Some people talk about going out and “choosing” or “finding” their pets; my pets have always chosen me. From Zooey, who bounded over to me from a litter of thirteen kittens in Arcadia, California, to Violet, who grabbed onto my foot in a parking lot in St Louis, Missouri, to my sweet Fezzik, who called to me from the cage in Iowa City, Iowa. I was in a pet store, certainly not looking for another cat- I just liked to frequent the stores and talk to the critters, telling them I hoped they found good homes. Fezzik was in a cage by himself, a beautiful Siamese-marked rescued farm kitten. Across his face was an almost perfect black mask of fur, with a beauty mark just below the left side of his nose. He was little and lean and he cried out to me. Breaching protocol, I unhinged his cage, lifted him out, and he curled up around my shoulder.
The teenager working the store came up to me and said, “He’s not for sale- he hasn’t had any of his shots, and we haven’t de-wormed him.” And I said, “How much do you want for him?” And he said, “He’s not for sale yet.” And I said, “He’s coming home with me- what do you want?” In the end, I crossed the pimply-faced youth’s palm with a crumpled ten-dollar bill and a promise not to return if Fezzik had any kitty diseases.
Fezzik lived in Iowa with me, and then Decatur, IL; Chicago, IL; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; New York City, and then finally, Napa Valley, California. In that time he became infamous in my family for his lack of social skills. It was true that he really only wanted to be around me, and occasionally, other women. But mostly all he wanted in life was to sit in my lap or lay across my back and sleep. Over the years, I became accustomed to looking down when I’d been writing for some time and realizing that Fezzik had crept up on my lap, curled up, and gone fast to sleep. For fourteen years, I’ve made him breakfast, kept him rich in Pounce kitty treats, found other folks to love him when I had to travel, and made every choice- from the apartments I took to the men I dated- based on whether or not he would be welcome. In return, he loved me, so purely, so deeply, so simply, that all it would take is me coming home for him to purr for hours on end. He followed me around the house to talk to me, curled in my lap when I cried, stretched out next to me when I read, spooned with me at any opportunity. He gave me somewhere to focus all the love I have to give, and he was the only worthy male not blood to me to ask for that love in all the time I knew him.
He’s been sick. His kidneys decided that they don’t so much like to process waste anymore, and so my vet and I tried everything- subcutaneous fluids every day, antibiotics, a diet of turkey baby food (man, does that stuff stink), Metamucil, and Pepcid AC were a part of his daily regimen. But we thought that we could make him happy and comfortable for a good amount of time- after all, he was only 14.
This morning I woke up in my usual waking pose- I call it my “practicing for my cruxifiction pose”- arms splayed out, on my back. Fezzik was asleep on the pillow next to my head, curled into the circle of my neck and shoulder. Everything was wet. The pillow, the sheets, the bed, and it didn’t smell. It was just water. His kidneys weren’t failing- they had quit. The water he was drinking was passing right through. I got up, and he barely opened his eyes- it had happened in his sleep. And, it had happened in various places around my home. I locked him in the bathroom for the day, with food and water and a litterbox, thinking I’d do lots of laundry tonight and get him to the vet to figure out what we could do. But all day I felt like throwing up.
I finally rushed home after a day filled with meetings and scooped him up to get to the vet on time. When I got there, the vet was setting a broken kitty leg, so I waited. I took Fezzik out of his carrier and tried to hold myself together. My vet came in, and after we talked for a bit, she said to me, “Months ago you told me you had waited too long when it was Zooey’s time. I know you don’t want to do that now. Fezzik doesn’t look ready to go to you, but he is hours, maybe days away from being miserable. Right now, he doesn’t know just how sick he is. If you want to give him the gift of passing while he still feels okay, today would be a good day.”
She left to go get an aide and the injection. I picked Fezzik up and sat down with him on my lap and he looked up at me, still so himself. I’ve bawled many, many times with him laying across my lap, and I’m sure he figured this was just another one of those times. My vet returned, and asked me to talk to him and have him look at me while they swabbed his leg with alcohol and inserted the needle. He cried out once, looking at the needle, and then at me, and then he died.
I laid my head against the table and sobbed. The vet left to give me a little time, and I tried to tell Fezzik to go find Zooey, who’d been waiting for him for a few years now, and Kije. And I told him I loved him very much, and then I fled the room because I couldn’t bear petting his lifeless body and because he was long gone and it was my decision that took his life away.
And now I’m home, in my empty house, and I feel terrible. I hope my decision wasn’t selfish. I hope that if the situation was reversed, that if I was the cat who was slowly falling apart and he the human I’d lived with for fourteen years, that he would have made the same decision for me. It doesn’t seem like a gift, it seems like an awful ripping apart long before it was time.
Fezzik, you were a wonderful cat, and I’m so, so, so sorry. I miss you horribly. Please come back and choose me again someday.
