It was too much for you. Your urea and creatinine values just wouldn’t come down. You refused food and water. Nothing tempted you, even after four days of fluids, pain-killers and antibiotics. Pancreatitis, kidney stones and end-stage kidney failure that your little body just couldn’t rally back from. It was all too much. You were alert at the end, though. Grouchy, in fact. “Get me outta here, you hairless tools. I’m done, can’t you see that?” sort of meows and a few growls, at one point.
I heard ya, little lady. I heard. I just didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to believe you. Yet, you seemed too awake, too ready to go back to fighting. But, the vet said there was very little chance, even with dialysis, that you’d come back. You could barely move, even with the energy you somehow managed to scrounge up from some deep well of stubbornness somewhere. You couldn’t even purr to heal yourself…
Your “Water Spell of Immortality” wasn’t working any more… Eventually, your Magickal Symmetrical Wonder Toe Beans of Power weren’t gonna do it for you. You were my cast Iron Kitty, Diva The Undying One. You were supposed to live forever.
I had to make the decision, and I hate making that decision. You’d be the third I’d had to make that decision for. And just like the times before, I felt like an utter creep, taking your life away. I’ll always fear that I could have done something more.
We took your little body with us in a special bag to the crematory, where they’ll cremate you and you’ll come home for the final time in about a week, and I’ll probably blubber all over again when I pick up the stylish little silver-grey urn that Mrs. Alien picked out because it matched your lovely fur so well...
For now, the house seems very empty and grey without my chirpy little grey tuxedoed purrson around to let me know how your day has been going. Your toys lay forlorn on the living room floor where you left them last. My eye falls on your water bowl once in a while and I’m reminded all over again: “Diva... isn’t here any more.”
It’ll be the same with the rest of your stuff. Every piece of your life: your toys, your heated bed, your little blanket, your jute-rope scratching walls around the house we set up for you, the many cans of prescription food you refused to eat in the end, even though you loved the way they tasted. I don’t know what to do with them, right now. Maybe I’ll donate them to the no-kill shelter in Antelope valley that I volunteered at—I’m sure they can use it. I bet they have senior cats with kidney-issues.
We held a kind of mini wake for you, did you know that? We made pina coladas—bad ones, it turned out, but I drank mine anyway, plus my room-mates’ (she didn’t like hers and gave it to me, ‘cuz I’m the house ‘garbage disposal, food and drink-wise. LOL)—and the three of us; my wife, my room-mate and me, all hung out quietly and watched a cute movie called Luca to try and ease ourselves off the sad day. Sure, it wasn’t about cats, or you, my little Diva, but it did have a cat in it with a fun purrsonality—grouchy, but loving, in the end, just like you. :-)
My room-mate is taking it surprisingly hard, even though she didn’t know Diva for very long. That’s the way it goes, sometimes, they get into our hearts in the most surprising ways. For her, it was Diva’s voice and her “I’m giving up” meow and how amazingly expressive it was. She’d wander the house, meowing and crying. We didn’t know why, at first, and maybe it was one of the first symptoms of her kidney disease, I don’t know, but Diva had a pattern to her cries, where she’d meow four or five times, then meowr in a seemingly-disgusted-with world sort of way, then seem to mutter under her breath and then she was done for the next little while. That meowr-then-mutter was the “I’m fed up with you all/giving up” that my roomie was talking about. Knowing she isn’t going to be hearing it, now, is cracking her up in a bad way, and she’s currently a mess. My wife just got back from comforting her.
Diva The Undying One hated raccoons, dogs and other cats with a passion. Howlz’a FuryTM for them. But, when the bird was still here, she thought my room-mate’s little Sun Conure was a fascinatingly bizarre thing, wasn’t entirely sure she was even a bird—I mean it hung around her people, hers—and so, out of curiosity about this feathered moron, would try to “make friends” (nose bumps and the gentlest of paw-pats), lizards were so cool with her they were people (she sniffed, then cheek-rubbed the Bearded Dragon we lizard-sat one weekend for a friend—the lizard was chill with it). But, everything else smaller than her? That was “chase it and see if I can grab it, then bring to dad for praises”, even if it was just a big leaf. I probably shouldn’t relate the story of the “squirrel stole” (stole as in the wrap one wears around their shoulders)...
