Oh, Cricket. How did we arrive at this place? With me watching helplessly as your body turns against you, and nothing I have tried is bringing you back from the edge? We tried steroids; we tried antibiotics. We separated you from the younger cats who picked on you, and fed you wet food four and five times day. We even tried an herbal extract and supplementing your food intake with high calorie nutrient pastes. You are disappearing in front of my eyes, and I can't stand it.
You were such a beautiful kitten, and I told you the truth when I said your arrival on the planet saved me. On a Good Friday, a dozen years ago, I said goodbye to my beloved cat Berkeley, who was my baby for fifteen years. On that Easter Sunday, you were born, and a day later you and your siblings were abandoned at the door of the pound, a litter of kittens in a brown paper bag, in the chill of an early April morning. We were so lucky you lived. The day your eyes opened, the first human face you saw was mine, at the very moment I first saw your perfect little face, and we fell instantly in love. While the girls were fawning over your sister, whose gray fuzzy self reminded them of Berkeley, I knew that you, you multi-colored little egg roll, belonged to me and me alone. Of course we immediately adopted you and your sister, and you were so impatient to come home with me. Every day I visited you, every day the shelter was open, you turned your back on your foster mama cat, and climbed the wire of your cage to get to me. They thought we were so funny, sitting on the concrete floor of the shelter, playing together, until it was time for me to go home without you. I was so happy when they relented when you weren't quite six weeks old, and let me take you and your sister home, finally. You were so tiny, and you had me wrapped around your little opposable thumbs. I could be sound asleep, and I could feel you staring at me from the floor, willing me to wake up and lift you to the top of the bed. I should never have started that, because you made me lift you onto the food counter for years afterward.
As a young cat, you were so chubby. You got as round as a bowling ball those first few years, and we thought of you as a soft little dumpling for most of your life. You lived as a pampered concubine for over a decade, your only job to sit on mommy's lap and make faces at the girls when you told them that they couldn't sit on my lap like you because they were poopyheads. As a senior, you started to slim down, but I just thought that you were just getting to a healthy weight. It never occurred to me that you were starting to lose too much weight until a few months ago. I thought your bad attitude was just driven by those other cats who picked on you. How could I have missed all the clues until it was too late? Now you are so frail, freakishly thin, and no food sticks in your body. Neither of us is happy anymore. At least you are willing to come out in the rest of the house again, and not hide in your sanctuary in my bathroom. I spend at least a full hour out of every day cleaning up your messes from the floor. I think I've lost all gag reflexes and I think my sense of smell is destroyed. I get so sad when I pet you and all I feel is your spine and ribs. It breaks my heart to see your fur starting to fall out. I know you are miserable, and I am too. I don't want you to suffer, but I just can't make that irreversible decision. I can't do it, Crickie. I have to wait this out until the bitter end. I think it's going to be soon, but you keep finding the strength to hang in. I don't know where it's coming from. I think you need to come to terms with what is happening. You need to stop putting yourself through this. It's time for us to say goodbye. I will love you forever, Mouse Face. But all good things must end, and the end is coming very soon. Good lord, I feel like I'm dying too.
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