Micawber, a mackerel tabby and our “big sweet boy” (pictured above asleep in his favorite chair), died on March 22nd 2004, toward the end of his 9th year. He is still very much in our thoughts, and we will never forget him.
We found him on a street corner in the fall of 1994, trying to get at a sandwich wrapper that had blown into one of the lanes of traffic. He came to us immediately when we approached him, and when we saw that he had a badly abscessed tail wound, we scooped him up and took him into our home, intending to take him to the Humane Society… eventually. Of course, we never did.
How to describe him? He was a big cat, built like a wrestler, with a barrel chest and the confidence to go with it. “Positive”, “communicative”, “intelligent”, “bold”, “audacious”… once he stole half a potroast right out from under our noses when our backs were turned, and tried to hide it by lying down on top of it when we finally tracked him down! Life on the street had taught him to be ready for any opportunity, and he was far too smart by half for us to keep entirely ahead of him.
In diagnostic hindsight, I realize that he probably had chronic pancreatitis that had been present for several months, but everything came to a head on the weekend of March 19th. His bowels and liver failed, and rather than resort to extreme measures to keep him alive (implanting a feeding tube, confining him in a little cage away from home and sticking him full of IVs) we elected to spare him that misery. Micawber was VERY bonded to us, and whenever he was afraid or distressed would come running to us and lie or stand close against us, trusting us to protect him — to be separated from us in a strange place, and in pain, would have been torture for him.
He had a wonderful life and a peaceful death, held tenderly by us as the sedative took effect and then the Euthanol was administered. I can’t honestly think of a day when he did not know blissful happiness for at least a moment (and there were so many days when all he knew was pleasure), and in those final minutes of his life he gazed at us with love and contentment and trust, as he always had. I cry thinking about it — we still cry, my husband and I, from time to time — but we realize that we made the best decision we could, and spared him suffering. It is for our own pain, our own loss, that we shed such bitter tears.
Here are some of my Livejournal entries following his death, in case anyone wants to learn a bit more about him. He was a magnificent cat, truly one in a million — communicative, sociable, intelligent, in many ways more dog than traditionally catlike — and I doubt that
I will ever see his like again.
“RIP, Micawber”
http://www.livejournal.com/users/crowdog66/31251.html
“Twelve hours later…”
http://www.livejournal.com/users/crowdog66/31593.html
“Links on grieving, and “Rainbow Bridge””
http://www.livejournal.com/users/crowdog66/31780.html
“I have sent you on a journey…”
http://www.livejournal.com/users/crowdog66/32080.html
The last entry has a passage which brought us so much comfort in the weeks after Micawber’s death:
“I have sent you on a journey to a land free from pain, not because I did not love you, but because I loved you too much to force you to stay.”
We were able to put aside our own desires when it counted. We did what was right for him. He trusted us to love him and to protect him, and as hard as it was to make that decision, we remained loyal to him to the end.
So long, buddy... you will be greatly missed.
| Micawber |
| 22, March 2004 |
| Laurie E. Smith |