Remembering Bert
I cut myself today. Or did I? What I did do was make someone smile.
Yesterday, at 3:55 pm, our family cat, Bert, passed away. He was only four years-old. He was a black, short-haired male that my wife adopted when he captured her heart in a pet store window.
We brought him home to our first house and immediately noticed that he was rambunctious. He would play with anything and anyone.
Unfortunately, he also chewed whatever he could sink his teeth into: electrical cords, toys, and shoes. And it was his penchant for footwear that started him down an unhealthy road. A piece of my wife’s flip – flop had to be surgically removed from his stomach in an emergency procedure that ruined the lining of his belly. His stomach dragged along the ground and swung, a potbelly pendulum on an otherwise healthy body. The vet said that hernias could follow.
This condition, combined with an already ornery side made him unbearable at times. He bit us. And family. And friends. And then our oldest son got nipped. And a decision was made.
We stalled, and waffled on it, hoping that things would change, but they didn’t. I could tolerate the odd bite to my arm or calf. My three year old was growing terrified.
We tried to dwell on the positives, like the time when his meowing alerted us to the overflowing laundry tub in the basement. Eventually, the bad outweighed the good. By a large margin.
We couldn’t coup him up, and it wasn’t fair to him to spend his days in isolation.
So leading up to yesterday, I fed him some extra chicken and treats. I petted him a little longer in the morning, and I even let him outside in the snow for the first time (being declawed, this was impossible in the past). He didn’t care for the outdoors, which reassured me that a declawed, domesticated animal wouldn’t have survived on a farm.
So, on the most miserable day of this winter I did the most miserable thing I’ve ever had to do.
And today, when I brought myself to clean up after him, I slipped carrying his bowl. It cracked on the basement floor and a piece cut the thumb on my right hand.
He had got me one last time. But that’s okay, I know it made him smile.
