The day that the Lileks family has feared for so long has finally come.
We had to do the same thing with Jessica the cat a year and a half ago. She was eighteen, and hadn’t lost bladder control so much as become senile, and willfully doing it in inappropriate places. We probably waited too long for her, but saying a final goodbye to an old friend is never an easy thing to do. She’s in the back yard now, where she used to play.
You should prelude that with “NSFW”. Here I am with tears rolling down my face. Some people will never understand…but I sure do.
Great catch, Rand. I know exactly how he feels.
Last March, Ovie started getting sick. He’d throw up a couple times a day. After 3 days of this, I took him to the vet. They ran tests, took x-rays, but couldn’t find anything wrong. After another week, he was eating less and less, so I took him back. This time they ran some more tests and had his blood-work. Still nothing. She said it could be a type of worm in the intestine and gave him more medicine. She also mentioned that it could be cancer. He went 3 days without eating anything on his own (my older daughter gave him this type of dog pudding and almost shoved it down his throat). He kept it down, but wouldn’t even eat meat. Took him to an internal medicine vet and he thought it was some type of irritable bowel issue. Ran a bunch of tests – all negative, but noticed a slightly swollen lymph node. Gave him a steroid and said he should improve in a few days. 2 more days of no eating and I was beside myself. That evening, I went out to get my daughter. When I came home somewhat later, my wife was at the door and I knew something was up. He had stopped breathing that evening and my son found him. It was horrible. We put him outside under a blanket for the night.
I woke up the next morning and hoped it was all a bad dream. Unfortunately, it was bad, but
not a dream. My youngest still didn’t know and didn’t ask for him that morning. Finally, my wife and I told her – wow, did that SUCK!!! She burst into tears and all I could do was hug her and tell her Ovie was in heaven now. It is really hard being a parent and not being able to make your kids pain go away. That afternoon, we took him to my in-laws (they have multiple acres of land) and we buried him next to their previous dog. My son helped me dig the grave and we buried him with a fine Irish wake. We told our favorite stories about Ovie and instead of Jamison, I buried a raw-hide chew (he loved those things) with him. It still hurts so badly when I think of him and I feel the burn of fresh tears down my cheeks right now.
We only had a little over 5 years with him – way too short a time, but they were some of the best years of my life. We are pretty sure that cancer just took him from us at such an early age. If I could find his first family, I would tell them that he was such a big dog because it took all that body to hold in his giant heart.
As usual Mr. Lileks displays his mastery of the written word. We should all be so lucky to have such a eulogy written for us, deserved or otherwise.
I can’t think of anything to say, except that I’m thinking of my two kittehs.
A couple of months ago Kira, who is 13, suddenly started leaving her food partially uneaten. I absolutely freaked. That set off all kinds of alarm bells, since she is normally a vacuum cleaner who will eat anything that isn’t nailed down. I immediately took her to the vet, who said she probably had a big hairball that was blocking her digestive tract and made her feel full. The vet gave her a laxative and said to come back if things didn’t get better. Within a couple of days she was back to normal, but that gave me a scare.
RIP Jasper.
Awwww, dammit. It’s been four years since my parents lost their last cat (the one that was around all the time when I lived up there, during grad school). I did not expect the emotional reaction to that, the memories, to still be so visceral. Everyone who’s been through it, I bet, reacts.
I suppose it’s because animals don’t judge (or if they do, they keep it to themselves), don’t talk back, and don’t betray, that we have such a hard time with their deaths. We expect it, intellectually we know it’s going to happen. But it’s a punch in the gut every time.