The Next Day

So it goes. Yesterday was, of course, very stressful. We had come to realize by mid-afternoon on Sunday that sweet Boo had entered a decline, and for us to make him continue to endure it would be cruel. He weighed just over 3 pounds, and had not eaten more than a teaspoon's worth of baby food in days. And so it was.

It is strange to live here without a cat, although I grew up without animals, and so I was used to it at one time, and for a long time. I almost hadn't realized how many adjustments we had made here to living with elderly, ill animals, but even yesterday afternoon, I took the towels off the furniture and began the rest of the cleaning that I would have to do. Today, I took down the living room curtains to wash them -- Boo would brush against the edge as he slipped past to take his place on the window-ledge -- but then I saw that they were dry-clean only, and since they were cheap to begin with, I went out and got replacements for probably less than the dry-cleaning would cost.

You know, my motivation to "de-cat" the house is a strange one, which I'm sure I've mentioned before. My sister's husband is intensely allergic to cats, which means that not only can he not enter my house, my sister won't, either. Well, she will now, I guess. She has said that if she comes into my house, she has to wash her hair when she gets home or her husband will react to the cats when he hugs her. Hmmm. I'm going to assume this is true; I certainly saw his intense reaction the one time he did come into my house and said, gasping and with red, swollen eyes after about two minutes "Do you have cats?" So I know his allergy is real, I just don't know how real it is second-hand. And of course, all their grown and out of the house children have cats, including the one who is the provider of the so-far only grandchild. Does he visit there? Of course he does. Does he react? Well, yes, I believe he does that, too, although they make some adjustments or other to help him out.

Anyway, I have vacuumed like mad, changed or cleaned the curtains and the slipcovers, washed the washable floors, thrown out two pillows on the couch that I could not remove the cat-hair from, and ... what else? I don't know. My house looks very clean, as long as you don't examine the tiles in the bathroom too closely, but that's not cat related.

My bedroom door is standing open now, as is the door at the base of the steps up to K's room. They were both closed before to limit the areas Boo would randomly poop in. We noticed last night while we were eating dinner that we could step away from the table for a moment without moving our food to some protected place that he wouldn't jump to. (The stove is the only place he never jumped to.) And so forth. Our lives are easier, but out hearts are heavier. It will take some time.

Those little beasts just get right under your skin. This is the only post I'm going to write about losing him and making those adjustments, so I'll go on for a tiny bit more. But no more after today.

It is their strength and their weakness, you know, that they get under your skin. It's their weakness because, under normal life conditions, they cannot outlive us, and this will break our hearts. It is their strength that we can come to love an animal so, almost as if they are people.

BooBoo was the cat that listened to my daughters' teenage angst, and the cat that curled up at my knees when I came home from the hospital after my brain surgery and I was too weak to walk around, so he stayed where I was. He was not generally a cat who curled up next to you, although he always curled up to R. She was 10 when he was born, one week after her 10th birthday, in fact.

Okay, I'm rambling, and I want to be done now. I live in a cat-free house, and it is very strange. As much as I hoped that some day I would no longer be a slave to elderly, ill animals, I knew that I would be devastated when the time came to make that transition, and of course, I am. I didn't realize how much of the house was centered around them, and of me. My stomach is at peace today for the first time in a long time. Of course, there's nothing left after yesterday, but whatever.

Moving on. So it goes. Thank you all for your kind words.

WATCHING ELLEN :: ENTRY #1546