Lessons Learned from a Stray Cat
A writer always treads in dangerous territory when he or she writes about pets. Your dog may seem quite interesting to you, but the moment you start putting down your thoughts about her things just slowly come apart. Why? Because most pet stories are boring. So I will do my best to avoid that tendency over the next few paragraphs.
Yesterday the Wife and I put one of our 4 cats to sleep. “Chalupa” was a scrawny feral cat that took up residence in our backyard starting about 6 years ago. We fed her outside for about a year until we were socked in by a snow storm and the Kid noticed that her paw was bloody. The 8 inches of snow and injured paw slowed her down enough for me to catch her and get her to the vet. After another year she lived in our house but always ran away from people. Finally, after about 2 years she escaped outside, was trapped by a neighbor and taken to the Humane Society where I found her. Taking her back home she was suddenly the sweetest and most affectionate of all our cats. For the remaining four years of her life she was an integral part of our household.
Over the past year she became bloated with ascites – fluid in her belly. At first we thought she was pregnant (which would have been a miracle considering she was spayed) and an x-ray confirmed she was not. We fed her diuretics and tapped her belly but nothing could keep her from slowly wasting away carrying a softball sized belly of fluid. In the end she stopped eating, and I knew the time had come.
So what did that scrawny little cat teach me?
1. Never rule out change. From feral to affectionate this cat reminded me that change is possible for those that allow it.
2. Don’t care what other people think. Chalupa never made friends with the other cats. There was something in her mannerisms that turned off the others and made them bully her. But she never seemed to care. She did her thing no matter what the others thought.
3. History doesn’t matter. Chalupa was a street cat but you would have thought that she had been raised her entire life amongst humans.
4. Don’t whine. She bore her illness with quiet dignity, never crying out or calling attention to herself.
5. Never give up. Up until the last day she tried to jump up on the bed with her belly full of fluid. She would have lived a few more days through sheer will had we not stepped in and said “that’s enough”.
She spent her last day in the arms of the Wife and died while being caressed surrounded by people who cared about her.
It was a good death.
