OCTOBER 4, 2024

One of my cats is sick. She has been for quite a while now, but her condition has reached the point where her vets and I know that she’s not going to recover. We don’t know how much time she has left with us at this point, but we know it’s a limited amount. Her liver is failing. She’s on treatment to slow down the process, but it can’t be reversed or even fully stopped. I’m trying to consider it a blessing that I can prepare for her loss instead of getting blindsided by it, but it’s still not easy. We’ve been together a long time now. She’s been with me for most of my adult life.

I Had Already Felt Loss When She Found Me

Callie walked into my life in the summer of 2011, when I was 23 years old and feeling very alone and confused. Since then, the internet has told me that that’s exactly how the cat distribution system works. A year before, I was convinced that my life was headed in a specific direction, and then it simply… didn’t.

First, the relationship I was in turned out to not be nearly as strong as I had thought. Then, the financial backing I had for my prestigious school started to run out. Scholarships I applied for had steep competition and I didn’t make the cut on enough of them. Finally, the owner of the apartment where I’d been living decided they needed the place for their aging parent. When my lease was up, I would have to find somewhere new. I’d been there a couple years at that point, so it felt like a big loss.

In an attempt to take control of my life, I picked up the pieces and moved from Boston to New Orleans. When I got there, I had some difficulty transferring my cosmetology license across state lines. Finding a job as a stylist right away wasn’t an option. Luckily, I had a few friends in the area who I could lean on. Honestly, that’s part of why I chose the city. One friend got me an interview as a hostess at the restaurant where he worked, and I was hired on the spot.

There She Was

The hostess stand at this restaurant was outside the front door on the dining patio, so I would usually spend the majority of my shift outdoors. One night, after I’d been there a few weeks, a very scrawny and hungry-looking cat showed up and began to follow me around. She was obviously starving. I asked someone in the kitchen for some plain chicken, and I fed her. Of course, after that, she continued to visit me at work.

More and more frequently, she would show up looking for me and to get fed. Eventually, she started to linger long after she’d finished her meals, seeking further affection instead. Customers started to ask fairly regularly whether she was my cat. I told them honestly that if she were my cat, she wouldn’t be nearly so skinny.

Eventually I realized the truth: she was my cat. I simply hadn’t figured it out yet, but she had. She had chosen me and there was no way around it. Because I already had two pet rabbits at the time, I had a small animal carrier. One day, I brought it to work with me and put it on the ground for her when she inevitably showed up. She walked right in with only the barest hesitation.

Healing Together

I took my new feline friend to the vet right away, and named her Callie. They estimated she was about a year old at the time, and had likely been on the streets since she was tiny if she’d ever had an indoor home at all. She had fleas, she was severely underweight, and she had recently lost a litter of kittens. Aside from that, she was in pretty good health for a street cat. What she needed the most was simply affection. Honestly, it was exactly what I needed at the time too. Within a week, her fur became softer and shinier and her bones grew less visible beneath her skin.

When I first met her, I could not have imagined what a beautiful creature she would become. She was so malnourished at the time that her fur wasn’t even growing in correctly. It was a couple months before her improved health proved her to be a longhaired cat.

As much as I loved the rabbits and bird that I already had as pets, but Callie was more of a companion. She would sit on my lap while I worked at my desk, play with ribbons or laser pointers, and snuggle in my bed with me at night. A month later, a neighbor up the street found a litter of three kittens that had been abandoned. Their landlord said the kittens couldn’t stay, so I took them in and bottle-fed them. Callie taught them how to be cats.

She Stayed With Me Through More Loss

A few months after the cats came into my life, I ended up becoming extremely sick. That fall, I lost a patch of hair, then developed a tremor. After that, I started experiencing overwhelming fatigue and extremely painful inflammation. I reached a point where I couldn’t keep working or make it to my classes at the college I had enrolled in anymore. With a lot of help from my parents, I moved back up north to New England where I could have access to family support and doctors more familiar with my medical history. Callie and the kittens came with me.

One of the kittens was adopted by a friend and former coworker, but the other three cats stayed with me as I recovered. They stayed with me when I moved into an apartment with the guy I was dating, then moved with me again when we got married and bought a house. He got custody of one of the kittens (Eris, by now a full-grown cat) when we separated. Callie and Monkey are still with me.

