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Warning: many words ahead. I won't be offended if nobody reads them. I adopted my cat Kai from the local animal shelter when I was 16, just after the family cat that I grew up with passed away. My parents didn't want another cat, but I rarely listened to them anyway, so my boyfriend at the time took me to the shelter and that's where I met Kai. Kai was, without exaggeration, the best and probably only good thing I got from that relationship. That sounds like youthful exaggeration since I was 16 but trust me, it's not. They'd only just gotten him in -- he was out in the adoptable animal area but wasn't available for another few days. He was a huge, long-haired, orange and white beast with enormous gold eyes and as soon as he saw us he turned on the charm and begged to be touched and petted and purred like a thunderstorm. My boyfriend put down a deposit immediately and a few days later we picked up my new cat. I was (and still am) an enormous loving nerd so I called him Kaideus (Kai was the name I gave my JC Denton in Deus Ex, which I'd been replaying for the hundredth time). I got into my mom's car with this huge cardboard cat carrier and she immediately went oh HELL no. So I opened the top of the carrier and huge gold eyes stared out at her from a sea of soft orange fur and she said "Okay, fine. Get in." My mom and I had a poor relationship for a long time, particularly in my teenage years. The fact that she surrendered as soon as she saw him was pretty big. Kai turned out to be the best cat I could have hoped for. All things considered, he wasn't really my cat for very long. I only lived with my parents for another year before I left, but he loved me so much and spent all of his time at my side. He was talkative, too, chortling and mewing and purring. I was gone for a couple years, but came back for another six months when I was 19. Kai hated to let me out of his sight. He slept every night curled up next to my face, half-on my pillow. I'd wake up to fur in my mouth and cat drool on my pillow but I never cared. After I left for good he became attached to my little sisters. He'd walk them to the bus stop in the mornings and wait there with them until they left. He made friends with my sister's bunny and played with him out on the front lawn. After my mom got a dog he made friends with him, too, but he was still king of the castle and nobody ever forgot it. I don't know much about his next several years with my family but I know he was happy and loved and incredibly spoiled. Many times I missed him and wished I could have taken him with me, but that wouldn't have been fair to him or to my sisters. As it turned out, it would have been extremely unfair to my mother, because as the years passed and her dog died and my sisters moved out he became her last companion. She and I have repaired our relationship, but there's only so much I can do from three states away, and my younger sisters' relationship with her is extremely frayed, because my mom had a lot of issues back then, and when I moved out they became the new target. The last time I saw Kai was four or five years ago, and the time before that was when I'd been 19, but when I walked into my mom's house and called "Kai-kitty!" we all heard MIAOU and he came running from the other side of the house. It made me so ridiculously happy. I scooped him up and spent the whole visit doting on him. He's had thyroid cancer for a while now, and based on my mom's texts she probably should have put him to sleep a while ago. I can't blame her, though. As I said, he's been her faithful and at times only companion for years, because when she and my dad divorced one of my sisters was already living on-campus half the state away, and the other chose to live with Dad. Kai had been getting weaker and weaker, and he was down to just six pounds when, Friday, my mom finally scheduled an appointment for euthanasia... ...which she cancelled, because my youngest sister wanted to be there when he passed. I wanted to be there, too, but I live five hours and three states away. I think that waiting for my sister was the right decision: he should have died with two of his favorite people at his side, the woman who'd taken care of him for the last 10 years and one of the girls he faithfully walked to the bus stop almost every morning all through middle and high school. Unfortunately, that isn't what happened, because my sister was working all weekend and her first opportunity to come to the vet with them was today, Tuesday. Those extra four days were more time than he had. Last night my mom let Kai outside, as she'd done many times over the years when he asked for it, but this time he didn't come back. When he wasn't waiting for her on the deck in the morning she went out to find him. It took hours, but today, just as I was leaving work, my phone buzzed. She'd found his body, but not before a fishercat had gotten to it. Or at least, that's what we're going to believe, that he died in his favorite place in the copse of trees in her backyard, and the animal found him after he'd already passed. She described it as a "gruesome scene." I'd just gotten into my car and I didn't think it would hit me too hard -- he hadn't been my cat in years. He might have even wanted to die alone, outside, where he'd patrolled and played and brought home voles and chipmunks for his very ungrateful family. But I'd brought him home from the shelter, and getting him was the single bright spot I could remember in my teenage years, and I'd wanted really badly to be there when he passed, but I'd been okay with him dying with my mom and my sister there instead. Instead he'd died in the woods and a fishercat had scavenged his body, and at least I'd gotten the text after I'd left work, because I'm an ugly crier and I've been doing a lot of it for the last two hours. I've written an enormous wall of text and I'm sorry for it, but this is my only chance to say goodbye to my cat, who was the best cat, and that I didn't realize I would miss this much and this fiercely. I miss him, and I'm sorry I wasn't there, and I'm also sorry that my mom's alone now and if I'm this wounded by Kai passing I don't like to think of what she's going through right now. Anyway, that's all. Goodbye Kai. Thank you for everything you gave us. I love you.
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Jul 19, 2016 19:12
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 03:20 |
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I'm so sorry. It sounds like he chose what he wanted for himself: to die outside under the trees, in his favourite spot. One of the things I love best about cats is how much they live their own lives; sometimes we're lucky and they welcome us into their world, but ultimately they do everything on their own terms, and maybe that's what Kai wanted at the end. He sounds like he was a great friend and companion, and he is lucky to have been so loved.
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Jul 19, 2016 21:42
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Thank you so much.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:18
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Kai sounds like a very best cat.
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Jul 20, 2016 05:22
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Poor birbmod. Cats are kind of notorious for "run off and die" when they're ill and it's incredibly likely that he was only scavenged after the fact. I'm sorry that he was. You say that he didn't get the death he deserved, but as you also said- man, maybe he got what he wanted. Maybe he got to gently caress up one last chipmunk.
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Jul 20, 2016 06:49
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Thank you for sharing. Cant have been easy 
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Jul 20, 2016 12:39
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 03:20 |
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Goodnight good catte. May you never run out of prey to chase.
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Jul 22, 2016 10:24
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