The Saddest Magic Trick in the World

My wife and cat, circa 2007

Yesterday, after a long bout with an undiagnosed illness, my cat died in my arms from a lethal injection, in the cozy exam room of Animal 911.

Until yesterday we have had the same three pets, almost to the day, since just before September 11th. If you don't know them, there is a charming pitbull named Josie, an enormous tuxedo cat named Bob Dylan, and until yesterday, Polly.

Polly was a long-haired grey cat with an angular face. Not very well stocked in the brains department, we used to joke that the only thing she heard was an unending dial tone, akin to leaving one’s mind off the hook. Her eyes, a searing yellow, were hypnotic when you could catch her looking at you. A friend of mine once declared Polly “the meanest looking cat I have ever seen.” Of course, until her body began to betray her, she was anything but. She was sweet, and light on her feet, and loved nothing more than a good scratch on her creaky spine before she curled up on your lap. She did not get along very well with the other two pets – she and Bob, roommates their entire lives, engaged in a fierce battle every night for years – but for a time she was undeniably my favorite.

I was in the middle of graduate school when we got the cats, plus a puppy. If you think about it, acquiring three new pets when you are busier than you have ever been in your life is a pretty stupid idea. I was working at a veterinary hospital in the afternoons when I took a call about two cats whose owner had just died. It was a rescue in the truest sense of the word. They were both extremely fat and uncared for. They had tufts of fur hanging from them like dreadlocks. If I didn’t take them, the dead man’s son was going to “put them in the yard”. I don’t know if he had never owned a pet before, but I didn’t think that his plan was going to rid him of the cats. Seemed to me they would just figure out a way to get back in. At any rate, I saw these two unloved, overfed, highly aloof little animals and decided to give them a chance, and so I was sent home with two cats I had never met and the bag of food they had been eating, which at meal time turned out to be at least 50% beetles and spiders. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but I was confident that their situations were going improve dramatically. A few rounds with a brush and some bug-free food later, I had me some cats.

For reasons I have never understood, in the minds of our friends and family it seemed that Polly lived in the shadows of the other two. This always struck me as unfair. Perhaps it is too unorthodox to call your cat something strictly reserved for parrots, but the name Polly just never stuck. Even she preferred only to respond to Kitty Kitty. To visitors, she was intermittently called Grey Cat, Whatshername, and (probably most emblematic of the problem) Not Bob. I know she was only a cat, but how sad it is to be known only as who you are not! Fortunately, my family is expert at nicknames, and Polly was no exception. To those who knew her, she was called P-nut, The P Child, Fluffy Bunny, and (later as she grew sick) Crusty Bunny.

To an outsider, I can see why Polly might have been easily overlooked. She lacked the unbridled stupidity that passes for charisma in a dog and, by all accounts, Bob is one of the handsomest cats to ever piss in your laundry. But I always thought Polly was a great looking cat who did all the things a cat is supposed to do, which is practically nothing. She was excellent for reading or watching TV, and she let out a wonderful chirp if you awoke her with a soft pat. When she was healthy, her coat was an absolute cloud of fur, billowing in every direction, masking her exact dimensions.

The biggest problem with Polly was her voice. She loved to sit by her dish, and she was not shy about letting even a stranger know that she would like some food, with one of the most unpleasant meows I have ever heard. Looking you right in the eyes, her ears would flatten, her nose would wrinkle, and she would screech right at you, her eyes squinting, her voice crackling in a way that seemed to indicate a lifelong job as a barmaid. Apart from this delicate approach, the other off-putting thing was the unmistakable impression that she was saying, "Now! And hurry up you little cuss!"

She was not afraid of anybody. At almost twice her weight, Bob was no match for her in a fair fight, and there was nothing fair about the way he fought. Unprovoked, he would get a running start and blindside her, latching onto her head and just biting whatever was closest to his mouth. She would shriek and writhe around, claws flailing in every direction. It was horrible to witness, and I might have done something to stop it if it wasn’t always Bob who came away howling, a fresh slash across his wide nose.

Polly’s health started to decline last year. After returning home from Thanksgiving break, we found that she had broken a claw, and her paw had become quite infected. Our vet at the time cleaned the wound, patched her up, and sent us home with some pills to combat the infection. Unfortunately, after another day, Polly began to refuse food.

Back at the vet, we were informed in a very judgmental tone that Polly was extremely dehydrated and weak from a lack of food. She might have kidney damage, or even kidney failure! She was given fluids, and I was sent home with my cat and the impression that it was widely agreed that I was a horrible pet owner. Even after the fluids, she did not regain her strength or her appetite. After a few more hours, I was afraid she might die.

