Myrtle came in to my life in 1999 via a colleague who was moving to Minnesota and couldn’t take her with him. I already owned a cat and figured why not add another one to my household so they could be “friends.” That never happened, to no fault of Myrtle’s, but rather the dominant princess attitude of the first cat.
Myrtle acted more like a dog than a cat, was anywhere between two and six years old when I got her (the colleague was vague), and soon started being called Sota, short for Minnesota, rather than Myrtle. You would think this would cause some bipolar or at least identity issues for her, but instead it made her the lowest maintenance cat ever. She followed me for a few blocks on my walk every day, scared away stray cats and raccoons that tried to enter my house through the cat door, and otherwise spent her days on the heater vent in whatever room I was working in. She didn’t protest when the kids carried her from room to room, nor did she try to distract me when I was working, and she never, ever peed on my favorite rugs like princess cat did constantly. She did have a habit of tripping me in the morning while I was making my coffee, but only to the point of waking me up, never actually making me fall.
Last August, Myrtle had a rumble with another cat and was bitten in the neck. The bite became infected and Myrtle lost her zest. The vet administered a robust amount of antibiotics, and rehydrated her, but Myrtle didn’t perk up for a couple of days. When I took her back to the vet, she told me with her nebulous advanced age, and subsequent kidney problems, she wasn’t sure if Myrtle would recover from the infection. The following day, I couldn’t find Myrtle anywhere. I assumed she had crawled off to die and spent the day crying and mourning her. The following morning she reappeared from her hiding spot under my bed, and thus started her tenth life with spunk and a renewed rigor. Although she had no qualms about chasing down Felix, the 80 lb Pit bull, I knew to relish my time with Myrtle and consider this resurgence an added bonus, one I probably wouldn’t receive again.
Last week, Myrtle started to droop again. More time was spent on the heater vent and less time spent chasing away neighbor cats. When she barely purred during one of our night time cuddling rituals, I prepared myself for the worse. I called the vet, was temporarily swayed by their optimism, but within twenty minutes, the vet validated my earlier fear by saying, “Her kidneys are shutting down. We could try some extreme measures, but I’m not sure how much time that will buy you.”
I asked for some time to think about it and went through the agonizing and somewhat futile process of trying to measure what was best for me, the kids, and Myrtle, and to find a balance for everyone. It was four days before Christmas, so my first instinct was to try to keep her alive at least through the holidays. But when I held her limp, six pound body (that was usually 9 pounds and always squirming) I had to admit to myself that Myrtle was no longer Myrtle, she was already half way to wherever kitties go when they’re no longer on earth.
Even in her compromised state, she still used the cat door to go outside to go to the bathroom, didn’t meow and whine about her ailments, and became really sick on a day that I was off of work and the kids were home. I had found her that morning not on her usually heating vent, but under a bush, breathing softly, halfway sleeping, halfway dying. If it was up to her, I was sure she would die just as she had lived, with dignity and little fuss. Putting her on dialysis and hooked up to an IV for a few days, may allow her to make it through Christmas, but who was that really for? It was for me, not Myrtle. I felt I owed it to her to not put her through that discomfort, but to rather honor what her body was naturally doing. Dying.
My own childhood pets always suspiciously “disappeared, ” so I was grateful for the opportunity for my kids and I to choose how much closure we needed with Myrtle. I asked my kids if they wanted to hold her one last time, say good-bye, bring her home for a bit or any other option. My daughter wanted to go to the vet with me, but once my son said, “That will be too hard for me,” she changed her mind and chose to stay home as well. They wanted to see her once she passed and asked if I could bring her home so they could say their good-byes then. I said, “Absolutely, we’ll bury her under her favorite bush so we can always visit that site and remember her.” I asked my boyfriend to stay with the kids, told the vet my decision, and drove to go see Myrtle for the last time.
I had been crying all day, but that seemed like a mere drizzle compared to the wails that poured out of my body while holding Myrtle for the last time. All of the staff and doctors were incredibly patient and supportive and never, ever rushed me or made me feel self conscious about sobbing in front of all of the young pet owners with their vibrant puppies and kittens.
I cradled Myrtle in my arms for over an hour, hoping she would somehow be able to communicate with me that this is what she wanted. She was past the point of communicating and several times I suspected she had passed away in my arms. She was so still, and breathing so lightly, that in the end, I had to take that as my sign that even if I wasn’t ready for her to die, she was going to anyway. I told myself that the next time the vet came in to check on me, I wouldn’t stall for more time. I would say I was ready.
And with that decision, I crumbled. I started to hyperventilate, partly due to my sobs and partly due to the walls closing in on me in my first panic attack. No one has prepared me for this, I thought, Where’s the adult who is going to take over? And then the most frightening thought of all, I cant’ do this.
In my forty-one years of life, I can’t ever recall saying, “I can’t do this.” A week prior, I watched a surgeon pull two tubes out of my mother’s lungs. I’ve sat by a friend’s bed as he died of cancer at the age of twenty-nine. I’ve birthed two children at home without even a Tylenol to aid the pain. I ended a fifteen-year relationship with the father of my children with no idea of how I would support myself or overcome my grief. But I’ve never once thought, “I can’t do this.” That is, until I had to tell a vet that it was all right to kill my cat.
Many thoughts raced through my mind ranging from running out of the office and taking Myrtle home to calling my boyfriend and having him make the decision. I comforted myself with these ideas for a few minutes and then a little voice said, “The adult in the room is you and this is a rite of passage. This is life. This is death.” And with that, I knew I would never be ready for the vet, but I would let her come in anyway.
Many, many thanks to the wonderful staff and doctors at VCA animal hospital for making the most difficult thing I’ve done, a little less difficult.
Corbin Lewars is the author of Creating a Life: The memoir of a writer and mom in the making, which was nominated for the 2011 PNBA and Washington State book awards. Her essays have been featured in over twenty-five publications including Mothering and Hip Mama. She has been a writing coach and instructor for fifteen years and helps clients in Ballard, on-line, and over the phone.
