A belated Happy New Year to everyone! Sadly, mine was off to a terrible start. My tomcat Miles started behaving strangely so I took him to the vet’s on December 31. She reckoned it was just a tonsillitis, gave him an injection and some pills to mix into his food, and sent us on our merry way.
When his condition went from mediocre to terrible on Thursday night I called in sick at work on Friday and took him to another vet first thing in the morning. When she auscultated him, I could sense that something was worrying her. From the mere suggestion of taking a chest X-ray, this horrible feeling of dread started rushing to my body, and then the radiogram confirmed that Miles, my first and only cat, my best buddy in the whole wide world, had lung cancer. I won’t ever be able to describe the feelings I was experiencing there and then, especially not without resolving into pathos – but imagine the worst kind of pain that could possibly be afflicted to your heart, and you will get an approximation.
Cats are genetically programmed to hide their pain, and he hid it from me for the longest time. I still marvel at his bravery, and how he would be the one to console me whenever I broke into tears because I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I also remember one incident where one of my tears would drop on his paw and he gave me this slightly exasperated look and proceeded to lick it off. He never failed to make me laugh. But loving someone also means letting go. And as hard as it was for me – I had to let go today.
I will not go off on a tangent on language here, but it occurred to me how the German language is usually accused of being too cold, too unemotional, too pragmatic. Sometimes, euphemisms prevail though and denotion is preferred to connotion. The German verb “einschläfern” corresponds with the English “to put to sleep” – and this is the one and only to describe what happened today. Miles was not “put down”, as the stark alternative English verb would like to suggest. He was too exhausted from not being able to eat properly and from wondering why he had to cough all the time, and why I kept shlepping him to the admittedly quite lovely (Miles would agree!) vet all the time, who would then stick needles into him. So exhausted in fact that he fell right asleep after being injected with a mild sedative and didn’t wake up for the “real” injection. It made it so much easier for me really, and I take comfort in the fact that his death appeared to have been quite peaceful, much like most of his life.
After 14 years and three months together, I have to start living mine without him. Today is the day I hoped would never come. On the other hand, it’s also a day full of hope – while I do not believe in an afterlife for myself, I hope that he has found his peace. I will never forget you, Miles. And even in my current state of utter grief, I have so many fond memories of the fun we had that they still manage to bring a smile to my face. You truly were the best pet one could ever wish for. Life will be really hard without you.
