miss kitty
life. life! life...
well i was doing great! paying off old credit card debt. working weekends - cooking food demos (haha, yeah me cooking). so i've been going out less and staying in more. taking care of myself. going to physical therapy twice a week to fix my broken fingers (in the a.m.) so i'm getting up earlier, which means drinking less. yesterday i started walking around town lake cuz it's finally cooling off a bit. i think i walked about five miles, i don't know, i hadn't done it before, i was just walking. but things were going great. solo, but nice. relaxing. healthier. haven't smoked since june 4th.
cooked a big batch of potato soup last night. dunno, trying new things, trying to eat healthier too. trying to pay my bills on time. and tend to things as i should. so i woke up early this morning to take miss kitty to the vet for her annual shots...then a few hours ago they called me and said they heard a heart murmur and it might be serious and they need to do bloodwork and if they don't find anything then they'll have to do an ultrasound of the heart. well that just sucks. and on top of it sucking, it costs a lot of money. just as i was trying to be happy and take care of things, something goes wrong. that's just life. but it keeps surprising me in a wicked way every time.
as i was walking around town lake yesterday, i was thinking to myself. uh-oh, i feel too good. i feel too happy. i feel too healthy. something's gonna go wrong. now i know what self-fulfilling prophecies are, but this is not one of them. it's just that the powers-at-be do not like to see too many things in my life going well at the same time. they just don't. they're like uh-oh, we missed it, jill's happy & healthy, we gotta go send something bad her way...
so, if you had caught me this morning, i would have been bouncing off the walls. happy & energetic & healthy & crawling out of debt. and now, this afternoon, all i want to do is curl up and watch movies and stay in bed. and listen to miss kitty purr.
i was sitting at my desk crying earlier today. it's not like i'm one of those girls whose pet is her life and has a picture of her cat on her desk. so fuck you for thinking that. i'm one of those people who let another living being into my life (at a point when i didn't even like cats) and this creature has been the only constant thing in my life for the past 13 years. boyfriends. roommates. houses. jobs. cars. friends (well my friends stick around pretty long too). but seriously, the ONE thing, the one breathing thing that i knew would be there in the morning when i woke up. and it was always comforting to know that.
when i was in thailand, it was miss kitty and only miss kitty that i worried about back home during those couple weeks i was gone. when i took her in to the vet this morning, then ran back home to get ready for work, there was a weird feeling knowing that she wasn't in my room, that she wasn't in the house at all. and i thought to myself, it's gonna be like this some day. i'll forget she's gone, and i'll come in and do my little "misss kiiiitty" thing, and then i'll realize that she's gone, and i forgot, and that's that. and no i don't want another cat. i didn't even want her, if you know the story, then you know that she was pregnant on my steps in 1993 and wouldn't go away. so i finally let her in. but wouldn't "let" her in...until she gave birth to three (and only three) little kitties (who, in fact, turned out to be some of the coolest cats i had ever met). i wasn't a cat person. will never be. but then she was never really a cat. she used to scratch the door like a dog to let her out. she was her own person. and she picked me.
when she's gone, that's it. and now i can be homeless. i can travel. i can disappear. she was my *only* responsibility. i don't see how people can just give their cats away, if they have to move, or if their boyfriend is allergic. i'm not a cat person. but i'm a miss kitty person. (her, um, 'birth certificate' name at the vet is actually freaker. because she was such a freak in the beginning, meaning she wouldn't go away. but she didn't want me to touch her either. little did i know then that she was pregnant at the time.) but i couldn't give away miss kitty. ever. or live in a place that didn't allow cats. i mean, these things weren't even an option, once she picked me and i pretty much said, yes i'll take care of you, you are safe here, you can relax now. well, that was it. done deal.
seriously, i was getting teary-eyed at work, and kept asking the vet on the phone, well what does this mean and what does that mean. and she kept evading my questions, "we won't know till we get the bloodwork back" and i'm like sorry but i need the worst-case scenario. i have seen people, human beings, deteriorate in front of my eyes because the doctors aren't honest enough to tell you how serious some medical problems are. i knew this was coming, that the death of my cat would make me cry more than the death of my father. just because i didn't cry at my father's death. i couldn't. i was "the strong one." i had to fake it and make all the arrangements and let them lean on me. but after that, after that i would shake my cat awake every night when i didn't hear her breathing, "are you dead?" "are you dead?" that's all i kept thinking. she's next. when someone passes away in the same room as you, "are you dead?" "are you still breathing?" those words. in your head. are frightening. and peaceful. and confusing. and should be changed to, "are you no longer in pain?"
