One of us had a bad day

It was February in 1991. The wife and I decided that we needed a cat in our lives, and after a couple of disappointing visits to breeders, we decided that we would visit the Gloucester County Animal Shelter and give a homeless cat a home.

There were plenty, and my attention turned to a grey short-haired 7-year old whose owner had turned him in because of allergies. We looked at each other, and his eyes had the desperate look of an animal who really wanted to get out of that cage and come to a loving home. Meanwhile, the wife was checking on a litter of kittens at the other end of the row, and had picked up a black fur ball with tiny sharp claws and that squeaky little kitten howl. Simultaneously, we turned to each other with our furry choices. Her heart was set on the kitten, who by this time had taken a death-grip on her sweater, and the only way we were going to give him back would be to give back the sweater with him. My grey hair went back into his cage and our sad eyes said goodbye. I always wondered if he found his home.

We called him Kitty, because neither of us could decide on a name, and once he began to respond to Kitty, it seemed pointless to try to change it. My ex and I settled into roles of cat care. Hers was the playful friend and mine was the care-giver and surrogate mother. Luckily, Kitty would eventually wind up with me.

In 1996, when the wife became the “ex”, Kitty perched by the door for a couple of days, awaiting the return of his play-pal. “She isn’t coming back,” I would tell him. It took a little while for the cat to accept his one-parent household, but it was soon after that we began a bond that many people do not have. I always wondered if he bonded to me because I had lost my friend, or if I bonded to him because he lost his. It doesn’t matter. I never had any children, so he became my "boy". It's odd, I know, but I don't care.

He saw me through a lot of bad days, and unlike me, his demeanor never changed. He remained my faithful friend no matter how I felt or what I said. I only wish people were more like that. Unconditional love.

He responds to my voice the way a dog would. “Hey, buddy!”, “Breakfast”, “No”, “Fancy Feast”, “Food” and “Bedtime” are all parts of his vocabulary. He is smarter than some people I know and the two of us have been together so long that we know what we are going to do before we do it. He wakes me up if I oversleep and comes into the living room late at night to remind me that I need to get to bed. The list of things that he and I do together would start to sound more like what two human friends do than a man and a cat. He follows me around like a puppy from room to room, and it still amazes me that after 16 years he is still frightened of the vacuum cleaner.

The problem with bonding with an animal is that their end of the bond will be broken before ours. By their nature, cats and dogs are transient friends. Lately, I have been cherishing every day that Kitty and I spend together, and today I found that those days may indeed be dwindling.

He has been having his regular yearly check-up, and for the past 5 years or so, I have been having blood work done on him. Last year, he started to show signs of kidney failure. It’s rather common in cats as they age. My vet called this morning with the news that he is in the early stage of renal failure. He will have to be on a special diet and she will be monitoring his blood work every four months now to see how it is progressing. The diet may help, but of course, it will only serve to postpone the inevitable.

Being at work when one receives bad news is perhaps the worst possible place to be. I have been into the stall in our men’s room several times to stifle my sobbing over losing my friend. Premature as it is, the thought of not having him around sends me reeling. Of course, I am not foolish enough to think that the little guy would live forever, but whether it was now or when he is 20, the thought of not having him near me is more than I can bear. Perhaps it was that news that sent me over the edge, since I have been dealing with some other personal issues for the past couple of weeks, and I suppose that the combination of issues has caused the house of cards to begin to implode.

Maybe I’m acting silly or maybe I’m overreacting, but my first instinct when I heard that my friend was having a problem was to cry and wish that I could help him and make him better, but I can’t, and he can’t help himself. So, perhaps it is the futility of the situation that is grinding at me. He won’t know why I cry a little when I see him and hold him a little tighter every day.

Or maybe he will.

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