Inevitably the death of a pet makes you contemplate your own mortality. So I suppose I’ve been holding my breath and denying my mortality as we saw Baby Cat through his final days this past week.

Each year we celebrate our natal days; each year the anniversary of our death passes without note or fanfare. Although we don’t know the date of our eventual demise, in Baby Cat’s case, his two dates may well have been one and the same. We’ll never know for sure.

My husband Mark (with whom I share a 26th anniversary today) wrote eloquently about Baby’s Last Day and included much of his history.

Baby came to us as a tiny kitten with his feral mother. He didn’t purr his first year, but finally found his voice. He was so small when we first saw him with his milky eyes and backset ears that we thought he might be blind. He looked more like a mouse than a kitten. Eventually his blue eyes turned yellow-green and his ears perked up. He ultimately weighed 14 pounds, but we still called him Baby. Or Dude or Little Guy or Doodle. His white paws were enormous, compared to our petite Kitty. He was soft as a bunny, with back feet reminiscent of a jackrabbit. His long gray tail had 3 black rings at the tip, like a raccoon.

He was mostly an outdoor cat, sleeping under our spruce tree and the neighbor’s spruce tree. We tried to make him sleep inside at night, not always with success. But Baby always came running when I’d whistle for him, just like a dog. He didn’t necessarily stay inside then; he might meow plaintively at the door, wanting to go back outside. If the weather was bad or cold, we’d make him stay in. Or he’d come in one door and immediately trot to the other door to go back out. When the weather was bad, he’d check both doors, perhaps hoping for a different result, then turn despondently back into the house and lie on the bed or chair.

Each fall when the gas furnace kicked on the first time of the season, Baby would yowl in terror and run for the nearest door. Eventually, each season he would remember that heat was good (even if loud) and would drape himself over a pillow in front of a heater vent, fur blowing gently in the warm breeze. He would also nestle into the electric blanket covering our couch during the winter. Often he was forced to share the couch with Kitty and the dog. On exceptionally cold days, he would jump from the floor under the bedspread and nestle, a big lump on the edge of the bed. We never figured out how he could breathe under there.

Baby was a mellow cat, almost Zen-like. Sometimes he was too passive, submitting grumpily to Kitty’s constant cleaning of him until he’d finally had enough and would stalk away, head wet with Kitty’s saliva. He came home with scratches on his nose and occasional abcesses. We never saw him fight, so we theorized that he just sat there and let another cat swat him, then walked away back home.

He had his decadent side. He might lounge on one’s legs, like a tree branch, purring and cleaning himself. He’d stay there until my legs fell asleep and I had to move him to regain feeling.

He never really craved attention like some cats. He wanted it on his own terms, usually when it was least convenient to the human. If I was sitting on the toilet with the bathroom door cracked, I would see a fat white paw poke through the crack, opening the door. Then he’d pad in, purring and butting my legs. I’d say, “Excuse me! I’m trying to use my litter box.” He’d ignore me and continue to purr and rub my legs. Sometimes he’d stand up, balanced on the toilet rim demanding to be petted. When I was weeding the yard, Baby would wander out from the bushes, butting my hand with the trowel. I always wondered if he could hear the weeds’ protest and wanted to stop me. When I was working on the computer, he’d jump onto my desk and stand on the keyboard, producing an endless series of s’s. I rarely minded his intrusions.

We also had a winter ritual. When I emerged from the shower, I’d put on my robe, open the bathroom door, and in would come Baby. He’d sit in my lap in front of the wall heater, and I would rub his throat and vigorously scratch the top of his head. He would act as though he didn’t like it, shaking his head and walking away a few steps. Then he would head-butt me, seeking more.

He had a ritual with Mark too. Mark is allergic to cats, although not deathly so. Still, if we failed to make the bed in the morning, we would find Baby curled on Mark’s pillow, never mine.

