Friday, October 07, 2016

A Quick Decision

“They’ve been feeding him intravenously for the past few days.”
My honeymoon glow turned to ice. “Where is he?”
Our cat, Hobbes, had spent the last several days at the vet, brought there by my parents who were taking care of him while my new husband and I unwound on the beaches of Saint Maarten. Two weeks before our wedding, our other cat, Tigger, had to be put to sleep to spare him from the pain of an incurable bladder disease. As wretched as that experience was, we were not the only ones who mourned him. 
Tigger had been Hobbes’ littermate, buddy and partner-in-crime. Adopted together as kittens, Hobbes had never known life without him. Without another kindred soul. You can imagine how lonely he was. So lonely, in fact, that he stopped eating a few days after we left on our trip. My parents, who checked on him daily, did their best to keep him company, but he grew weak and listless. My father implored the vet, “These kids can’t lose another cat. Do whatever you can.” The doctor administered medication with an eyedropper and fed and watered him through tubes. He kept him going. By the time we got home a few days later, Hobbes had grown jaundiced and had lost nearly half his body weight.
We waited in the sterile examining room with the pea green walls and goofy dog calendar, the same room we were in when we said to goodbye to Tigger before we were ushered back to the front desk, tears still streaming, to sign gruesome paperwork. The knot grew tighter in my stomach. We didn’t wait long. The door opened and in walked the vet, empty-handed.
 “Your cat is dying of loneliness,” he stated matter-of-factly. I fumbled in my purse for a Kleenex. “There is no physical cause for his condition. You’d better find a friend for him right away.
Later that morning David and I squinted as we walked resolutely into the fluorescent bathed, antiseptic room where the local animal shelter kept their cats. We had told the volunteer that we were looking for a female, though I can’t remember why. We knew for sure we wanted a tabby though, like Hobbes. She directed us to one of the dull metal cages stacked on the left side of the narrow room. Inside three tiny kittens awaited homes. As we came closer, one kitten thrust his head between the bars and yowled an energetic greeting. 
“Oh, that’s the male. Don’t mind him. Here, hold one of the females.” She handed me a wiggling bundle of fur with sleepy gray eyes. As I began to pet her, the male piped up again, continuing to communicate with us. Preening and chirping, he bounced around the little cage, his tail curled into a question mark. Pleading to be picked up, he stretched tall on his scrawny legs. Sometimes, I guess, they just pick you.
Charlie chattered all the way home and ran straight to Hobbes the moment I opened the carrier door. Hobbes, yellow eyed and weary could barely muster a sniff. Our six- week old kitten still longed to nurse, though, so burrowed his way under Hobbes’ thick fur and suckled him. Whether he was too weak to protest or he welcomed the attention, we’ll never know, but as the afternoon wore on, Hobbes began to shuffle along after Charlie to see what he was getting into, and by nightfall he was eating. 
The boys were together for 14 years.