In Memoriam: Patches

The call I've been dreading came Saturday morning as I was stepping into the shower. The one telling me that a loved one was sick and I needed to get to their side because there wasn't much time left to say good-bye. Not, as I'd been expecting either of my grandmothers. Or even my poor old dog who looks worse each time I see her. No, it was my mother telling me to come to the vets because my cat was dying.

I call her my cat even though she was really everyone in the family's. Ever since that fateful day she came into our lives in 1991. But she and I always had a special bond. We'd gotten her out of a cardboard box in a strange kitchen the summer weeks after I was hospitalized for depression (Long story. I can't say I'm much better, just better about hiding the symptoms.). And while it was never said as much, I'd always thought of her as something of a reward for being sane. She was the runt of a litter being given away and what was left of my family by then piled into our car. Her fur was a vivid calico, mostly black but mottled with streaks of brown from a dark, rusty ochre to the pale, milky tan surrounding her left eye and one of her paws. Watching the mass of kittens rolling around it was immediately apparent that she was the cat for us. We could all agree on that. But what we couldn't agree on was her name. We argued over it as she crawled under the seats in our mini-van until our mother told us that we'd all write down our best suggestion and go from there once we got home. My sister's choice of “Patches” for the great big blotch around her eye eventually won. Mine was “Paleface” for much the same reason (Interestingly enough we all came up with names that started with “P”. Go figure.). Much like any cat, though, her name devolved over the years and we called her all sorts of things from Patchy to Pickles to, my favorite, Murry. Dogs, I've heard, can tell their being called by the tone of voice but cats actually listen for the words, so I have no idea why that happens. But whatever we called her, she was a solitary creature, not at all a lap cat. Not at all for an Abyssinian the breed which gave her a small head and oversized ears which always made her look small and cute. She showed her affection in different ways, though, and it's many a times I'd be standing around only to feel something brush against my legs only to look down and be greeted by a deep-throated purr.

I was young enough then that I can't say I treated her as well as I should have – I bullied her whether it was chasing her down to scoop her up or opening her mouth to feel her strange tongue. To be fair, she caused more than enough trouble of her own. She loved to slip out the front door as you were getting the paper (And, inevitably, brought back flees whenever she got outside), and to climb our curtains and sit on their top. More than holiday season we'd hear a giant crash and race to the living room to find she'd managed to leap onto our Christmas tree and tip it over to a great holocaust of ornaments. But as we both grew older, we settled into a comfortable relationship. She'd follow me to the kitchen when I went for a snack and sit on the foot of my bed as I slept. Eventually, I outgrew my home and I went away to school and beyond. And while my mother kept her still, I always relished those days and weeks when I'd have an opportunity to take care of her for whatever reason.

The first I realized that she was getting old was when she lost a tooth. One of her incisors just dropped out of her jaw one day. The stump left her with a snaggletoothed look. The vet told us it wasn't all that uncommon and she seemed fine with it but from that point on I noticed she was slowing down. Not as active, not as playful, just getting older.

And, well, I always knew one day that she wouldn't be with me any longer but I thought there'd be more warning, more time to steel myself against the inevitable. But, no, the last time I saw her which was only a few days before her last, she looked perfectly fine. Same as she always had. And my last memories of her, alive and free of pain anyway, are of placing her favorite cat bed on my own and her sleeping while I read. There wasn't any sickness, any weakness, to detect, and as much as I'd like to find something I'd done wrong, some sign I could have noticed that might have led to her getting help sooner, I don't think there was one. But I gather after that she, for whatever reason, started to act a little odd. Again, no open sign of disease or old age (Not like the family dog who's turned pale white and who's eyes are starting to develop cataracts. I'm afraid that we're going to be going through this with her sooner rather than later, too, even though she's a few years younger.) but she was curling up in strange places and she'd stopped eating or drinking. My mother thought it wasn't a big deal but my sister urged her to take Patches to the vet.

