It was a hard fight, and he did put up a great one, but it ended last night at about 10:30. Leilani and I went out to eat for her birthday and came home not expecting what we found. Our sweet little Sugar, who had been perky and had been eating solid food for a few days, was meowing frantically and seemed to be paralyzed from the waist down. He was crying out to us and when we found him under the bed, we discovered that he couldn't use his back legs. It really caught us off-guard. We didn't know what to do so we called the Emergency Vet and brought him in. We knew he was in a lot of pain, and probably panic too. We held his little paws and said goodbye as the doctor gave him the last bit of medicine to take away his pain.
I didn't think this would be something that would be difficult. On top of the grieving process, I'm now faced with the reality of life. I recognize that my attitude toward people who've been through this wasn't the sympathetic, condoling one that people in this boat need. And I'm repentant of that. I used to think "It's just a cat," when friends would experience the loss of a feline companion. I was never much of a cat person, that is until about 8 months ago.
We got Sugar off the streets on Easter Sunday. We treated him like an Easter gift. It took me a little while to get used to a cat. I had a dog growing up and could easily understand what he wanted, needed, etc. The cat was totally different. He would meow a lot, and I couldn't figure out what he wanted. I'd give him food and he'd eat a little and then come and meow some more. He was always talking to me. In the mornings, he'd follow me into the bathroom and say good morning in his own little purs and meows. He'd follow me in to the guest room (where my closet is; the place I get dressed). He'd seemingly approve of what I picked out to wear to work. When I came home, he met me at the door with more meows, as if to say "Glad to have you home."
He followed me around wherever I went, like a dog. I used to joke with Leilani that he was a dog trapped in a cat's body because he did things like a dog. He never had a good sense of balance, like cats are supposed to have. He would jump up on the bed and stay on the edge, grasping to the blankets so he wouldn't slip off. He slipped off a lot. There was always something he was falling off of or nearly doing so.
He would do this thing with his paws where he'd spread his little toes out and in and move his paw slightly up and down at the same time. We called it bee-bopping. He also like to bat at anything that would dangle in front of him, as if he were boxing. That's where we got his name. It fully was Sugar Ray Leonard, like the boxer from the 1980s. We eventually just called him Sugar, and then Sugar-Booger. Later, I just called him Booger-boo. He became my little buddy. I learned how to play with a cat, which really isn't as unlike playing with a dog as I thought.
I adjusted to his kitten-growing stages of being constantly hyper and seemingly driving me crazy. It was hard after a long day at work to come home to a little animal that wanted to run all over the place and play. It took a while, but I got used to it. In the summer, Leilani took a trip home to visit her family. That left me with Sugar for a little over a week. I hadn't completely gotten used to him at that point. There were some tough times when it seemed like he was trying to push my buttons. But after a few days, we bonded. So when Leilani came back home, it wasn't that I owned a cat. Sugar was my buddy.
A few weeks later, we took another little kitty off the streets. She bonded well with Sugar right away. For the next few weeks they played a lot and seemed to be good for each other. But it started to seem like he didn't want to play with her after a few weeks. She would play fight with him and she'd win, a kitten out-matched in size and strength. We couldn't figure it. Then Sugar stopped eating his breakfast and dinner. He started isolating himself away from everyone and staying alone. It was completely unlike himself to be alone. He was the little guy that had to be apart of whatever it was you were doing.
Finally, I took him to the vet. After they tested his blood, the vet said he had kitty-leukemia and it was untreatable. You can read the previous entry to see how that day went. We started talking to other people who said not to give up, so we prayed and hoped he'd pull through. Last week, he started eating solid food from Fancy Feast again. Before that, we were trying to feed him kitty-milk twice a day. He resisted that, but we had to get nourishment in him somehow. With him eating solid food and drinking water again, I thought those were signs that he was pulling through and had been healed.
Yesterday, he wouldn't eat anything, no matter the variety of stuff I put in front of him. He did drink a lot of water. That was good. The days prior, he had not responded well to Leilani, leading her to think that he didn't like her anymore. But yesterday, he was her partner. He curled up next to her while she napped, purring all the while. He spent some time in the backyard in his favorite spot, sat in his window in the kitchen. He purred more yesterday than he had in several weeks. I thought it was an answer to prayer. When we left the house at 6 to celebrate Leilani's birthday, I didn't think anything of how he would be when we got home.
You never know sometimes. I guess I could be angry at God, since we did so much prayer and believing and hoping and trusting. That's hard to understand, why things don't go the way you want regardless of how you approach it. But if this was the way it had to be, he left us in the best way he could. We got 2 more weeks with him, he showed us love and gave us joy for a little while longer. He waited until it was the right time to let us know that he needed to go. We were able to say goodbye on our terms. His memory will live on, but it still hasn't really become a reality to me. I woke up this morning missing holding him like a baby. His fur always had this really pleasant scent. I won't get to experience that again.
My grandfather died of leukemia. My last moments with him were pleasant and peaceful, but I didn't know at the time they were the last moments I had with him. He seemed perfectly fine. I know it's a difference between my human grand-dad and my cat, but the same debilitating disease took the LIVES of two beings that were close to my heart. I can't have them back. I had peace when Pop died in that I knew he wouldn't live in anymore pain. I feel the same way about Sugar. But I didn't allow myself to really miss Pop until years later. I hope I allow myself to really grieve this time and be at peace with myself. I hope Leilani has that peace too.
We are planting an herb garden in the backyard, something we've been planing for a while. We're burying Sugar in the spot where the herb garden will soon be. We're calling it the Sugar Patch, in tribute to our little buddy and kitty. He used to have to be wherever we were, supervising whatever we did, be it putting in new tiles in the bathroom, doing dishes, or cleaning up. We called him "the Foreman." Now he'll supervise all the wonderful herbs and plants in his favorite spot in the backyard, and be our buddy while we spend time together cultivating new life.
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