Four weeks ago a vet came to the house to put our cat Wilson down. Wilson had been sick for a few months, but we hadn’t quite realized the severity of his condition. The main symptom was a near total loss of appetite, and given the spell of nausea coincided with a painful dental operation to remove three of his teeth, we assumed it was simply too painful for him to eat. We found out about the stomach tumor later, after he continued to refuse food. His last few weeks were full of discomfort, which we did our best to treat with a cocktail of drugs; a steroid, an opiate, a nausea suppressant, for a while an appetite stimulant.
He was fat and strong, giving him the medicine was always incredibly difficult because of this. He could push you away so easily, dig his claws into your arm and shove, refusing the things that would make him feel better with a stupid, stubborn determination. To administer them we had to use two people, my father and my mother most times, but I stood in for her while she was at work. On the second to last day of his life, I remember how strongly he smelled of vomit as we worked, and how frustrated he was. After he was given the syringe, I remember him letting out the single most soul rending wail I’d heard him make. It broke my heart. He was the gentlest creature you'd ever meet, he deserved this least of anyone.
Yesterday, my father found a kitten in the middle of the road. He was in poor shape, flea ridden, eyes infected, dirty, the works. My father brought him home, then to the vet, then back to our house. It’s likely we won’t keep him, but for the past 48 hours we’ve been his caretakers before he gets sent to the shelter. He’s so cute I can’t imagine he’ll spend long waiting for a home. He is a fuzzy little thing, tenacious and loud, a very squeaky little animal. He’s got a perfectly symmetrical little tuxedo pattern on his body, and a stupidly cute heart shaped birthmark on the central paw pad of his bottom left leg. He is perfect. He is 4 weeks old.
As I scoop him up in a towel and feed him with the same syringe my father used to administer medicine to Wilson, the symmetry is inescapable. Unlike Wilson, [he’s so small he can’t fight back/his life is just beginning/he stops fighting once he tastes the food/he eats, with gusto]. I think especially about how much time I’ve spent in bathrooms alone with cats this year.
Those last few days, Wilson retreated behind the toilet, where I would sit with him, crying, petting him, tunelessly humming “I’m on Fire” by Bruce Springsteen. It was another former cat’s favorite song, the music we played for her when she died of a tumor much like his. Wilson wasn’t so sophisticated as to have an opinion on music, but in my grief it’s the only thing that made sense to do, so I sang, poorly. Now as I scoop this new furball off the floor and into my arms, to administer his antibiotic, no sound escapes my lips, but The Boss is certainly on my mind, his old refrain tugging on my heartstrings; “Hey little girl is your daddy home, did he go and leave you all alone…”
I push the syringe into his mouth once more, and he accepts it. He licks his lips after the liquid runs down his throat, looking up at me with uncomprehending baby blue eyes. I dream of the life he’ll have, the beautiful home, the love he’ll experience. He has no name as of yet, but I hope, I dream, against all odds, that they’ll name him Wilson.
It's a good name.
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