How does one say goodbye to a four legged friend? How does one decide when it is time to say goodbye?
I first met Doofus almost 15 years ago when he was a little kitten. He and his brother, who was also black used to come into my yard. Doofus was the friendly one. His brother was shy. I never found out where they came from.
In September of that year, 1988, I broke my back and I was in the hospital and rehab for over two months. When I came home, it was winter so I never saw Doofus and his brother the rest of that year.
Come Spring, when I was going outside, I saw Doofus again. He was now a big cat (If it were really Doofus, and I think it was.). Since I had a cat door, he started coming inside to see me. I had two other cats at that time, but Doofus was just such a friendly cat, he let them push him around. It soon was understood that he would live with me, so it was off to the vet to get neutered.
My friend Cindy, always called Doofus the Golden Retriever of housecats since he would always come down the driveway to meet her when she would come to see me. He would always like to jump up on my friend Wahoo's lap (Wahoo didn't particularly care for cats) and lay on Jeanella's (Wahoo's significant other) coat.
My house was next to a wooded area and Doofus liked to hang out in the woods. He was an excellent hunter and I'm sure that's how he fed himself until he adopted me. Often at around three in the morning I would hear him coming up the stairs meowing with his mouth full of some prize that he wanted to share with me. It could be a frog, or a mouse, or a lizard. If it moved, it was prey.
Almost five years ago, I moved from my old house in the northern suburbs of Atlanta to my current one in Beautiful Dunwoody. Doofus howled the whole time on the ride over. I waited a few days before letting him outside and the first few times he stuck around the house. Then, one day, he disappeared for a whole day. Cindy and her daughter Maureen spent a few hours looking around the neighborhood. They were building houses in this subdivision and they checked all of them. They even drove around nearby neighborhoods looking for him. I finally walked across the road outside my subdivision and walked by the woods calling his name. Soon I heard an answering meow. I guess he thought the woods were his old woods and if he went into them he could find our old house.
The road outside my subdivision is a rather busy one and, since Doofus was black, I could just imagine him getting hit one night crossing the road. From then on, he was an indoor cat.
For the first few weeks he was not very happy. Me neither. He meowed often during the night and I didn't get much sleep. But, after a while he adjusted.
Then, a few months later I got Ashley. He wasn't all that happy at first, but since Ashley is such a sweet cat, he let her live. Ashley loved Doofus. She loved to rub up against him and lick his face and head. When they played, he was always very gentle with her.
Last October, Doofus was diagnosed with diabetes. Since then, I have been feeding him (and Ashley too since she's a little porker) a special diet. I've also been giving him insulin shots. Ever since then, I've realized that Doofus was living on borrowed time and I would soon have to decide whether I was prolonging his life for him or for me.
For the last few months his kidneys have been failing. Last Sunday, he went into insulin shock, and after two days at the emergency hospital they told me that it might be time.
Cindy offered to take him to the vet for me, but I said I should really be there for him. This morning we took him. I did not use the cat carrier. I carried him on my lap on the drive over. At the vet's, I said goodbye, hugged and kissed him and he died very restfully in my arms.
I know it was the right thing to do but that doesn't help the grief I feel. He lived with me longer than any of my other cats. For 14 years he was a very good friend.
Why do they have to live such short lives?
I miss him terribly.
Posted by denny at April 5, 2003 12:55 PM Category: My Soft Side