This has nothing to do with reading, but I feel like I need to write about this. Feel free to skip it; it's the story of loving and losing my cat, Patch. I'll start with his life, as much of it as I knew. I'll tell you when we get to his decline, and you can skip that if you need to. It will resume after the photo of him.
Before we get to Patch I have to talk a little about Mittens. Mittens was the cat I adopted when I was 22. She was the first pet I had that was just mine, in my first apartment. My ex boyfriend and I went to the local animal shelter and picked her out. She and I quickly fell in love. She was estimated to be between 2-4 years old and had been picked up as a stray but there's no way she was feral because she was so tame. Mittens and I lived together in four different homes over the course of 12 years, and then she died of kidney failure at the age of about 16. It was a long decline and it was hard but I felt like I got to say goodbye.
About six months later, a friend of mine who volunteered at a local no-kill shelter reached out. "We have this great cat that nobody wants," she said. Patch was estimated to be 6 years old. He was painfully shy and was passed over again and again because people just couldn't connect with him when they came to browse the cats. He'd imprinted on my friend but she couldn't take him because her house was at max capacity. She trusted me enough to love and care for him, so sight unseen I agreed.
Patch came home with me in early April of 2014. For the first two weeks he mostly lived under my bed. I decided to just let him do his thing, but when I was home I would sit on the floor next to the bed and read. He would come out when he wanted to and let me pet him a little, then go back under the bed. Before too long, he started to realize that he was home and that I was nice, and then he would come greet me whenever I got home. He was a big dude but he had this cute, chirpy voice.
He went from being one of 20 cats to being alone, and I was working full-time, so he was alone a lot. The shelter told me that he wasn't really interested in other cats. He never fought with them and he never sought them out. He just didn't care. I still thought he could use a friend, so my boyfriend and I went back to the shelter and adopted Buster, a little black kitten to be his buddy. When they first met, Patch would look at me as if to say, "Was this really necessary?" while Buster played with his tail. The one night I felt movement at the foot of my bed. I turned on the light to see them lying there together, and Patch was grooming Buster. That was it. Brothers forever.
And this is where you can skip down if reading about losing a pet is too much; I understand. It's nothing graphic or gross; he just got sick. Skip down to under the photo of him holding hands with me and Buster.
At the end of October, Patch started limping. We wen to the vet, who assured me that he was just getting older and had some arthritis. We tried a pain killer but all it did was make him sleep all day. We tried cutting it in half but it didn't stop his limping. We tried a anti-inflammatory but that didn't do anything either. We had a battery of tests done and got second and third opinions, all the while watching him get weaker. He spent a lot of time nestled in some clothes in the back of my closet. Buster would come snuggle in with him and bring him toys.
Finally we brought Patch to a neurologist. Neurology is a fancy word for this will cost all the money you've saved up for your wedding. But I did it anyway. I couldn't say goodbye to him without a diagnosis. I needed to know that we had tried everything. We had a nice snuggle and we got to say goodbye to him before he went into the MRI. I kept telling him it was just until after the procedure, but everyone else in the room (I'm sure including Patch) knew that this was the last time we would see our baby.
The vet told us to leave because it could take up to two hours to know the MRI result, and so we did. When he called he told us that Patch had a tumor in his spine that was crippling him. There was nothing he could do, and even if we'd brought him there immediately it would have been inoperable.
I don't know what else to say except that we miss our boy. Buster would look for him, especially at dinnertime. When he got bored in the wee hours he would knock over the lamp on my nightstand just to show us that he was feeling angsty, sad, lonely, restless... Matt would just say, "Does the cat want something?" He wants his brother back. I get it. I want Patch back too.
On the day after Christmas, we went to the shelter in town and interviewed lots of potential new friends. Our criteria was simple: does he/she like other cats? Not just tolerate them but actually want to be with them? Because Patch was so important to Buster, and we need someone who will want to play and snuggle. It was a tough decision but we settled on a gray tuxedo cat named Banner, who looked so sad and scared in his profile photos. When we met him he looked us over, then let us touch his face. After thinking for a second, he rolled onto his back and requested belly rubs. (I keep saying we're going to rename him because I have no idea what kind of name Banner is, but Matt is lobbying for Banner Boxing Day as his full name, since we got him on Boxing Day and that makes it a "banner day." That's growing on me.)
We're still learning how the new four of us fit together as a family. Banner is learning the rhythms of our house (which are weird, since I was on Christmas break and Matt is still working from home) and he and Buster are getting used to each other. There has been some mutual sniffing and there is virtually no growling and hissing anymore. We have high hopes for this. My heart wasn't ready but Matt's and Buster's were, and Christmas break was the perfect time for a new cat to come into the fold, so we're doing it.
I thought it might be disrespectful to Patch to replace him so soon, but really there is no replacing him. He's a tough act to follow. Instead I'm viewing it as a tribute to what a great cat, what a great brother, what a perfect part of our family he was that we can't be a family of just three.
Our time together was much too short. We love you so much, Patchasaurus.
