The cat I adopted in 2002, a few months after I met the man who would become my ex-husband, is terminally ill. I have scheduled in-home euthanasia for Saturday.
Memorial Day weekend has been a time of celebration for most of the past decade of my life, with notable and awful exceptions. Many of my close friends and I have a tradition of camping at a non-commercial festival in a remote Oregon canyon this weekend. I often bring art.
Ben only joined me at SOAK once, in 2016. On Friday of that Memorial Day weekend, he told me he was leaving me. I did not see it coming. It still sometimes feels like I will never recover from the shock. The next day, that Saturday, we threw our wedding rings into a bonfire. I stripped off my clothes and danced drunkenly in the heat of its flames.
I have been mourning SOAK, amid this year of cancellations, and missing the friends I will not see. Mister’s sudden decline feels like yet another weight at a time of too many burdens.
By Memorial Day weekend 2017, I was infatuated with somebody new, and deeply confused about my feelings and my future.
Zach says when he first met Mister in the apartment where I lived after Ben and before I bought my house, he knew he would have to woo my cat in order to win me over. He succeeded. And Mister won over Zach as well. They spend hours together every day.
Yesterday, after the visit with the vet and after I arranged the in-home euthanasia, Zach and I walked together, looking for the perfect spot. “Mister loves this corner of the yard,” I said. “It’s his favorite place to sit and look.” Zach agreed, and he began to dig.
Mister’s grave is perhaps 3 feet deep so far. Zach will try to dig a little more today.
Mister has been somewhat sick for years, but yesterday, today and tomorrow he will be freed from the medication that he hates. He is relishing unlimited treats. We are spoiling him as much as we are able.
I had planned to erect a tent in the yard tonight, to celebrate or memorialize the camping trip I’m missing by vacationing at home. Instead, I’ll sleep inside and hope that Mister crawls between me and Zach for one last night of cuddles and skritches and purrs.
We invited Ben to come tomorrow for the end. I have lived with Mister for nearly 18 years; Ben was there for 14 of those years. We will drink wine, pet the wonderful terrible cat who loves us all, say goodbye to him in life, and bury him in death. Ben will be the first new person in our home since February, since before stay-home orders and quarantines and the start of what feels like an endless season of loss.
I am so grateful for this unexpected life I somehow have found; so grateful that out of the grief of four years ago I have found a new kind of friendship with Ben, a new love with Zach; so grateful for the sweet and terrible cat I’ve jokingly called my life partner, who has accompanied nearly every day of my adulthood; so grateful that Mister is not yet suffering, or not much, and that as far as he will ever know he is immortal and he will always be.
And, yes, I am profoundly sad.
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