the money and dismissed the conversation, satisfied in the thought it would not be brought up again. The anger was a welcome distraction from the thought that we had locked in Sunday early afternoon to be the departure time.
Those last few days seemed to stretch on forever, the whole time I was thankful it at least was Friday instead of Saturday, then Saturday instead of Sunday. The whole time my brain was a snake eating its own tail, wrapped up in thinking and metacognition interspersed with moments of overwhelming pain. Sometimes the tears were in my control, sometimes they were sudden, but they were always cathartic. Crying was one of the few sensations overwhelming enough to shut down my brain for a few precious moments.
Though I summarize these days as agony, there was a vast amount of tedium nonetheless. I still checked my phone, I still watched tv, I still turned to sweets as a creature comfort. The trauma of this event simply could not last 24 hours a day–there were still laughs and card games and pleasant moments (it was a long weekend after all). I wondered if it was ok to feel this way but I was sick of beating myself up, so I decided to allow it. And I was so grateful I could take work off and go home and have both my parents and that we got to make this decision together, it provided a crucial semblance of control.
Jews have a rich history of using comedy to process tragedy, so I relished in a few choice moments of laughter, like when Cleo dripped bits of chicken throughout the newly-renovated flooring. Among the numerous photos and videos I took to commemorate her last few days there’s one beautiful moment where she eats some yogurt (a success in its own right) and shakes her head back and forth spraying a thin white layer of foam on the nearby ottomans.
And in these brief captures of the moments of that weekend, you can hear the tears in my voice when I speak to her. And I feel the need to take pictures of myself crying so I could prove my emotionality to my ex (though she’ll never see the photos), but more so to myself. And the pictures have smart capture on them so they move a little bit, capturing a little life at the end of my cat’s little life. She had 15 good years and we loved her very much I kept reminding myself.
There’s a fortunate bit of perspective that comes out of these events that are so big and horrible they force you to focus. It was clear to me which of my friends truly cared, it was clear to me my corporate job didn’t matter (but my coworkers did), and it was clear there was more I wished I had done with Cleo earlier in her life. I can’t believe something this traumatic happens all the time and people spend their lives talking about politics and stock and sports. It makes me so upset that people spend their lives focusing on unimportant, un-alive things instead of each other. It’s wild to me that in every moment, someone around the world is going through some stage of overwhelming pain and the vast majority of us are completely disconnected from it. In fact, most of us spend a lot of time actively avoiding reminders of our own mortality (something I’m certainly guilty of), running away from that which cannot be outrun.
So I filled up my camera roll to make sure I won’t forget, to not wish that I had, knowing I could never go back. And I resolved to show care to those still around me and still in good health. Any live person is eventually a death waiting to happen, aging is simply a more surface-level reminder, like the brown spots on an aged banana.
It was so hard to live in that liminal space of having Cleo be dying, a constant cycle of pain and avoidance. But it was also addictive–it was so all-consuming, so electric, so full of rich connection. There was a beauty in how complete and justified the sadness felt. Even writing about it now, I’m struck by the same feeling I had when writing about my most recent breakup–more a gratitude for the existence of the individual than sadness towards the circumstances of the end.
And there were fun moments–we took her on a ride and by God, my cat actually enjoyed sitting in my lap in the passenger’s seat. She craned her neck to see the road and roamed freely about the car. She didn’t normally like being in the car, but this time was different and I think she felt that too, probably because of our family’s energy. So she could see the world from a few feet up, going several blocks beyond her usual hang outs spots.
And we thought about taking her to the park but we never did and we never would and we would have to be ok with that. And we went on a final family walk, making our way down that same neighborhood, down that same street, only everything was different. And she trotted in some moments and she ambled in others, but she walked with us and sniffed her favorite trees and ate some grass and was present with us. She rolled around and just acted like a cat, a special act given the circumstances. Such a disconnect between the body and the spirit, her cancer grew so large she could not eat, yet she still walked around and occasionally played, though her skeletal frame and matted fur revealed her true state.
Even the way she drank water from the faucet was revolutionary–she could drink again even with her tongue in the state it was. Her eating, which she had done with gusto so many times in the past, became more laborious and thus, an achievement every time she did. I have minutes of footage of recordings of her eating and drinking and just being to capture the essence. Even the way she rolled around on the tile outside was an act of beauty. And my ex texted again to see how I was doing and I appreciated it again, admittedly savoring the feeling of receiving her attention. And I don’t typically let myself enjoy things, especially not at a time like this, but I let myself feel it anyway. And I even remember introducing Cleo to my ex (she was allergic to cats, which should have been the first red flag). Despite her allergy, Cleo jumped up on her lap and allowed herself to be pet, a small moment of connection between two people who comprised large parts of my past. To my ex, Cleo was a single memory from when she visited me, but to me she would be a million memories.
