Bad News at the Lodge

Not to trivialize all the really awful things happening around the globe but as a confirmed winter hater this was not good news. According to the weather today:

Tomorrow will be 0m 10 seconds shorter.

Darn!

My Jim

One of favorite cats, the only one of the 13 that currently reside with me that I actually paid for, is starting to die.

I got Jim in 1996 as a kitten from the Humane Society in Golden Valley, MN. I got him as a companion for my then only cat, Mary, not knowing that she really didn’t care if she had a companion or not.

I had gone to the shelter looking forward to picking out an orange cat, something I had always wanted. And I was going to get an adult since I knew they had a harder time getting homes. I came home with a white and black kitten with a big nose.

Jim was in a cage with two bigger kittens and fighting with them both. I took him out to break up the battle and he immediately fell asleep in my arms. After a while I put him back to go find my orange cat only to look back and see him fighting again. I took him out for a bit, put him back, walked a few feet away and decided he had to go home with me. Just at that same time a grandmother type and her young boy took him out and into a visiting room. I watched them through the big glass windows and could see it wasn’t going very well. The boy wanted to play and the kitten wanted to stay as far away as possible. Grandma wasn’t pleased. As soon as they put Jim back in the cage I went to the counter and started to fill out the adoption papers. Twenty minutes and $60 later he was squalling in a box next to me in the car.

I don’t know why he’s always been special to me. I’ve had cats with more personality. Mary’s full of it. I have funnier cats, better looking cats and more playful cats. But the bond between Jim and I has always been strong. We just seem to run on the same circuit. And now, after we’ve been through a move to Montana, a year in a shack up in the mountains, and dozens of foster kittens and cats, I’m seeing him fade gradually like a once vivid photograph left in the sun. Where once he jumped on the counter to be the first to eat, now he tries and falls to the floor. His silky fur looks ragged and unkempt. The swagger has become slow and unsteady.

It’s so heart wounding to see and bitterly frustrating because I don’t have the money to spend to take him to the vet to start the expensive diagnosis and treatments he needs. At his last visit last year my vet told me he might have cancer but without a battery of tests we couldn’t tell. In my real world, I don’t have the luxury of prolonging Jim’s life. I can only watch, weep, and wait until the aging inevitably turns to suffering and then give him the last gift of a good ending.

I know Jim doesn’t fear death because he can’t anticipate it. Animals live in the here and now. Right now he only knows he’s sleeping in a sunny spot on the floor. I wish I were so lucky.

Get out your hankies this one could be a weeper.

One of favorite cats