Friday, August 24th, 2001
 2:38 AM Friday, August 24

Tom just woke me with his deep yowls. He was standing in the middle of the hall and just seemed to be lonely. It's as if he knows it's his last night, which is kind of creepy. I scritched him for a while, then put him on the old green towel that I plan to carry him in when I take him to Alpine Animal Hospital tomorrow afternoon. He's very unsettled, so I put the towel down where he has been sleeping for the past few months (under the other computer desk in the living room), and then remembered all the cat nip I keep in a baggie in the 'fridge. So, now he's writhing in ecstasy on the towel that will be his shroud, happy with catnip.

This is hard...I know it's the right thing to do, because he is very sick and not going to get better. This way he dies when he's still able to eat and not in acutely horrible condition - just pretty bad condition...but it seems so cold blooded - like I am doing it for my own convenience - poor kitty.

Ryan finished digging the hole by the front door. It's foot-and-half deep. I hope it's deep enough for Tom and then some nice plant. I am hoping to find a hydrangea to plant over him...I'll try to find it tomorrow morning, so I have it all ready to plant when I bury him.

Poor Tom...I wonder if Peter and Henry will miss him.

I slept until 11:30 this morning, and have been reading the paper and wasting time. My back hurts, and I think it's because I am so tense about Tom (well, and the power spraying from two days ago, and trying to dig last night, and being out of shape and a zillion pounds overweight...). It's awful to have the power of life and death, even over a cat.

I hope Juliette remembers to come...I can't really do this right alone. He has to be held all the way to the vet's office...and even then, it will probably freak him out. I don't want him to die freaked out.

It's good to do it without Molly. She would do it, because she's like me and does what has to be done - she would be doing it because she can see that it's hard for me, but she shouldn't have to do this. Mary wouldn't help on this, even if I asked her to, because it would bother her too much, making her think of Peter being only a year younger than Tom...and if Dave were still around, he wouldn't help, he would take it over and do it himself and make it worse...it's good to do it with someone to drive me, because I CAN do this, and it should be done before he starts suffering more (and he will suffer more if I don't do it, I have to remember that).

Well, I'd better take a shower and get dressed and go buy a plant to mark his grave. I hope I find a hydrangea, because I like blue flowers, and it would be good to like the plant that marks Tom's grave. He has been a good cat. He has always really trusted me, even though he didn't bond with anyone else...and he has withdrawn from even me during these past two years...it's time...he's fifteen and sick.
 

8:29 PM  It went as well as one could hope. Tom spent a good portion of the afternoon outside, sleeping in the sun. He'd been given tuna and catnip in the middle of the night, and then again in the morning. At three o'clock I gave him half and half and more catnip. At four-twenty I gave him some more tuna.

Juliette came over around four and we talked, and at four-thirty she said we should go, but I remembered that it would be better to write the check for the vet's fee before I left home - just so I wouldn't have to do anything with money while I was holding Tom...and afterward didn't seem like a good time to settle up...not for putting him to sleep. It cost $21, and I put the check in my back pocket so I could just hand it over when I got there.

Juliette drove her car - we put a cardboard box in her hatchback - and I held Tom in the green towel that I've had since the end of my freshman year in college. I rescued it from a garbage pile, where Robin Manasee threw it. It was a nice green towel, although it is rather ragged now. It clearly was a high quality towel, and had Robin's mother's initials on it in pink (FSM).

Although he always complains loudly in a car - because he's scared, I think - this time he didn't. Usually I put him in a pet carrier, but this time I held him close in the towel. He let out one loud, deep yowl at the end of Arthur Circle, but after that he became interested in the world around him and enjoyed being scritched and held close. The windows were down, so there were plenty of sounds and smells for him to experience - he has been mostly blind for a long time, so I don't suppose he was looking at the scenery.

When we got to Alpine Animal Hospital he waited until we got into the waiting room and then let out another loud, deep yowl. After that he was quiet again. In a few minutes we were in the examination room - and in that room Tom could hear lots of other animals and interesting noises. He didn't yowl again. He got squirmy after about half an hour of waiting - but I got up and that seemed to calm him. I held him for forty minutes until the vet came in and explained the whole procedure - he explained that Tom might fight being injected, and if he did they would give him a sedative and then try again - but they don't like to start with the sedative, because it would make him vomit - and if he took the needle, it would be the easiest, kindest way to do it.

The vet was mostly concerned about whether or not I was ready for it - I told him about Tom's day, and he was wonderful and made me feel like this was the right choice - that Tom had a wonderful life, and that he'd had a wonderful day in the sunshine, with catnip and cream and tuna and being held close and being scritched with lots of love and attention, and that it's the way all of us would like to go - on a sunny day, feeling loved and happy.

They let me hold him, and I sat on the stool, they shaved a little fur off his front let - and they were so gentle. Dr. Clark turned the little electric razor on behind his back, and then brought it out near Tom, so the noise was not sudden or scary. Tom just lay his head on my chest and relaxed while they cut back enough fur to find a vein. Then Dr. Clark injected Tom with an overdose of an anesthetic. It was supposed to take about ten seconds to stop his heart. It was over so quickly. He didn't even twitch. It was gentle and quiet and very kind.

He was warm and in my arms for a couple of minutes after he died, but Juliette brought in the box, so we put him in it. Dr. Clark had tears running down his face, and then I noticed that I did too. But they were good tears. I didn't feel guilty about Tom any more, because he wasn't in pain and sick.

Juliette drove me home and we took the box to the front step. We re-wrapped Tom so that he was curled up the way that cats sleep naturally, and put the towel around him so he wouldn't be exposed to the dirt when we put him in the hole. His eyes were open, and he looked just like he had when I was holding him as he died. He looked peaceful and not in pain anymore. He was warm and soft - no stiffening yet. We put him in the hole, and I covered him with dirt and then with the new hydrangea bush. Julie was thinking clearly, so she put water in the hole before we put Tom in it, and then added some water after the dirt, but before the bush went in.

I have to remember to water Tom's bush. I am glad it's by the front door, because this was hard to do, but he had a good life, and dying was better today than living tomorrow in pain and being sick...I am crying again, but I am feeling so much less guilty about Tom than I have for a very, very long time.

Current Mood: relieved, but sad