The one month anniversary of Fuzza’s passing. Not that I noticed that until just now when I looked at my calendar. It’s odd though that when Lin got home from work, he walked by my shelves and said “There’s our cat, sitting in a little black jar.” I turned around in my chair and we looked at the photos and talked about the cat for a few minutes. I think subconsciously we both knew it had been a month, but we’ve had a lot of other things on our minds the last few weeks. Even more odd? Lin came home early … at 3 pm. One month to the hour, minute, and day. Life is spooky sometimes, isn’t it?

I thought it might be a good time to pull up the draft post I made that night and make sure it was understandable and legible. You know, correct the spelling and make certain I wasn’t just babbling insanely. I can’t do it. Don’t want to read it. Read the first few lines and started crying. So I am just going to post it as is. Forgive any spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and outright lunacy you may find.

The Day Our Cat Died

My lap is empty, and I am cold. I am missing my furry armrest/pillow/warming pad … the one that made that slight purring sound for hours on end without a recharge.

At 3 pm, June 27, 2006, every aspect of my life changed in a split second.

I don’t have to turn the light on as I enter a dark room, because there isn’t a cat laying in the walkway waiting to be trip me or be stepped on.

I can sit in any position I want on the couch, because there isn’t a cat demanding I sit “just so” for his snoozing comfort.

When I go to the kitchen, I no longer have to top off the water bowl with my ice water, because there isn’t an ice water loving cat following me around.

I can close the bathroom door all the way and even lock it, because there isn’t a cat that will want to use the bathroom at the exact same instant I do.

I can leave plates of food sitting on the couch as I run to the kitchen for whatever I forgot, because there isn’t a cat ready to pounce and make off with my pork chop.

I am free to stack papers on the end of my desk as high as I would like, because there isn’t a cat grumpy about lack of stretching room.

I can open any of the exterior doors as far as I would like and leave them standing open, because there isn’t a cat on the other side seeking the perfect opportunity to make a run for it.

—————-

There also isn’t a cat laying at my feet while I prepare dinner, waiting for that dropped morsel of cheese.

And no cat following me around the house, demanding breakfast, lunch or dinner.

But I still see him all over the house … it’s like he is still here. I saw him sitting in the dark hallway, green eyes shining, staring at me with a playful look. I saw him by his water bowl walking towards me stretching. I saw him in the living room laying in the bean bag footstool.

I felt him laying down beside me when I stretched out on the couch. I even felt the warmth and that purr. When I reached down with eyes closed, I expected to feel his soft ears and furry head where it’s supposed to be … but it wasn’t there. I instantly began sobbing. Lin, back in “brave man” mode, attempted to comfort me. It worked … sort of.

I want his ashes back now. They didn’t tell Lin how long it would take, and he didn’t ask. By the time I came out of the room, I didn’t think to ask either. I want them back right now.

We didn’t take him in the cat carrier. We couldn’t bear the thought of bringing home the empty carrier. Instead, I wrapped him in our “couch blankie” … a length of cat print flannel just long enough to cover my legs and lap that we have had since Fuzza came to live with us. Lin drove, so Fuzza got to sit on my lap and look around. He expressed a little displeasure with being in the truck, but no moreso than he ever did in the Dart with the carrier. By the time we got to the vet’s office, he was laying calmly in my lap.

We walked in, and immediately were escorted into a room I hadn’t been in before. It was a bright and sunny room, the light afternoon light streaming in reminding me of the light in my kitchen that time of the afternoon. There was a big soft couch where Lin, Fuzza and I settled ourselves in while we waited for the vet. Kim arrived, and after a few pleasantries and an explanation (on Lin’s behalf) of what was going to happen, she asked if we wanted to stay in the room. We both agreed we would stay until the sedative took effect, and then we would leave before the final shot was given. They gave him the first shot and then left us alone for a while to spend our last minutes with the cat that had become our child.

He went limp almost immediately, though you could see in his eyes that he was still there. I had expected that moment to be sad, but it wasn’t really. His little body had been so tense from the pain and stress of his various illnesses, that when the sedative took hold, it was a relief. He felt just like he used to when I had to pick him up and move him because he’d fallen asleep in some inconvenient spot. Soft and relaxed in my arms. It was at that moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were doing the right thing for him. After a few moments, Lin said he wanted to leave and did. Alone in the room with Fuzza, I told him what a wonderful cat he was, and how beautiful he was, and how much we loved him … and then I sang the Fuzza Wuzza song to him until Kim returned. As I knew I would, I made a split-second, gut-reaction decision about whether or not to stay for the second shot. I decided to stay.

