Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments on Isaac the cat’s death.
I feel like I let her down. She was sick before Steve died. She had stopped eating and it turned out one of her teeth had gotten so bad that she found it too painful to eat. That meant that her liver started failing, but we were too blind to see it.
We had just gotten her home on the Friday before he died, so on Monday I ended up having to take her right back to the vet to beg them to take care of her for a couple of weeks until she was, and I was, strong enough to survive.
She finally came home, stressed and anxious, but happy to be there. And she was thriving for a couple of weeks. Then I found the lump, the cancer on her jaw that might have been the reason for the dental problems in the first place. They could have done surgery, perhaps saved her, but her long stays at the vet had made her attitude so precarious I knew she wouldn’t stand for it. And I didn’t have the knack of handling her. I didn’t have Steve’s gentle patience. I get too upset, take it too personally.
It feels as if all of my flaws are on display in my life, as if every inability I have is finding some way to gain some final, tragic importance.
Next, we’ll discover my inability to enjoy “Twilight” has given a Tibetan yak farmer the grippe.
And yes, before you ask, I am being very self-pitying and I’m fully aware of it. Just–at least if you raise yaks–wash your hands. Take your vitamins. And duck, okay? Just duck.
I don’t think we can help the self-blame thing in the face of death, be it human or animal. Death always feels like failure and failures must be blamed on someone and we generally choose ourselves. I know you’ll only drive yourself crazy with the what-ifs. As a pet owner with multiple pets, I’ve walked this path myself. Here’s what I’ve learned for whatever it’s worth–we do the best we can with what we’re handed at any given point in life and that’s all we can do. Issac died, well cared-for, knowing love and compassion. That was a lot, Julie. You have my sympathies.
PS. We have a feline Isaac too.
As long as your sense of humor doesn’t die there’s hope for everything else. And it clearly hasn’t died.
That kind of cancer is incurable. We all have to die of something. The cat had loving owners. Lots of cats don’t. You did good.