Eulogy for a Boonie Cat
Fang died last night.
The vet guessed his age at something like 12 or 13. That's 84 or 91 in
human years--a good long life.
I never saw him as a young cat; but I know he must have been
beautiful with chocolate brown fur and eyes the color of the moon. It hurt to
see him lying there, gasping for breath, unable to even lift himself to get to his litter box.
Cats are fastidiously clean. It must have been humiliating..
I
met Fang when I came to stay at Jan's seven months ago. Everybody told me "He's
just an old boonie cat. Don't touch him, he's dirty." But I did touch him and he wound up touching me. Before long,
I'd bathed him, despite his protests and trimmed his claws. Auntie Sachi, the
neighbor across the balcony, bought his food and I took him to the vet. Even
then, the vet told me he was quite ancient, but pretty healthy, despite the fact that gum disease had taken most of his teeth. We called him Fang because his front incisors were working their way out of his mouth
and protruded even when he closed his jaws. Some said he looked evil. We rather enjoyed his unique profile.
When
Fang started to decline his food, I figured it was just old age slowing his appetite.
When he disappeared a week and a half ago, I thought he'd gone into the jungle to die as some cats do. When I dreamed of his return last Thursday, I called it the wanderings of passing thoughts. But when he returned on Friday, dehydrated and yellow with jaundice, I knew he'd come back to say farewell.
The vet told me to give him fluids, to use a syringe to keep
them down--but not to get my hopes up. So in between feedings and crying jags,
I did my best to ease his passing. I think he knew. When I put him in the car to go to the vet, he must have thought, as did I, that he would never come home. His protests seemed to say, "Don't put me to sleep.
I want to be at home." So I promised I wouldn't. As I fed him, he managed a weak purr and curled his withered paw around my finger.
Last
night I came home late. Sachi said he'd dragged himself from her part of the
double balcony, to mine. She said she thought he'd come to say goodbye, only
I wasn't there, so he went back across the balcony to his box. It took him an
hour and a half. I got home at ten, gave him water through a tube; and as I held
his emaciated body in my arms, he rolled his head in my hand, gave a final gasp and joined his ancestors.
To
some, Fang was just an old boonie cat. To us, he was a friend. He eased my pain at having to leave my cat, Sweatsox in the states with a friend while I save the thousand
dollars it costs to quarantine a pet on Guam. He sat on my lap and looked at the moon with me when I missed home. He taught my two and a half year old nephew what the words "gentle and nice" mean.
For Uncle Bolo, aging and nearly blind, he was the buddy who
followed him around and never got under foot as the old man stumbled around and talked to people out of earshot. For Auntie Sachi, he was the baby she never had. He was our
companion, our reminder that love comes in all shapes, sizes and species. Even
in his dying, as he lay there, dependent on us to feed and clean him, he taught us that we loved him more than we thought.
As my nearly three month old kitten Mugoddai claws at me for
attention, I think of noble Fang sitting dignified on his second story landing, watching for us, hissing at dogs who challenged
him for his food, finally giving it to them to keep the peace. His classic cat
indifference was only punctured by his insatiable appetite. He always acted as
if he didn't need us, but he did--his final trek across the balcony told me that.
In many ways, Fang was luckier than most animals on Guam, and certainly
many people who die alone in the dark. Fang left surrounded by a whole apartment
of people who loved him and cared for him until his last moment. To all things
there is a season and Fang's time had come. It still hurts and it will hurt today
when we bury him on the property he roamed, under the mango tree he climbed, gazing at the balcony he used as his lookout. We will all miss him. Rest well Fang,
To some you were just a boonie cat. To us, you were a friend.
