“Cat is fractious” no more

 

On our first visit to his vets, just about a week after we rescued each other, the intake tech wrote a note for Sammy’s vet: cat is fractious.

How little did I know then how true that was. The online thesaurus site lists tons of synonyms for fractious and I can easily say that Sammy exhibited most of them at some point: irritable; unmanageable; testy; scrappy; wild. I could go on, but you get the picture:

But no more, for my beautiful boy died in our sleep on March 15. Beware the Ides of March indeed.

I knew he was dying. He’d stopped eating and had lost a lot of weight. On the morning of his death, I found him settled on my collection of throw pillows in my bedroom (finding a quiet, safe space is a well-known behavior amongst cats when they know they are dying). And I knew that but stupidly, I picked him up and settled him on the couch in the living room. Comfortable, but not nearly as comfortable as those pillows. I am wracked with guilt about moving him. However, if it caused him to stay alive a little longer, then I am OK with it. Because it meant he was still alive when I got home.

I ate dinner quickly, changed into my jammies, picked him up, settled him in my lap and fell asleep on the couch. I can’t be sure of this, but I think, in the middle of the night, he awoke me with a loud meow just before he died. But that might be wishful thinking on my part.

When I awoke, I knew he was dead. But I let myself pretend it was just his normal habit of jumping up on me when I was asleep and settling in for a nap. So I talked to him like I would normally do when he wouldn’t move from me: “Sammy, get up, mummy needs to use the loo.” I went on in that vein for about five minutes, delaying the inevitable.

And, like after the workplace shooting, most of my posse of beautiful strong women reached out to me and helped me through it.

So you know that old chestnut of a question, “If you could have lunch with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?” Well, before Sammy, my answer was always William Shakespeare. After Sammy, it would be whoever could tell me of Sammy’s life before me: who got him declawed? How many siblings did he have? Did his mummy and daddy love each other or was it just a one-night stand? Did he ever do the deed before he got fixed? Did someone abandon him or did he run away, to be found by someone named Guido who took him to the shelter? (When he got to the shelter, he was initially named Roseannadanna, in keeping with the Saturday Night Live theme. That was changed to Rodin (one of my favorite artists). I named him Sammy after Sammy Davis Jr because he had only one eye (something else that I am sure added to his fractiousness!).)  

I’d also ask my lunch partner who abused that beautiful boy so much that he turned into a psychotic biting machine? Notice how I wrote I’d like to meet someone who could answer these questions, and not the person who did the abusing because I would kill that motherfucker in a slow and very painful way.

But, like my moving him from the pillows, perhaps on some level him getting abused was a good thing because it meant we ended up with each other. Because he was as fucked up in his head as I am in mine. Yeah, he might have gotten adopted on his good looks alone, but any normal, sane person would have returned him after one of his biting sessions. We were meant for each other.

But now he is gone and I am alone once more. It does hurt, but, because I am a sociopath, I am handling it so much better than I thought I would. I expected to try to fill the cat-shaped hole with a parrot. Or a tortoise. I pictured my grief causing me to shave off all my hair. Or dye it black. (One of those is for sure going to happen soon.)

But I am going on with my life with reminders of him everywhere. His picture is my profile pic for my work emails. Most of my passwords have some form of his name in them (there are lots of other deets in them so that is not giving away anything). He is my screensaver on all my devices. I say good morning to him. I tell him at night when it is time for bed. And about a week after his passing I had a dream that was so intense that I think it might have actually happened: He jumped up on my lap and we rubbed noses and said goodbye. In other dreams I feel him nibbling my toes or jumping up on my lap for a nap.

I could not give him the best life, but I think I gave him a good one.

RIP, love of my life.

I Second That Emotion

 

Today is the one-year anniversary of the shooting at my workplace.  I have attempted to write this post myriad times in the past year, but I could never find the words to express my emotions on that day and the year since.  Because, well, I don’t have any emotions about it.  

Why is that, I wonder? Because this one was close, the closest I have ever come to being involved in the gun violence that saturates America. The place where it happened is about 200 yards from my office. Some of our team, who were in lockdown in a different part of the building, heard the kill shot. The head of the department targeted by the psycho (white male, natch) shooter was at a meeting on the second floor of the building. We were in lockdown for about three hours, watching everything that was unfolding outside, mere feet away from us, on the TV in the office. And when we were finally released, it was by police armed with rifles. When we returned to the office, many doors bore signs of having been forced open by police. Later, reports came out and one student told of having to step over the bloodied body of his professor to get out of the building. All of that and I have not spilled one tear over it. What is wrong with me? 

I looked up some of the signs of narcissistic personality disorder, just in case that might be what ails me. I only had to read that two of the signs are a belief in specialness and superiority and I knew I don’t have it. The exact opposite, in fact. Like when I call my landline from the office to check if there are messages (there never are), I always hang up the phone with the phrase, ”Well, who would call you, you big fat ugly loser?” 

So maybe I am a sociopath? One of that disorder’s signs is a lack of empathy. That sure sounds like me.  But only as far as humans are concerned. Not with animals. During COVID, on our weekly video chats, our boss would report if anyone we knew had died of it. Not once did I feel anything. Then one week, he tells us that one of the police dogs that work on campus had died. I was a blubbering wreck for the rest of the day. I can’t watch movies if there is a chance the dog will die (to this day, despite it starring one of my future ex-husbands, I can’t bring myself to watch John Wick). And I was halfway through I Am Legend when I got a feeling something was going to happen to the dog, so I quit watching it.

And not only am I writing this on the one-year anniversary, I have just come from a memorial service held mere yards from the building it happened in. And not the reading of a poem, the blessing from a native American spiritual leader, the ringing of chimes, the cello and piano performance of a piece by Rachmaninoff (one of my favorite composers) or the singing of Lean on Me by a choir of students did anything for me. But it was when the person who survived the shooting stood up to speak and received a standing ovation that I realized if that did not move me, nothing will.

But one thing did move me: the outpouring of love and concern from my small but mighty group of friends. The first one to text me was JTV. A few others followed. L. sent a message on a group text and told everyone I was OK and not to worry about me. In one exchange someone called me "our girl". That really moved me. So maybe there is hope for me yet.