Kitty Litter

They say that the best way to deal with grief is to express it. I think this may be true.

Kito was put to sleep at 8:05 p.m. today.

I don’t even remember the name of the vet clinic we brought him to. I can’t remember the name of the two female vets who helped us. All I remember were their kind eyes, and their sympathy.

Last week, he was still strong. The vet my dad took him to said it was just a touch of a cold, and that Kito would recover soon. What the vet failed to take into account was Kito’s age. Kito picked up the virus from somewhere, and passed it on to Siopao. Siopao was up and pawing through our trash in three days; Kito never fully recovered.

He started going stiff last night, and his last independent movement was to move to the bathroom after I’d placed him in my dad’s chair. He hadn’t moved his bowels all day, and it had been two days since he last ate. We were trying to force-feed him multivitamins, to no avail.

When I got home today, he was so stiff, his front paws couldn’t be moved or bent anymore. His eyes refused to close, and they were dirty. Clearly, he was suffering. My dad fled the house, and I suspect it was because he didn’t want to have to make the decision about euthanizing poor Kito. I knew Kito was suffering when I called his name and stroked his chin, and he could no longer meow or respond to us moving his limbs. He was dying, but I thought that getting a second opinion might help. Now that I think about it, that may have been my way of denying the truth. Kito had never been sick before; he was always healthy, and I assumed he’d always be there. I grew up with him, and losing him was something I couldn’t face.

I had to hold together on the drive to the vet clinic. I couldn’t cry in front of the vet; that would be “pussy” of me. Or so I said.

The vets at the clinic where he was euthanized noticed that he was already going cold. I asked, had we done something wrong? No, the older one told us. His age worked against him; a 90 year-old human would have much more trouble with a cold than a 30 year-old.

I tried to call my dad, but no answer. So I called Robert, a friend of mine who loves animals even more than I do. I described Kito’s condition, and he asked, “Is he going cold?” When I said yes, Robert told me I had a difficult decision to make, but that I had to think of whether I was willing to watch Kito suffer. No, I said. Let him go, he said. You can’t let him suffer. This isn’t an easy decision, I said. I know, he replied.

When it was time to euthanize him, the vet asked if I wanted to leave. Polar Bearball and Mila, our housekeeper, had accompanied me to the clinic. Mila had to leave because she was upset. Polar Bearball asked me if I wanted to push the plunger on the syringe which would euthanize Kito. I couldn’t. But I refused to leave; I wasn’t going to let Kito die alone with strangers around him. I held him as they injected the solution; he was so weak, he couldn’t even protest, let alone jerk away when the needle went in.

I stroked his forehead as he died. I saw the life go out of the eyes which he couldn’t blink anymore. I realized I was crying when I could no longer draw breath. Screw what the vets thought. I only wish he could have told me whether he I had done the right thing or not.

When Kito voided his bladder and shuddered, the vet put a stethoscope to his heart, and confirmed that it stopped at 8:05 p.m. When he expelled his breath and began jerking, I thought I had made a horrible mistake, killing a cat who was still worth saving. The vet told me it was natural; the muscles were simply spasming.

Polar Bearball took care of paying the vet, and quietly stood by me as it all happened.

We’ll bury Kito in the garden tomorrow morning, when it’s light enough to see.

It was only when we got home Polar Bearball told me that he would miss the cat on the window sill that I really, really cried.