Looking Death In The Eye

My friends lost their dog. It was very sad. He escaped from their yard and was hit by a car. It's such a tragedy. I can't stop thinking about him.

I can't write about this. It just makes me want to ask, yet again, why there has to be so much pain in one lifetime. This dog was so sweet and so young. And he was loved. It's a heartbreaking story. He was only two. Why do bad things have to happen to sweet dogs and their families?

It's been a recurring thought. Many people have tried to explain suffering to me. I just can't always take in what they're saying. I keep asking the question over and over again. I must be in denial.

It's as if I never heard the saying, 'Life sucks and then you die.'

Seth caught another mouse tonight. Even that act is fraught with tiny tragedy. Oh, this one survived being caught and carried in Seth's mouth. When Seth made a big noise in the kitchen, I just knew. I hate when they're in my kitchen. I'd cut off more than their tails with a carving knife. 

I sound so mean, don't I?

But I really hate that mice might get into my cabinets. I have to do so much cleaning and throwing out when they get into my house, especially when my kitchen is at stake. I hate it.

So, I got a plastic tub with a tight lid and stood there, petting Seth and hoping he'd drop the mouse for me. He ran with him into the living room and let it go in front of the piano. Damn. I caught Seth's gray foot instead of the mouse he dropped. The mouse scampered off.

Both the dog and the cat stood at one end of the piano looking at the gap behind it. I moved the box of dog toys away from where the back of the piano met the wall. Seth struck a pose, but there was no mouse. Teddy pranced back and forth behind us. I played a couple of notes. Nothing.

I went into the bedroom where Mike was still up reading.

"Seth caught another mouse."

"Good!" he said, looking over the top of his glasses.

"Then he let him go under the piano."

"Can I get the pellet gun and shoot inside your piano?" he asked with a grin.

"No! Seth will get him. I know he will." And I left the room and closed the door. That man is going to put little pellet holes all over my house if I let him. My vacuum cleaner doesn't like to pick up the BBs either and I pulled three of them out of my carpet since the last time he got going after a mouse.

So, I sat back down to my friends on Facebook and had nearly finished catching up for the night when Seth got to rooting around in the computer cables at the other end of the piano. Usually, I shoo him out from there, but not tonight. He had free range tonight.

There was another scuffle and - Bingo! - he had it again. I grabbed the little plastic tub and Seth walked casually back into the kitchen.

'No, not my kitchen,' I thought. But there we were. I carefully turned on the light and looked down at Seth.

"Good kitty. Good boy, Seth," I said. I put the lid down so I could pet Seth. That had worked one time. When I told him he was a good kitty and petted him, he dropped the mouse right at my feet.

Yup! He dropped it again!

And I had it. I slammed that plastic tub down on the mouse. Only the mouse was almost too fast and I caught it at the waist.

I was not going to lose this bastard in my kitchen. I pressed down hard. I held it.

Carefully, I got the lid to the tub and slid it toward the half-in and half-out mouse. When I pushed it toward the mouse, it wiggled away, back into the tub. I got the lid onto the tub and closed the lid tight. I took the whole thing into the bedroom to show Mike.

"Look!"

"Way to go Seth!" he said. Seth jumped onto the bed, Teddy pranced back and forth, and I stood there with this mouse in a little clear tub. I get no credit, do I?

He had big eyes.

"It looks like he's hurt," Mike said. The mouse's legs were splayed out behind him.

"I squashed him when I caught him with the tub."

"Seth may have broken his back when he caught him. Good boy, Seth." Nope. No credit.

We both looked at his big eyes. I knew I should probably put him out of his misery, but I couldn't with those big eyes. Mike didn't say it. I didn't say it. Neither of us wanted to kill him this way. Mike could put a BB into one under the couch, but he couldn't look into the eyes of one in a clear plastic tub and kill it. Why is that?

As we watched, the little guy got his feet under him.

"He's going to feel like shit in the morning," Mike said.

"He probably feels like shit right now. I'm going to take him down to the baseball field before he escapes back into my kitchen."

"Bring Teddy. He'll want to go for a ride."

It was cold out. I wish I'd been wearing more than my pajamas and a jacket. As I parked in the lot of the baseball field, the dome light came on and I looked into the mouse's big eyes again.

"I'm going to put you outside," I told him. "You're going to have to watch out for the mowers and the little kids waiting for their brothers to finish the game."