Friday stretched long with dozens of hours left before what was coming. Saturday felt similarly long, with no work and the soothing hum of Ted Lasso in the background. But in an instant it was Sunday morning and the vet was en route. It went from a day away to a few hours away, but the clock had been running the whole time. And there was doubt and pushback and circling conversations around our conclusion to hire the in-home vet, as there should be. But the conclusion was the same–Cleo wasn’t going to get better, she was in pain, and the sooner we did this the better (now that we’ve had the chance to spend the weekend with her).
The Day
Sunday morning was really fucking hard–it was real, it was happening, and it was too late to turn back. From a few days away to a couple of hours to minutes, we spent all the time we could, the closer we were to the end, the more important the moments. Cleo and I lounged and cried and cuddled and sat, always together, always in the sun. And I filmed her coming down the stairs for what I knew would be the final time. And it was hard for her to make it down the stairs but it was even harder for me to watch her. To see her struggle hurt because I felt her pain with every step, though in a way it made me feel better because I knew what we were doing was the right thing to be doing.
Everytime I looked into the mirror and made the mistake of making eye contact, it was still today, it was still the day, the day my cat’s life would end, and there would be no days for her after this one. The thought required so much repetition cause it didn’t feel real, but there was no other time for it to feel differently, because it was now.
And I loved her and I knew that she knew and that my parents loved her and that this is how life was, but it still fucking hurt. And there was no more time and no more days and no more questions to be asked. I had enjoyed these few days for the special chance to connect but they were still only just a few days in total. It’s one of life’s impossible questions, when to help a cat pass–there’s no right answer, but at this moment it felt like ours was the only answer.
The dread I felt about the decision actually justified it, because I knew I would rather have chosen any other option, so doing this had to be what was best because it was the last thing I wanted to do. You can procrastinate death, but you can’t procrastinate dying, especially not for someone else’s, and especially not when that someone else has whiskers. People say the chasm between birth and death is life, so it follows that dying is the period of life where you can finally see to the other side of the chasm, and you know the next step will be made. And for Cleo, I could see her light because I knew when it would arrive because our family had called it down upon her.
One can live with a cat and one can grieve the loss of one but to do both at the same time as your cat’s life is drained by a sudden, unseen force is simply not possible. And the tens of minutes immediately preceding the vet’s arrival felt like all of these things at once, like a moment in which water boils and freezes at the same time. And even in writing about this moment I want to stretch my prose and write till my fingers bleed, anything but to move to the next chapter, inevitable though it may be.
The Hour
At 2:11 pm (I made sure to look at the time, ever focused on the after), the vet, Dr. Jeni, our veritable angel of death approached gingerly. My heart dropped to my stomach as soon as I heard the familiar slowing of the car’s engine outside of our windows. She knocked gingerly, waiting to be invited in exaggerated fashion, like how vampires are portrayed on tv. She walked in softly, with a kind of feminine grace, a motherly energy exuding from her cat-covered slippers. She was pretty in a young-mom kind of way, wearing enough makeup to look presentable but not enough to garner attention. There was something comforting about her appearance, perhaps because it reminded me of my childhood pediatrician. In honesty all of these reflections are post facto, because the moment she came in I burst into tears, as if cued in a Pavlovian sense by the doorbell.
There was a practiced sympathy on her face, mine was a face she must have seen hundreds of times before, the tears of a person who knew what her presence indicated. There was a clinical separation evident in her affect, it was clear her sympathy was for us rather than with us, what I imagine would be a necessity given her line of work. Cleo came to see who our new visitor was, going up and sniffing her and her medical bag (the vet later admitted she sprayed cat pheromones to ensure cats would like her).
She walked into our house, exchanging the usual pleasantries with my mother about our house and her children and our current emotional state, which felt bizarre to me given the circumstances, but it seemed to put my mother at ease. She acknowledged that people were not usually happy to see her and explained that she understood why and did not take the response personally.
She sat down with us quite organically and engaged us in a bit of conversation. She let us know we were her last call of the day, so we had plenty of time to process and flexibility in handling the rest of the day. My mind was aching for confirmation–was now the right time? Were we doing the right thing?
I jumped in to ask my questions as soon as she paused, and she provided a comprehensive response. She confirmed that our cat’s symptoms were consistent with oral squamous cell carcinoma, the particularly virulent strain of cancer present in her mouth. It was clear to her given Cleo’s reduced appetite, trouble eating, and matting of the fur on her paws, which occurs due to the saliva that was leaking from her mouth as a result. She confirmed that this disease was fatal in all but one of the cases she had seen (the situation was quite different in that case). She said that it’s confusing for us as cat parents because we see the cat try to eat and walk around, but what we don’t see are the shivers that indicate constant pain and the fact that most of the food falls out of the cat’s face and remains on the plate. We didn’t see because we didn’t know what to see and mostly because we didn’t want to see.
She confirmed preemptively that she would absolutely not take this step with us if she didn’t think there was anything else to do. and explained she had sheltered animals before if she didn’t agree with the owner’s request–a sobering reminder of man’s capacity for monstrous behavior or more charitably, a reminder that some owners are truly ignorant. I could feel her care as she said this, her genuineness apparent.
