I wrote the following on Friday:
This morning I found her curled up in her litterbox. I'm guessing that she either got in there and was too confused to get out, or she was just too tired to bother.
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We leave for vacation on Monday. Meaning, of course, that everything now is a scramble to get things done before we go. I have work to deliver to Special Collections this afternoon. My wife has a hard deadline for completing a project this afternoon, and then another bunch of stuff that has to be done before we head out for the airport.
This is, in other words, no time for a crisis with one of the pets.
But life happens on its own schedule.
So does death.
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From our book, and previous to that my blog:
Anyway, Martha Sr is still hanging in there. She’s weaker, her breathing continues to deteriorate, she’s in a deeper coma than I mentioned earlier, and her fever is now 5 degrees above normal. But she is still fighting. It isn’t necessarily what I would have chosen for her, but my respect for her has stepped up another notch.
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As I said last week:
That’s not to say that caring for a cat is like caring for a human. Nor to compare the two. I love my pets, and honor my responsibility to them, but when it comes down to it, they are just pets, however much I consider them part of the family.
But there is an echo, a memory of how things were some four years ago . . .
An echo. A memory. Part of the pattern of life.
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This morning I found her curled up in her litterbox.
There was a mess on the floor outside the litterbox, which had also gotten on the nearby pillow which serves as her bed these days. These things happen, and cleaning it up could wait.
I picked her up, brushed the litter from her fur. She purred lightly as I held her close to my chest.
I took her in to see if she was tempted by food or drink. She was too weak to stand and try to drink on her own. I held her steady, she lapped a little water. Food wasn't of any interest.
This is how it has gone most of the week, her getting weaker and weaker, but not in any evident pain.
I sat, leaned back, holding her. Her purr got stronger for a while, then she slept.
This may be no time for a crisis. But she doesn't know that.
She only knows comfort, and love.
That's what matters.
The cat, Eleanor, died yesterday in my arms. She was 18 years old. We buried her beneath a massive Balled Cypress tree.
Death comes to us all. Having been through hospice in caring for Martha Sr, I came to appreciate that a 'good death' is not an oxymoron.
Eleanor had a good death.
May we all.
Jim Downey