Handling Hiccups

Our move has not been as smooth as cream; there have been some chunky bits that the dairymaid could have churned a bit more, and all of them have to do with cats.

Right before the move, we stayed with my mom for two weeks while we waited for the closing on this house. During that time, our two cats stayed in my mom’s studio, a fairly cramped space, and didn’t receive a lot of visitors. They were a bit stressed, and when we finally made the move, things got worse. The poor old cats had to get used to a new space, and to make matters a lot worse, that new space had just the day before been inhabited by a flea-ridden dog. Of course, we didn’t know about the fleas, and before we had a chance to find out, the humans were off to Martha’s Vineyard while the pussycats were left alone again, tended only by our real estate agent and a friend of hers. When we got back, Mocha was lying in a bathtub as tho knocked out. She quickly perked up and spent the next few days a much happier puss. We took her to the vet to rid her of the fleas, but the next day, she got out.

Mocha was not a cat who craved the outdoors. In fact, when given chances to head for the hills in the past, she had always been satisfied merely to stare out the door. I spent three days looking for her and had resigned myself to never seeing her again, figuring that she’d been devoured by coyotes or raccoons. Amazingly, Mocha showed up on our driveway (at the bottom, about a hundred yards from the house) over a hundred hours after her departure. Sadly, she looked a lot worse for the wear. She had lost 20% of her minimal weight, and she was ridden not with fleas but with maggots. A few more trips to the vet also confirmed her failing kidneys, a condition exacerbated by recent stresses, among other things. Mocha died in my arms two nights ago, sixteen-and-a-half years after her birth.

Our beloved black cat, Krishna, also died in my arms, tho this time it was at a vet’s office in Brooklyn just over a month ago. Like Mocha, he was diagnosed with a deadly condition; in his case it was cancer. Since we were about to move and didn’t have too many options, the vet suggested euthanasia, something Shirra and I were both anticipating. Fiona decided to stay home with Shirra and Maeve, but Emmett bravely decided to accompany me. We both sobbed silently as the first dose of medicine made Krishna fall asleep and the second dose stopped his heart. We carefully placed him back on the vet’s table, and I made extra sure that he’d truly stopped breathing before I left the office.

So it was a bit sad this morning on my way to Starbucks for a few treats for the family when I came across a dead black cat in the street. She was so perfect in her outward appearance that it looked as tho she had fallen asleep in the middle of the road; I can only guess that she was bounced by a car as she tried to cross the street, but there was not a hair out of place on her still-warm body. I placed her on the side of the road and called a number on her collar that corresponded to a vet’s office, where I left a message. I was sort of glad not to have found a collar with someone’s home number; I wouldn’t want to be the one to make that phone call.