She explained she chose this career after 15 years of working as a vet in a standard practice and having to say goodbye to animals in an unfamiliar environment behind a closed door. So her journey to this profession was organic and driven by a desire to help pet owners have a nice way to say goodbye (she calls it “her life’s calling” on her website, which feels appropriate, even to a cynic like me).
I asked the vet how she could do this–I couldn’t not. She explained that when she was helping animals pass at the traditional vet clinic the pets were freaked out by their unfamiliar circumstances, were often separated from their families, and had to deal with stress in their final moments. She wanted to fix this process and help other families and really their pets have better end of life experiences. And in that moment I felt love for her, because she truly understood my pain.
She told us we were doing the right thing in several different ways with several different explanations, and each time it felt so good to hear. Here was an expert agreeing with us and telling us it was ok, and just a bit of the existential weight was lifted off our proverbial shoulders. She said it was the right thing to do and she said this was the right time, explaining the difference between appearance and reality. And Cleo let us know this was the right time with her actions- not eating, always being under the covers, the shivering indicating that she was in pain (which she did even as the vet was speaking). Her explanation crystallized my appreciation for the separation between mind and spirit, as I could now see how Cleo could walk around but have this life-sapping force inside of her. And so we knew, we knew it was time.
And she asked us if we wanted a paw print of Cleo to remember her by- but we didn’t. It felt clear to me that it was not about having a physical representation of the love we had for the cat, it's about feeling it in our hearts. It’s about knowing that Cleo’s soul would forever be intertwined with my own and that in the words of Jewish teachings, “her memory would be a blessing”.
The vet kept calling Cleo a sweet girl and reassured us it was clear we cared about Cleo and it felt nice to have someone who didn’t share a last name with me answer our questions and help me in this process. She told us to take our time and spent a last few final minutes before we began the proceedings. So we did together we hugged, kissed, and pet Cleo, we did everything we could until there was no more to do. I wanted more time but I knew there was no such thing, so I was ok with us moving to the next step.
The Moment
So it happened.
The Aftermath
Strangely, the death was the easy part–the dying and decision-making that preceded it and the not-having-her afterwards were excruciating. So the vet said her goodbyes, and I went up to her and asked for a hug–it was important to me that I hugged her goodbye to honor her for helping us on this journey. Dr. Jeni even offered to forgo payment since we were a friend of a previous client of hers, which we swiftly denied. Ironic.
It’s hard to even write in the past tense now about Cleo, but now she exists only as a memory in my heart and those of my parents. And admittedly, there was a bit of a sense of relief, as there was less stress around the inevitability of the loss and some degree of comfort in knowing she had lived a full life and had a peaceful end to her life. And life will go on and the pain will fade (though never disappear). And I told myself not being ok is ok and so is being ok, and having heard the testimony from Dr. Jeni I felt better about our decision and the timing of it. Through the vet’s message to us and my friend’s texts, I began to reframe the events to understand that we took the chance to help Cleo to feel less pain and I was grateful that we had the freedom to do so.
So my father and I sat there, while my cat’s body lay in a nearby shoebox. How painfully surreal to have a normal conversation while her body lays in a box near us. And we talked and we played chess and we tried to not look in that direction (unsuccessfully). And I looked inside. I had to look. I had to see her body one last time to avoid the thought that I would want to see her and not be able to, forever a slave to my anxiety even in moments of grief.
And my mother returned and we buried her and I read the Mourner’s Kaddish. And it was over.
After the Aftermath
In the midst of my parent’s house renovations, they had built a cut out for the cat on the front door and a custom carve out for her in the kitchen. And we boarded up the cut out on the front door. And we swiftly cleared away her food bowl and water dish, those last remnants of Cleo’s mortal life, knowing it would never become any easier to do so. And that customized space in the renovated house remained, a representation of the missing Cleo-shaped piece of my heart.
And the weirdest fucking part is that I still have that shirt and I still sit on that same couch. We ate from the rest of the food pieces that we had been shredding into small pieces to feed her. She’s consigned to the earth in my very same childhood backyard. I’m even wearing that jacket from that day as I write this. How can I simply return to my life as it was?
How can one open themselves up to another living, loving being knowing what awaits them? And this was our decision, imagine if we had not been in control! After Kobe passed, there was always the question of if our family would get another cat, now there is a question of if our family will have a cat at all.
Every day following, I have still heard faint noises, but I know I’m not hearing her footsteps. When I see a dark figure in my room, I’ll know it’s just a pile of laundry in my room, not my cat. There’s no reason to even look down in my house anymore and one less reason to return home, knowing my furry childhood best friend won’t be there. But my brain won’t have fully comprehended this yet–I still see visions of her appear in my dreams.
And she’s been in the back of my mind ever since, and I’ve there are tears falling on the page as I write this piece. Now that I don’t have a cat, I am no longer a “cat person” by default, but I know I am still one inside.