Just A Cat
Update: The cat’s alive for now…
About six years ago the family started feeding a scraggly looking stray that took up residence outside our house. The cat was a tortoiseshell, thin and a bit scrawny; definitely on the runtish side of things. While she took us up on our free meals, she never let us get near her, choosing instead to dash off into the yard to seek the cover of the rose bushes and peonies.
Five years ago next month, we had a terrific snowstorm that dumped over a foot of snow on our neighborhood. For weeks we had noticed that the scrawny cat named “Chalupa”, after a Taco Bell ad campaign running at the time (thank you Madison Ave…), had an injured paw, forcing her to run with her rear leg held up close to her haunches. Instead of getting better, the leg seemed to be getting worse, and as the snow fell I noticed blood tracks on the path.
Taking advantage of the situation, I leapt at Chalupa, who avoided me with cat-like grace. However, she had not planned on a yard covered in the equivalent of 7 feet of snow for a man, so that grace didn’t get her very far before I had her hissing and spitting in my arms.
I took her in, and let her go in the basement where it was warmer and away from the other animals. Days later we had her to the vet, where she had her paw looked at, and arrangement for her spaying were made.
For the next year, Chalupa was a shadow in our household that could only be glimpsed out of the corner of your eye as she padded silently from one hiding place to another. The other cats were livid, but livid is the default setting of cats if you ask me, so it didn’t bother me – though the kitty equivalent of protest signs – peeing on the carpet – did.
Chalupa wasn’t comfortable in the house, and so taking advantage of an open door one Summer day, she bolted and disappeared into the neighborhood. She was gone for several days, and I started to get worried, visions of smushed kitty on the roadway being seen by one 0f the family running unedited and in the special Director’s Cut in my head, I finally got up the nerve and checked out the ASPCA.
There she was, alone in a cage and strangely happy to see me. Is such a thing possible for a cat? I took her home after bailing her out with $35 cash, and a remarkable thing happened over the coming weeks: Chalupa became one of the nicest, sweetest cats we owned.
Whereas she had hidden from us, she was now usually nearby. At night she alone would choose to sleep with us, curling up on our pillows near our heads. Changing position during the middle of the night would result in a sharp “meowp” as she complained about being disturbed. She was a true sweetie, and the first cat that had gravitated to me since I was a kid (Wife is the usual recipient of feline honors).
That’s pretty much been the story for the last 3 years.
Unfortunately, little “Lupa” has become quite sick with some kind of liver ailment. As I write the Wife is taking her to the vet again to see if anything can be done. The prognosis isn’t good, and we now have the prospect of having to explain the euthanizing of a pet to our child. We have decided that if it is the only option, then we will have it done but only after explaining the situation to our child.
While this isn’t any earthshaking news in the grand scheme of life, especially given what is happening today and what has happened in our world in the past, it is going to be for our child. I’ve researched the subject on the Internet, and information/knowledge/the truth seems to be called for when a pet is put to sleep.
Sometimes being a parent sucks.