He didn't answer me. He just stared right at my face. He was a very brave little mouse. He didn't beg. He didn't shiver.

"It's cold out here, so I'll put you into the tall grass." I said as I stood in my own headlights. I must have looked ridiculous, as always, but this was too serious a moment to think of what people were thinking of me. This was a life that I held in a clear plastic tub, a life that had nearly ended in my kitchen.

I opened the container and tipped him into the grass. He didn't move. I felt bad about the cold. I really did. I felt bad about squishing him with the plastic tub.

In the morning, when the little kids arrive for baseball practice, there might be a tiny dead mouse lying in the grass. There might not. Dead or alive, no one else will never know how brave he was as he looked me in the eye.

Thank you for listening, jb

For the Love of a Cat

Just about time for bed, I poured myself a glass of milk and, as usual, remembered that I hadn't given Buddy his evening pills.  Now, Buddy is officially a miracle cat, twice over.  More than a year ago, I visited my grandma and called her vet to come take a look at Buddy.  Buddy adored my grandma and had appeared on her doorstep without any front claws four years before she had to move into assisted living.  It was a miracle he'd survived the coyotes that hung around her place back then.  My grandma and the rest of us had agreed that when Buddy needed a place to go, he could come live with us.  We only had one cat, Seth, and a hamster.  I wanted the vet to give Buddy sedatives for the airplane and the shots he needed to be allowed to fly.  Plus, I wanted to know why Buddy bled now and then.  I couldn't believe that no one had tried to figure out that problem. 

This very nice vet came to my grandma's apartment and looked Buddy over.  He told me that Buddy had a heart murmur and might not survive the trip home.  He also said that it was likely that the poor guy had cancer in his lower intestine, that caused his bleeding.  He gave him his shots, wrote a prescription for tranquilizers, and signed a certificate.  He petted Buddy as he lay in my arms and before he left, the man looked me in the eye, and said, "Good luck.  I hope he makes the trip.  He really seems to like you."

Buddy wasn't happy, but he survived the trip home.  Fur was all over my clothes and baggage, even in my mouth, by the time we made it home.  I wish I could say that poor Buddy could relax then.  Seth, our other cat, made those next three weeks miserable by growling and blindly clawing under doors.  It was three weeks before I let them meet face to face.  By then, Mike and my friend, also a vet, was telling me to let them work it out together.

Just as things were beginning to get settled down, Buddy started bleeding again.  I took him to see my friend who said that since he was so young, she'd like to see and echo cardiogram about the murmur.  After three more trips, all very upsetting for Buddy, a specialist told me that he had a congenital heart problem that had caused his heart to enlarge, fluid to build in his lungs, and he probably had colon cancer though they hadn't done tests for that.  This vet said that Buddy wouldn't live much longer than six months and would be lucky to make it to a year.  In the meantime, my friend fiddled around with his food and Buddy finally stopped bleeding. 

That was thirteen months ago.  The joke around our house is that Buddy has lived past his expiration date, his second miracle.  We all love him.  He has the biggest heart, emotionally as well as physically.  He jumps up to join anyone who goes into the toilet, just to say hi.  I suppose that since he lived with a fragile old woman for seven years, he learned that she could reach down to pet him easier from the toilet.  Buddy plays with the boys with his toys, lying on his belly to grab what is being whipped past him.  His favorite thing to do is for me to recline on the couch with a blanket over me and his pillow in my lap.  Then, he'll lie on his back on his pillow and stretch his paws up to my face to pat me whenever I stop rubbing him with two hands.  God forbid I want to read my book with one hand while I'm petting him. He likes to have his head and chest rubbed in a way that annoys Seth when I try it on him.  His eyes dilate as we stare at each other during these love-fests.  Then he'll jump off, walk around a bit, and do it all over again.  Sometimes, I brush him with this rubber Zoom Groom thing that he loves.  His fur has gotten very sleek. 

This past weekend, I thought it was the end for Buddy, that his digestive problems had finally beat out his heart problems.  He'd started vomiting more.  It got to where it was just foam coming up two or three times an hour.  Poor Buddy cried out sometimes just before it happened.  What could I do?  It was only going to upset him more to be trundled off to my friend's office to get more tests.  She and I agreed that we only wanted to manage his comfort and anything that might be solved that was simple.  Mike told me there wasn't anything simple about this.