The next several days I stayed home with her, locked in the bedroom, squirting 2 c.c.'s of baby food in a syringe down her throat every hour. Not only was it disgusting, after a while the poor thing didn't want me to come near her. It is a cruel fact of caring for others that they will only repay you with the wrath of their pain. Gradually, after what must have been an entire liquefied turkey was sprayed down her throat, she began to get stronger, which had the added benefit of making it much harder for me to feed her without getting scratched and bitten. A few days and many dozens of hours of Final Fantasy later, Polly began to eat on her own again.

We are not sure how old Polly was. When she and Bob were rescued the vet records estimated their ages to be 6 or 7. It also indicated that they had been strays when the dead man adopted them, so at the very youngest the cats have paperwork proving their existence for 12+ years. In Bob's case, this seems plausible. He is healthy and robust and energetic. He spends hours a day outside, trolling the neighborhood for extra food, I assume. After switching their diet to a brand of food you can only get online, named after some very studious-looking doctors, his coat and his demeanor have never looked better. Polly, on the other hand, had begun to show some wear.

Although she returned to eating on her own, her appetite was never the same. She would only peck at her food and then wander off. Though, this was of little concern compared to the growth she developed, first on her neck and then on her face and chin. The vet could only tell us that it wasn’t cancer. Beyond that they weren’t sure what was happening, and we were instructed to keep an eye on it. She didn’t seem like she was in pain, and so we attempted to have a sense of humor about it. We took to calling her condition Nappycatitis.

Slowly, so slowly you wouldn’t notice, Polly got sicker. Her once magnificent coat was looking dusty and dry. She appeared to have stopped bathing herself. Her appetite had become so sporadic that we began feeding her whenever she asked. Complicating this routine, she began to ask more frequently only to eat much less. After a while, it was difficult to gauge how much food she was eating in a day. One thing was clear; she was losing weight.

The real tragedy of pet ownership is that we almost always outlive them. Watching your best friends grow old and begin to deteriorate is part of the deal. The only thing one can hope to do is keep them comfortable, and don’t prolong their lives for your own selfish reasons. I think we knew that Polly was not going to live much longer. That said, when the day finally arrives it always comes as a shock, it always feels too soon and like it came out of nowhere.

Yesterday morning, Polly did not eat at all. When you compare that with her usual three bites, this was not exactly alarming news. Later, my wife called me at work to tell me that Polly was making weird sounds and trying to throw up unsuccessfully. An hour later, she called again to see when I was coming home. When I arrived she told me that Polly was behind the toilet.

One of the hardest things about death is the memory of those final moments. You spend a lifetime knowing someone when they are healthy and happy and full of life, and in an instant their perfect record is ruined. From then on, you will not ever forget how your loved ones looked at the end. It is the last thing you will ever do with them, and it is the worst memory of them you will ever have.

When I found Polly on the bathroom floor it was obvious that she was sick. She could barely move. She was not responding to my voice or my touch. She seemed as though she was in a daze. I sat with her, waiting for some kind of signal. Finally she meowed – long, loud howls that sounded like the word “ow.” I had my answer.

The only other time I had heard her meow in this way was on car rides. Apparently her normal meow, the scratchy, throaty little dagger, is intentional. When she was truly scared, she meowed like any cat meows – like she’s asking for help. We wrapped her in a towel and set off for the 24-hour animal hospital.

I admit I was not prepared to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to see my cat live another few weeks or months. This wasn’t a situation where we do whatever it takes to keep fighting. My cat was old. My cat was tired. My cat looked like she just wanted to go to sleep. I was convinced that my poor kitty had come to the end. All I needed was to hear it from a doctor. Sadly, fortunately, he agreed.

As we left the hospital, my head was racing. I clung tightly to the towel we had wrapped her in. A stupid piece of absorbent fabric, it now possessed the heightened status of the being there the last time I saw my cat alive. I thought of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, and how a towel is the single most important thing an intergalactic traveler will ever need. I thought of how the whole evening was like a failed magic trick: I had a cat. I wrapped her in a towel. I made her disappear. She is never coming back. I thought of my unborn children, and how impossible it will be to explain death to them. I thought of so many things that I can’t remember them all now.

Back home, we ate mostly in silence. I am not one for sentimentality, but I suddenly blurted out, “I would like to dedicate this meal to our family, in it’s varying forms.” It is probably the nicest thing I’ve ever said.

…

Polly’s ashes will be returned to me next week. I have been sprouting acorns in the refrigerator since the early fall. Darby suggested that I mix her remains with soil and pot it with the acorns. I look forward to the day when I own a yard where I can plant my oaks. Then I believe I will be able to explain death to my children. I will tell them that we are all made of the same things. When we die those things get mixed around and become other things. Then, finally, my magic trick will be complete, for I will have grown a cat tree.