February 13, 2012

My Cat is Dying

My childhood cat is dying. He is thirteen years old and has chronic renal failure, a condition which kills one out of five adult cats. I first noticed that he had lost weight in the beginning of the November, and by the end of the month, we knew he was dying.

He was a robust cat: a bulbous middle juxtaposed by a small head and spindly legs. Now he looks like a fawn, his legs askew and awkward when he sits, his eyes too big for his face. He is still himself, but grows thinner every day. When I run an open palm along his back I can feel each vertebra and the every curve of his hip bone, all of which sounds poetic, but feels awful.

So what will happen? My parents are leaving for the month of March, and I am set to take care of him and the dog. I will need to learn to administer his IV of extra fluids, a lesson which both my mother and I seem to be holding off on, in case it doesn't need to happen at all. I try to imagine how I will feel when he dies, and I think I'm doing a good job.

I am writing a poem about this. About my cat, and my fear that he will take the whole of my childhood with him when he dies. About the first time I walk into the house and he is not there. Little by little the house I grew up in has been transformed: the carpets ripped out, the walls repainted, my room refurbished. Will all this change hit me, all at once, once the cat is gone?

And then I think, maybe I'm putting too much pressure on this cat.

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