I'm convinced, sad to say, it was that trip that killed her. Although I don't place any blame on anyone involved, our cat always hated the vets. I remember one time she went so far as to hide in the shallow bowl of the sink – something our vet had never seen before – because she was so afraid and how she quivered when we picked her up, ever so gently, for her examination. It was just stressful for her. And so, it's not a big surprise that although the doctor didn't think it was much more than old age and a case of dehydration that when they went to draw blood, Patches had what amounts to a heart attack. To use the medical term she “crashed”. That's where I came into things as my mother called me in tears asking if I'd want to come and see her because things weren't looking good.

I shook the last remains of sleep out of my head only to have them replaced by a deep sense of shock. “Okay, okay.” I remember saying as I had my mother repeat the directions not once but three times before they registered even though things were anything but. I was almost breaking down myself as I hunted down my keys and climbed into the car and I struggled to fight back the tears as I drove. Fought to stay in control and keep from veering across the road as I frantically raced there as fast as I could go – luckily there weren't any police officers around because I was too distracted to pay attention to anything as mundane as a speed limit. Because I'm constitutionally unable to drive without music of some kind and I was too busy to change the channel, there was a series of cheery pop songs on the radio and an empty, hollow feeling in my chest. My eyes burned. But I had to keep calm, had to slow down and take things as they came, had to remain in that moment of sickening uncertainty. Of course, I got lost along the way and had to circle around to find the place. When I got out of the car, I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. Inside, I waited patiently in line for the receptionist until it was my turn. I wanted to scream “Get the fuck out of my way, my cat is dying and I have to be there!”. By the time they led me back into what I can only assume was the emergency room, I was numb.

My mother and sister were there, eyes reddened with sadness, voices rasping with quiet fear. And my cat, laying on a thin blanket on a metal grate over a basin. A whisper quiet respirator was being held over her snout, and through its clear plastic I could see her lips curled back over her one remaining tooth. Her eyes were barely open and her chest heaved as she breathed in and out. In time, the veterinarian would come and I found out that her pulse was weak, almost non-existent in her back legs. The crash had denied her brain some oxygen, something like a stroke, and she wasn't very much responsive. Her pupils wouldn't respond to light and the “eye tap” - basically thumping a finger by her eye didn't make her blink at all. I knew she was in trouble when a dog in the next room began to bark and growl and she didn't even move. She should have sat up and leapt off the table in fright. But she just lay there, her eyes bunched closed. We had a faint glimmer of hope when she began to meow. But the noises were strange, giving real meaning to the term caterwauling, and nothing like how she normally vocalized. It was just another sign of how bad a turn she'd taken no matter how much we wished it was different.

Our choices, at that point, came down to bad and worse. We could transfer her to the car of an animal hospital where she'd stay with little chance of meaningful recovery – at best, we'd buy ourselves another month or three with a broken shell of our pet – and putting her to sleep. The decision was agonizing, of course, and my mother turned to me. Without asking, she wanted my opinion, she wanted to know if what she was thinking was what I was thinking as well. The whole situation was surreal and I could scarcely believe I was there. I cried not because I was sad but because I wasn't sad enough to cry and I couldn't understand why all my feelings had ebbed away. But I tried to stay strong, tried to be a man about things and keep rational even in the midst of everything falling apart. And I nodded. It was our cat's time. She'd lived a happy and full life. And now, at the end, she was surrounded by those who loved her. Better now than alone and scared in some animal hospital.

It was my mother who made the final decision but I'd like to think I helped her. The doctor asked if anyone of us wanted to stay with her, stroke her fur as the end came, and the rest of my family quickly said no. Not me, though, I was determined that Patches have someone there throughout. A witness to our final act of cruelty. Or our last gift of kindness. Even now I'm not sure which it was, really. Even though we made sure she was under anesthesia beforehand. I did, though, stay. Until it was all over and she was still. But, I've lived that moment over and over so many times since then that I'll spare you the details. I just wish someone had been able to spare me from them. I had to be there, though, had to have someone have those final moments. I once heard that the dead are never really gone as long as we remember them. And Patches? I'll never forget.