As a kitten, she’d invent games. I’d had these two artificial coffee bushes I was storing for a friend, and she’d climb ‘em, pluck a “coffee berry”, climb down, and bat the thing silly all over my apartment until she lost it. Then she’d climb a bush again for another. For years after I got rid of those things, I’d find coffee berries under my big items of furniture when I cleaned and would give ‘em to Diva to bat around. She loved Q-tips and twist ties, or any random, skinny piece of fabric, leather or string from my costume work and she’d instantly make a toy out of it. Stray strip of paper on the floor? Diva toy. Sock? Diva toy. Crumbled ball of something crinkly? Diva toy. Actually buy a toy? Yawn. Except for this blue ring thing with a neon-green ball in it. She loved that thing. Would play with it constantly. That was Mrs. Alien’s brilliance. She found that. <3
You know how cats looooove boxes to distraction? Diva? Nope. Could not give a flying fuck about boxes. Sniff ‘em once or twice. Hop in, hop out. Done with boxes.
Diva liked to mess with her people’s heads, too. Yay! Games that involved her people! What fun! “Cat mine”; curl up in a ball or sit in cat loaf yoga-pose in a spot where she’s hard to see, but where we needed to step. Diva’s fur-shade was the same darkness-value as our dark-green carpet, so at some times of the day, even with the lights on, she was near-impossible to see. Thus, “cat-mine”. Mine as in Ka-BOOM! “You MUST pet me”; before she went deaf, when she heard the door opening, she’d run to position herself by the door to greet whoever came in, meow plaintively and look as cute as possible, usually flopping on the floor on her back, showing belly (don’t go for the belly! It’s a trap!). I also called that one “slitherpuss”. Very few could resist. I watched as people would coo and give in. LOL :-) Later, after she lost her hearing, she learned to associate the vibration of the car hitting the deck with people coming to the door and then would position herself, but that took a bit longer.
“Ooh! Warm!”; She’d be on someone’s lap, but they’d have to get up. Fine. She’d gripe, but move. But then, the person would come back to find Diva sitting where they’d been—“But, you made it all nice and warm for me! Didn’t you?” “Ooh! Warm! II”; You haven’t gotten settled into your chair, yet, and Diva is already trying to get settled on you… and is complaining that you aren’t settled, yet and you keep moving, dammit. “Blanket Monster”; every time we went to bed, Diva insisted that I show her that there were no blanket monsters: she’d pat at the edge of my blanket by my face while murring, I’d lift it, she’d go under, inspect the space underneath—“Nope, no monsters here. Good.” and leave, I’d drop the blanket back down. Sometimes, she’d do this two or three times before she decided it was enough and she’d settle herself on top of my flank on top of the blankets (I’m a side-sleeper) and go to sleep. ;-p Another bed thing she did was use my arm as a pillow, which I didn’t begrudge her at all… until it went numb… LOL
She knew some voice-commands before she lost her hearing, and later, learned a few hand-gestures from me, too, like an up-right hand that I’d open-and-close near my chest meant “come here” (the “blinking” effect caught her attention well and made her curious, so she’d come over and I’d reward it with scritches and cuddles), my “blinking” hand then moving with a pointing finger to a door meant “Out” or “In”, depending on whether we were inside the bathroom (if I needed to um, do some “business” it was “Out”), or outside the house (then, it was “Time to go In”; the only contexts I used those gestures in).
She used to understand the vocal words “Out” and “In” when she could still hear and those I could use in any context. When she could still hear, she’d come running when you called her name, too. So if she was outside—when I still allowed her out unsupervised—I could call her and she’d come a’runnin’. No worries—much—about letting her have a short wander outdoors during the day. :-) Never out at night. Coyotes and owls might get her. She was small enough that those predators could take her...
...Goodbye, little girl, I’m gonna miss ya. I don’t know what day you were born, exactly, so I guesstimated, based on how old you appeared to be when you were brought to me by some local children who said they found you out in the snow. I gave you a look over and guessed you were maybe twelve or thirteen weeks old (possibly less, you were so small) and pegged your birthday around August 30th or so, 2001, but I do remember exactly the day you were brought to me: Dec 5th 2001. You barely filled my two hands when I held you that first time. So tiny, so half-starved and barely there. So pretty and adorable. So rambunctious, that you immediately took over the house and the other cats—even the adults gave you space!
Didn’t take me more than a day to decide that your name was Diva. The first spot you slept? Right in my hair by my ear on my pillow and you purred all night. :-) <3
Figitas Diva, August 30th, 2001—Oct 4th, 2021. Rest In Catnip
Wednesday, Oct 6, 2021 · 3:54:59 AM +00:00
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TheProgressiveAlien
A little hat tip and thank you to Origami Oracle for letting me know that October 4th is St. Francis of Assisi’s Feast Day. He’s the Patron Saint of Animals, Companion Animals in particular, for a lot of people. It seems like a colossal coincidence for me to be giving Diva her final Mercy on that particular day, but when Origami Oracle mentioned it, I got misty-eyed again (darn it all). While I happen to be an atheist, I’ve always had a soft spot for that particular saint. <3 Thanks again, to Origami Oracle for that little surprise. Now, if I can just stop snuffling...