Kim went to get an assistant and the anesthesia, and when they returned, I lifted him gently to the table still on our couch blankie. He laid there breathing deeply, so relaxed I could have imagine he was merely taking a nap. I didn’t pay attention to what they were doing, though I knew they were giving him a shot somewhere on his back leg. I focused all my attention on rubbing his ears one last time, telling him what a pretty kitty he is one last time, kissing his head one last time … and then, he was still. Where there had been a fluttering heartbeat and long deep breaths only a few seconds before, there was now stillness.

I wasn’t as sad as I thought I would be. I’d expected the tears to well and force themselves out. I’d expected the need to wail and sob with grief. Not that I wasn’t sad or crying, because I was. But instead of the profound sense of horror at the death of my beloved cat, I felt a strange combination of things … relief that he wasn’t in pain any longer and the feeling that he wasn’t really gone. I still felt him there with me, but not in the tiny broken body laying on that table. I felt him in my heart and looking over my shoulder and rubbing against my leg. I even giggled a little when Kim said my dad was probably feeding him a can of tuna already. I figured she was right about that. It’s just the thing my dad would do.

As Kim scooped up the fuzzy grey cat that used to live with us, we talked about how I doubted I would remain catless, so I’d probably be seeing her again eventually … and then talked about the impending birth of her first baby. I was almost light-hearted, and seeing her walk away with Fuzza’s body didn’t bother me. I knew he was in good hands, and the part that mattered most, the loving and happy soul I knew so well seemed at that moment to be wrapping itself around my body like a warm length of flannel. Since Lin had taken care of the paperwork and bill paying, I waved to the assistant behind the counter as I stepped out the door into a warm and beautiful summer day. I found myself smiling.

When I opened the door to the truck, my smile faded. Lin wasn’t wrapped in the warm love of our now deceased cat. He was sobbing and broken hearted. I told him we could sit in the parking lot a while, if he didn’t want to drive right away, but he started the truck up and hit the road right away. By the time we had gotten to the on-ramp for the expressway, he was babbling on about work. It was a safe topic, and that’s what he does when he’s upset … babbles about things which allow him to be mindless. I cried quietly while looking out the window and occasionally commenting on what he was saying. Eventually, we pulled into our driveway.

Both of us were sobbing before we even reached the front door. There wouldn’t be a grey ball of fur sitting on the other side of the door waiting to demand attention and lap-time. We made our way to the bedroom and fell on the bed together, holding each other close and crying like small children … our sobs so deep we could barely breath. After a while, we both grew silent … and then we talked of the funny things the cat used to do, like the way we would never have been allowed to lay on the bed together so long without Fuzza joining us, walking back and forth over our bodies, chewing on our fingers, purring loudly and rolling around beside us begging to get in on the love-fest. Or how we could never fully close the bathroom door, because the cat couldn’t stand a closed door, and he always had to use his litter box at exactly the moment one of us needed to use the toilet. Or the way the cat and I would run to the front door together when we heard Lin’s truck in the driveway. We remembered how tiny he had been when Lin brought him home, just a handful of fur with big green eyes … and how I’d said he could stay the night, but that we had to find him a proper home the next day. Of course by the next morning, Fuzza had convinced me that he had already found a proper home, and there was no use arguing about it. We thought about how his baby fine fur had worked its way into every knit thing we owned, and so really he was always going to be with us is some way. We cried a little after every story, but we laughed too … remembering what a joy it had been to live with such a silly and special feline.

I had thought I would remove the litter box and bowls and pick up the cat toys as soon as we got home, so I got out of bed and left Lin to mourn on his own a little longer. As I walked through the house, I realized I wasn’t quite ready to remove the traces of Fuzza’s life with us. It could wait until the next day. I still wanted to smell the slight scent of his litter box as I walked down the hall or entered the bathroom. I still wanted to see his bowls sitting there waiting to be refilled. I wanted to trip on one of his many toys just one or two more times. This whole thing had really been so sudden, I didn’t want to rush through saying goodbye as well.

Tomorrow I am going to clean the bathroom and remove the litter box. The bathroom needs a good cleaning anyway, so I’m going to scrub it top to bottom, and in the process remove the physical traces of the cat that was … like the puffy grey dust bunnies hiding behind the toilet. I’m going to pick up his bowls in the kitchen and clean his feeding area as well (though the dust bunnies hiding under the dining room table will have to wait for another day). The toys can stay where they are for now. As I go about the cleaning of the house and the seeking out of puffy grey dust bunnies, I’ll pick them up as I find them and put them in his toy box. When I have found them all, I will go through the collection and select those with the fondest memories to keep. I don’t know what I will do with the rest. Maybe I’ll keep them all.
–June 27, 2006