I have many images of Baby: waiting at the corner of our block, until we appeared. Then he’d walk alongside LuckyDog as we headed home, shoulder to shoulder, cat and dog tails erect, parallel plumes. He liked to sway; if I was on the wood-slatted swing out back or the quilted hammock, he would watch the motion and join me, timing his jump to the swaying. Once we had an infestation of mice in the garage and outside, and Baby ate four or five in one afternoon. I witnessed one mouse sliding down his throat, legs and tail the last to vanish, just like the python we used to housesit. In the morning I’d open the front curtain and see him on the front porch futon, lounging in the sunlight, lazily looking up and meowing at me.

In October 2007 we went on a short camping trip, and when we returned home, Baby was nowhere to be found. Mark looked around and finally heard him mewing sadly, but distantly. In our absence, Baby had climbed the ladder to the roof of the house, but couldn’t figure out how to get down. The neighbor and cat-sitter didn’t find him, and he probably spent one night on the roof.

Mark’s blog entry explained that Baby blossomed after Kitty’s death in July 2007. Irony abounds even in the animal world. Baby was mostly an outdoor cat his whole life probably because Kitty dominated and bothered him. After Kitty died, Baby evolved into a different cat. He stayed indoors much more, he talked often after 14 years of silence, he purred more, lap-sat more, visited more people who came to our house, rather than running for the door. But he didn’t get to enjoy his ‘top cat’ status for even 8 months.

It took us a few days to notice that he had quit eating. After a week, we took him to the vet. She found an abdominal mass the size of a fist. X-rays and blood tests revealed that he most likely had inoperable cancer. The largest tumor was inside his small intestine, blocking food. They kept him overnight to rehydrate him, and when I went to visit before closing hours, he had perked up due to the IV fluids entering his right front paw. I petted and brushed him and sobbed for a half hour, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was terminally ill and unlikely to live more than a few more days. The next 24 hours we debated: how do you know when is the right time to euthanize him? Why can’t he tell us how he feels and what he wants? We waited too long to euthanize Kitty–what should we do for Baby?

The universe sent more irony. As soon as I got home from the vet, the neighbor kids across the street rang the doorbell. They had found Baby’s collar, which had been missing for more than SIX MONTHS, in the church parking lot behind our house. I was certain this was a message from the universe, but could not unravel the meaning.

We had planned to euthanize him tomorrow, getting him through his 15th birthday and our 26th anniversary. But after lying on the floor with him for hours, gently stroking and brushing him, I realized he was extremely uncomfortable. What was the point of keeping him alive? We injected fluids under his skin to help hydrate him, but he couldn’t keep down the Prednisone, opiate, or even water from his bowl. So we called the vet and moved his appointment to yesterday.

The vet tech wanted to take him away to put in the catheter for the euthanization. But I had promised Baby I wouldn’t leave him again. So she inserted the catheter in Room 5, the room that you don’t want your pet to go to, the room where Kitty and our friend Meg’s dog Jackson were euthanized. I stroked Baby as the fluids entered his body, and we heard him purring, even during the euthanization. Then the purring faded.

When we got his body home, waiting to be buried, we both swore we still heard him purring. We hope we were wrong.

During the last few days of Baby’s life, Mark and I manifested our grief physically. Mark says his was a taut feeling in his stomach, like he needed to puke but couldn’t. I felt a severe tightness across my heart, and tried to swim it out at the YMCA. I also felt a great weight of sadness. After Baby’s death, I felt some relief from the physical pain. Although we are both very sad, we feel that we did right by him his whole life. We have no regrets other than that he couldn’t stay with us a few more years. We gave him a peaceful end.

My friend Ann wrote, “Baby’s a very sweet cat…really the best cat I ever met. With visits every four years, I only got to see him a few times. But I will miss him very much…he was very good company while I visited, more of a buddy than I ever really knew a cat could be. He made me feel at home away from home. He is a beauty on the outside and the inside….”

Although Baby shared the house with Mark, me, Kitty, and Lucky, he was my cat. If a cat can love something or someone, then I believe Baby loved me in his own cat way. He would curl up with me as I read a book, purring. Perhaps it was my warmth he craved, perhaps my company. It doesn’t really matter to me. Either way, I am buffeted by grief. Ann’s right—Baby was the sweetest cat I’ve ever met.

Photo by Mark Justice Hinton