Bouseh Magnus at seventeen years old
Hello readers, first I’d like to say the following is not terribly amusing. It doesn't even amuse me. But it is heartfelt. Read if you dare, but don't expect a chortle, guffaw, or even a chuckle. Feel free to do so if you like, however.
As I write these words, Final Cat is purring and snoozing on my lap. Final Cat is just that, our last cat, having survived the horrors and joy of life to outlast her brothers until the very end. She has no idea she is condemned to death, there is no way to explain it to her.
In 24 hours, she’ll be dead.
I’ll have held the knife, which isn't a knife, but a needle. She has cancer, she is already seventeen years old. She will die in our living room, hopefully as sunshine streams through the window in the early morning. She will join her brothers Bishimon and Jubei, on whatever adventures are next.
I suspect Jubei, her step-brother, is curled about the sun, purring heat and warmth to the world as he did for me. Bishimon, her litter-bro, is almost certainly testing whether eternity as an infinite prospect also involves unending bloody meat. Bouseh will no doubt do her own thing, as well. I suspect it will involve snuggling in some fashion.
Bishimon at seventeen years old, gone now
And I will cry thinking about it, as I am right now. Unable to conjure even a dick joke to ward off the pain. Bishi, pictured above, is no doubt disappointed in this. He always loved a solid dick joke, considering we called him Bean in honor of his exposed nut sack. That cat can't even say modesty.
It has always been unclear to me exactly how these critters burrowed and wormed their way inside me. They puke whenever the mood strikes them, which is about as often as I’m not in the mood to see or hear them puke. They never flush. They never make dinner, they never do the dishes. But, they are integral to my household operations all the same. Death is disruptive.
I moan and I wail, mourning the event, the death, before it has arrived. The anticipation of the event is easily half the agony of the whole. She purrs, though. She’s on enough drugs she couldn't do anything else. I don't want it to end. But all things do. This gives them their flavor, their spark, their divinity.
Jubei Kittigami, at nineteen years old
Death coming knocking and ripping at your front door… it reminds you the end of things cannot be the measure of their worth. One event, final as it is, does not define the thing. It is indefinable, something found in a moment, perhaps many years if you're lucky like me. I have had many years with these critters and the end won't change that. But, fuck. It hurts.
So, tomorrow at 10:30 on a Sunday morning, Bouseh will die. I will cry, as I am now. I have been this entire time, of course. I will be without my familiars, my bond-cats, my friends, for the first time in my life. I, like the goddess Frigg, have always been accompanied by felines. From birth, I have had a cat. And now, I will not.
I don't know what I’ll do after. But it seems likely the world will be worse off for it once she leaves. Dimmer, more hostile. I will be angry. Cosmic injustice is not something I am immune to. So while my cats die, Garfield lives on. Unacceptable. Lasagna would kill a cat eventually.
But I will accept it because I have no choice. None of us do. The best we can do is endure. They say grief is the price we pay for love and this is true.
But fuck me if it isn't hard. Fuck me.