i was sitting there at the vet's office earlier, i wanted to pick her up and get her out of there as soon as they told me the news over the phone, and i ended up being one of those people (but not really, cuz i would do anything for her) who asks, well how much will this cost? as if there is a price limit to what i would do for my cat. well there is, isn't there? i mean, i could afford a couple hundred (which i had to slap down today, which i don't have). but i mean i really honestly couldn't afford a couple thousand if that was the surgery cost. i was thinking that in my head. i can't afford this. and what terrible terrible thoughts to go through one's mind. then i'm writing my check for $188.70 going oh please let the bloodwork results show something because i'm positively sure i can't afford an ultrasound of her heart. (i wouldn't even go to the doctor for my own broken fingers cuz i was afraid of the cost. and now that i'm paying those costs, i'm also having to work weekends to cover those extra costs).
well anyway, so i'm sitting there, writing my check. and the older man next to me is getting a little aggravated, no, just a little upset. and you could hear the young receptionist's inexperience quivering in her voice as she asked "well did she ask for an estimate?" this was after she relayed his total to him, which was in the upper 100s like mine, which is why i overheard (also because they were standing right next to me). and he says, "yes, my daughter came in and was told it'd be 60 to 80." and then, my receptionist had to help the less experienced receptionist, and i heard the words, heard the words that i know i couldn't say for myself and realized that i would plop down whatever dollar amount and get whatever third job that i had to to pay for it all. (as i sit here crying at my desk, typing this, four hours after it has happened.)
the receptionist says, "well, we can't perform euthanasia without an exam if you have never seen us before."
their conversation continues, but i don't hear another word, as i turn around and look on the floor. and there is this big black beautiful old dog with some gray around his face. and half his belly & side are rubbed raw without hair, from himself or from whatever malady he might have. and he looked at me, he looked at me with those eyes. and i tried to read them so hard. tried to see if they were saying please do not kill me. please do not kill me. or if they were saying, i'm old and tired, i'm too tired to keep walking behind these people. i'm ready. or if his eyes were just saying, hi lady. what are you doing here? cuz i'm just enjoying the air conditioning and this cold tile floor. and the tears just started pouring down my face for this old dog. and for my miss kitty. who i don't think i could ever put to sleep. and i don't think i could ever watch her wither away in front of my eyes either. and i knew right then why this man's daughter was unable to take this old dog in to the vet's office to put it to sleep. because she saw in his eyes, that trusting look. or that unknowing look. but she did not find the it's time for me to die look, so she had to send in her father and brother. and maybe even uncle. and i'm about to break down standing there in public.
and then it was said. "well you could just go do it at the town lake shelter for five bucks if you want."
and that was it. and i burst. it took three men sitting there. one old dog. miss kitty still behind the doors in the lab. and the mention of $5 euthanasia at the town lake shelter. and i could no longer hold back the tears as i'm standing there, deciding if i want to spend $188 on miss kitty. as i look over the counter's edge at her file, and see "1993." she's been visiting this same vet since 1993 when she came in. an alley whore who was a homeless teenage pregnancy case. who needed a home. and she found one in a crazy 21-year-old girl who didn't even like cats, but was someone who knew what it felt like needing to feel safe somewhere, needing somewhere to call home.
and.
and i could barely choke out to my receptionist, "do you have a restroom?"
"two doors to the left." as she didn't even look up.
and i went to the bathroom. to cry. i didn't have any resolution when i walked out, but i looked at that dog again. i didn't want to look too long. i didn't want those men to think i was judging them, cuz that's not what i was doing. my mom put my dog, that we grew up with, to sleep many years ago. cuz our dog couldn't see. could barely walk. and could no longer hold her bladder. but mom tried before she could do it. twice, before she was actually able. she would get Licorice in the car, and by the time they got to the vet, she was perky again and happy to be out and looking alive, and my mom just couldn't do it. i was in college at the time, so i wasn't really personally there. but she told me again, she tried again. but couldn't go through with it. again. then she'd take her home, where she'd do nothing, just lie on the kitchen floor for another stretch of time. running into things when she did get up. incontinence. and all this, these memories that i had not thought of in years (this must have been early 90s also), i hadn't thought of especially cuz i wasn't there at home, came flooding back (and probably more vivid than memories, they came flooding back as reenactments of that which i had never seen before) as i looked into this old dog's eyes. and still saw life.
it's not my decision to end life. life ends itself. life begins itself.
we're all just passing through. but still, it breaks my heart every time.