I experienced another long-term illness after the divorce, which I’ve already spoken about on here as I was figuring it out and still healing. Now that I’ve been healthy for a number of years, it’s Callie who is experiencing a long breakdown of her body. Unfortunately, her prognosis is much less optimistic than mine has ever been.

Learning of Coming Loss

Callie has always had quite an attitude. Since she first came into my life, I’ve been joking about how much of an unbelievable diva she is for a cat that started out drinking her water from puddles in the street. Now she’ll refuse it and demand a fresh refill if one of her own hairs is floating on the surface. So, as she became more and more demanding of favored foods and attention, I didn’t note the change immediately. Eventually, she started to urinate on things that she shouldn’t, and frequently too.

I brought her to the vet. While she’ll happily let me hold and carry her, she was so rude to the professionals that they ended up need to sedate her twice over the course of two days to run the needed tests. That’s when they found serious problems with her liver and her gall bladder. We started medication immediately, hoping it was early enough still that we would be able to stop or even reverse the progression. Unfortunately, that was not the case. When her jaundice became apparent, the vet explained to me that while I may still have some months with her now that she was on the medication, I was not likely to get years. She would not be getting better.

If she were younger, we might have looked into more extreme avenues of treatment. She’s an estimated 14 years old. She also has arthritis and worsening dental issues despite her special diet (she recently lost a tooth). Procedures and medications are much riskier for her now than they used to be. She’s still happily eating and drinking and receiving affection, but we’re monitoring her quality of life more closely now. Its decline will mean her time is coming closer.

I’ve Done This Before

This is better than getting blindsided. I’ve had a lot of pets since childhood, nearly all of which reached the end of their lifespan with me. There were varying amounts of warning leading up to the loss of each. There is no amount that makes it easy to deal with, but this feels preferable. I get to take how she’s feeling into account and plan accordingly. More importantly, I’m doing better at staying present and soaking up this time that we have left. I’m finding myself wishing that I’d been able to do that more with my grandmother when I was losing her.

It’s not that we didn’t know. She had cancer. It was spreading. She was in her 80s and treatment wasn’t working. I think at the time they gave her a year at most. She took three. Never once did I truly believe that the cancer could beat her. The woman was fierce, and seemed to me to be invincible. Knowing a loss is coming allows us to start the grieving process early, but I spent the entire time in my denial phase.

I understood she was sick, of course. I did what I could to be there for her, both to support her and to spend quality time with her. When I was with her, I made the most of it. I took more pictures and shared more stories. When I wasn’t with her, I let her know I was still thinking of her by sending photos and notes about the adventures I was going on. I’m so glad I did. After she passed, we found that she’d saved every single one.

Many Reminders

It’s not only the impending loss that has me thinking of my Mimi more. She was a very big lover of animals as well. Over the years, she took in many, many pets from shelters and showed them the happiest, most loving life an animal could know. One of those was even my childhood dog, Freebie, and she nursed him through his cancer. She made frequent donations to animal welfare organizations to protect the ones she couldn’t personally take in.

Callie’s personality also reminds me of Mimi quite a bit at times. There’s a certain shared attitude. Openly loving, but zero filter. When they know what they want, they’ll look you in the eye and demand it. Whether you like it is none of their concern. Mimi was so pleased when I called her a “spitfire” that she adopted it as a title. My Spitfire Grandmother. She didn’t live to see Brat Summer, but she would have loved its energy, even if she’d be a bit confused by some of it.

Moving Forward

I’m grateful for each of the memories I made with my grandmother, especially over the last few years of her life. That’s what I’m trying to keep in mind while I know another loss is coming. When Callie wants extra attention or treats, I make sure to oblige. When she’s on my lap, I’ll stay sitting a bit longer, even if it means I might be a minute or two late getting where I need to be.

She’s getting more tired. I can see it. She’s playing less and napping more, but she definitely still has some of her spark left. I think she’ll keep her attitude all the way to the end. I sure hope so, anyway.

There’s no way of knowing how much time we have left. All there is to do is appreciate the moments that we get along the way. I’m grateful for all of them.