Air and Space

A couple of months ago I wrote a lengthy post about my two cats - Dewey and Dallas. I worried about the day when we'd have to say goodbye to Dewey, our emaciated liver-diseased orange kitty, and speculated that Dallas, our fluffy fat-until-two-months-ago gray kitty, would live to the age of 20 despite the perpetual confused look on her face.

Three days ago I had to say goodbye to both of them. Dallas had gotten progressively weaker over the course of the previous month, no longer able to leap up onto our bed at night as her hind legs began to fail her. Friday morning I woke up to find her next to me in a puddle of urine, unable to walk without falling over. Her watery eyes and plaintive weak mewing told me immediately what lay in store that day.

A lovely compassionate vet and her assistant visited our home later that day. We decided to allow both cats to leave this world peacefully. Although Dewey was still leaping onto the counters in search of scraps of food, I knew that his condition would only worsen. The pathetic yowling in the early morning hours and his endless search for food and water to quench his insatiable hunger and thirst only hinted at what must have been going on inside his bony little body. As difficult as it was, I knew I had to say goodbye to both of them.

I never realized how much air and space the cats occupied until they were both gone. The air they took up was filled with sounds: the thump of Dewey's lead feet as he jumped off the kitchen counter or the edge of our bed, the little meowing sounds Dallas made when she would "talk" to me, the loud wailing sounds Dewey had been making every morning as he begged for more food that his body no longer absorbed, the gentle purring of a soft body pressed close in the evening hours. The space they took up is everywhere: the spot in the bend of my knees where Dallas liked to curl up at night, the center of the red couch downstairs that had become Dewey's go-to spot for naps, the rug in my bathroom where Dallas waited for me as I took a shower, the laundry room - still full of all their cat thing such as bowls, kitty litter pans, cat food - things I have yet to clean up and put away.

I keep expecting to see them in all those usual spaces. I never realized how much it would hurt to lose them. I've lost pets before - but never as an adult. The pets I'd lost during my childhood were technically my parents' babies, not mine. It's a different feeling. These furry things depended on me, on us.

Rest in peace, Dewey and Dallas. We won't miss the kitty litter, the puking or the fur that clung to the furniture, but we will miss the contented feeling you gave us when you sat on our laps, pressed up against us, giving us your warmth while we gave you ours in return.



Dewey and Dallas on my lap last week, a few days before we said goodbye