Buddy wasn't eating.  He wasn't drinking.  In between bouts of vomiting, he'd lay flaccid on the floor.  He didn't want to be in his little bed.  He didn't want to lie on his pillow on my lap.  I found myself lying on the floor with one hand near him sometimes.  Touching him seemed to hurt too much, but I didn't want him to die alone. 

I sat with him for the whole weekend.  I slept in the recliner, hoping to hear him if he cried out in the night.  I tried to prepare myself to find him dead under the coffee table when I woke up.  I hardly slept.  I didn't accomplish anything.  It was awful.  I was a mess.

On Sunday, I'd finally missed so much sleep that I caught a cold.  I sleep through my colds and while I was lying there, Buddy came to sit on my lap for a bit.  When I woke up, he was there.  His fur looked pretty ratty.  I could see where he'd lost weight.  His face was pinched and thin.  He jumped off before I could pet him.  On Monday, I noticed that he was drinking a little.  On Tuesday, he ate a little and kept it down.  On Wednesday, he played with my ear buds as I wound them up to put them away.  (I still can't find them.) That same afternoon, he put his paws on Seth's head and fell over with a thump to wrestle.  Seth wouldn't wrestle with him. 

Tonight, I was looking for Buddy to give him his pills.  Both cats were missing.  Seth had gone back to wrestling with Buddy, but I wondered if something was wrong.  I looked on the beds.  No cats.  The nest in the middle of the fabric on my sewing table was empty.  There were no cats under the coffee table or on the washing machine.  I went downstairs, calling, "Buddy, here kitty baby." Nothing. The fear rose in my chest again.  Would I go downstairs to find Seth standing over Buddy's lifeless body? 

I went down and turned on the light in the den and both cats looked up at me as if they were boys who'd been caught with the key to the gun cabinet.  This was not a cat who looked like he was dying.  I stood quietly for a minute and they both went back to their game.  They'd cornered a mouse. 

I moved something, the mouse ran out, and we all chased and grabbed.  Over and over.  At one point, this poor mouse stood panting as the three of us had it cornered and stared at it.  He was cute, with big soft eyes.  Seth patted him on his head.  Buddy stood ready for him to bolt, his tail twitching.  After I yelled a bit, Mike came down with a bucket to throw over him. That didn't work.  We lost him and he ran behind the futon. It was Laurel and Hardy meeting Tom and Tom and Jerry.  I finally got a small clay pot over him by the wood stove, a nice hand thrown pot that a friend of ours had made.  Mike got a paper plate and flattened it.  I slid it under and picked it up the whole thing, carrying it like it was a turkey in a roasting pan. I almost made it to Mike.  I had told him he was going to have killing duties.  All of a sudden, the mouse popped out of the tiny hole in the top of the upturned pot.  I threw the whole thing in the air and it came crashing down.  Mike did a soccer shuffle to keep the mouse from running upstairs.  The cats were on him again.  By this time, the poor guy was stunned and it was easy to put another clay pot over him, this one without an escape hatch.  The poor guy was ready to accept any refuge.  Another paper plate slid under, the whole thing dropped into a little aquarium we'd used for tadpoles, and he was caught and in Mike's killing hands. 

Mike ran some water into the aquarium, got it part way full.  I couldn't watch so I went back into the den.  The water stopped running and Mike came in and handed me an aquarium with a wet mouse, a clay pot, and a soggy paper plate in it. "I can't do it," he said.

"I'll take him down the road," I said. 

I took him to a wide place in the road, got out, and opened the lid.  He looked up at me.  He wouldn't budge. No, I was not going to keep a wild mouse in a cage in the house, cute or not.  I had enough cute pets.  And who knew if he had any diseases?  I tipped the aquarium and he reluctantly stepped into the grass and stood watching me. 

When I got home, Buddy and Seth were racing up and down the stairs and alternately stalking quietly over to the corner of the den where they'd had the most fun with their mouse.  They still haven't settled down.  I even had to go make sure there weren't more mice.  No more mice.  Thankfully.  Buddy took a break for a large snack and a drink and rumbled back down the stairs.  I think he's gained all his weight back.  As I write, he's been up and down the stairs three times, sounding more like a 50 pound dog than a dying cat.  Each of them has taken turns looking in the fun corner and crying loudly, as if I'd taken their toy away.  Miracle number three.  Buddy's not dead yet. 

Thank you for listening, jb