My Cat Died Yesterday

Normally I use the blog to post things relevant to larger social issues. But today I'd like to post a little about my cat Wendell. I bought Wendel as a Christmas present for my (at the time) girlfriend (now) wife 10 years ago. Turns out Wendell stuck around thru the rest of our college years, our marriage, our first house and a ton of other life changing events over the last decade.

Although Wendell didn't like to be held at all (he was a big fan of his own personal bubble) he loved get scratched around the ears and under the chin. He wouldn't hesitate to jump on the table and get a little taste of your dinner and whenever you got home would be waiting on the stairs to give you a few welcome meows before going to lay down on the couch. He also loved to sit over my wife's head at night. We had pillow especially for him that he used.

Over the weekend we found that Wendell seemed to develop a paralysis of sorts. He couldn't walk or stand and really only seemed to have full use of one of his four paws. Turns out he had a serious problem with his spine and according to the vet at best a 25% chance of recovery from this episode with the problem progressively getting worse as the months went on. With this prognosis we chose to put him down; which lets face it folks is a nice way of saying we authorized the vet to kill our pet.

What for me was especially hard is the fact that mentally Wendell seemed alert and happy (although frustrated at not being able to move). Even though medically speaking it was clearly more humane to put him down when thinking of his quality of life, the fact that his mind was alert made it that much harder.

I miss our cat very, very much. The house feels incredibly empty without him. Although I'm not sure what the afterlife looks like (or if it looks like anything) I really hope that he's up there somewhere laying around and eating big bowlfuls of favorite foods, including some nice chunks of Teriyaki chicken.

My can dying yesterday... so not Tomland approved that even my most thumbsdown icon doesn't come close to being unapproved enough.