A Hard Morning

I just had my old cat put to sleep. She would have been 19 years old in about a month. It was time. I always said I'd never have a cat that got too old to use the litter box, and it was that point with Stubby.

But what a lot of time we've spent together. I got her when she was only about 5 weeks old. I was teaching 4th grade, only my second year of teaching. I had just moved out of my parent's house, and had also just lost a cat that was killed during the night in the snow; I found his orange fur in a bloody patch of snow the day after he was killed. I was devastated.

One of my parents that year volunteered with the PAWS agency, and would foster animals until they were ready to be adopted. She got me to foster a mother cat who had been found in a barn with her single kitten. I was to help ween the kitten, as the mother cat was already pregnant again. PAWS wanted to abort the kittens and get the mom fixed.

I went to PAWS, and this beautiful long-haired tabby cat with a little kitten peeking from behind looked out of the cage. The kitten had this short little tail that looked as if somehow part of it had been cut off. I immediately named the kitten Stubby. I took them home, and it soon became evident that the mother cat had some sort of respiritory problem. I took the mom back to PAWS for them to doctor her-and I have no idea what ever happened to the mom. But Stubby I ended up adopting.

She was so cute and so tiny. This was in May, and I hated to leave her during the day while I was at school. So, after getting permission from my principal, I had all of my 4th graders bring a permission note from their parents saying it was fine with them to have a kitten in our class (no allergies). After getting all the parent notes, Stubby became our class pet for the remainder of the year. She was an excellent pet. Every student had a little toy dangling from the corner of their desk, and when they worked, they'd pick her up if she walked by and cuddle with her. Also, she used the litter box, so that was no problem. Kids even made her a privacy screen. Each day she'd ride to and from school with me, and sit on my shoulder as I drove.

She became one of the most onery cats I ever owned! Pretty much she was mean or elusive to everyone but me, but occasionally she liked other people. She had lived so long that she had moved four different times with me. A year and a half ago, we almost had her put down, because she started to pee elsewhere. We thought then the end had come for her. But she surprised us. She's been like the Eveready Bunny. She kept going and going and going.

But this last 6 months or so she had just gotten so frail. She mostly slept, ate, and pooped, which sometimes made it all the way into the litter box. I knew one thing for sure: I didn't want her to suddenly have some kind of attack and be in pain until the end.

The vet showed up today at 9 am. I had given Stubby tuna fish this morning, and had the fire going. Her last half hour of life was spent with me, just sitting in front of the fire, and being petted. She purred and purred. When the time came, the vet first gave her a shot of anasthetic to put her to sleep. That was actually the worst part, since she had no muscle or much meat for the shot, and it hurt her. But then she just fell asleep in my lap, and when she was alseep, the vet gave her a shot of the lethal stuff that stopped her heart.

I think she had a good life.