RIP Blackie
December 11th, Otto and I took the 2nd cat I ever got to the vet to be put down. In a span of about a week and a half, Blackie got seriously ill. It only started with a loss of appetite and by the second day, we took him to the vet only to find out that he had cancerous fluid floating around in his chest cavity. We decided to try chemotherapy since it didn’t seem like he was in pain and he still looked pretty healthy (beautiful shiny coat and bright eyes) - but he just got progressively worse, to the point he began coughing pretty frequently and erratically and after a week he only ate about a tablespoon of food. We couldn’t bear putting him through any more suffering, so we decided it was time to let him rest. It’s the first loss in my little “family”.
Deciding to put Blackie down was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make and it didn’t occur to me that it was the right decision until I finally saw him sedated (our vet sedates all his animals first before injecting the anesthetic). When I saw him so peacefully lying there - I realized that he has not looked so peaceful in over a week…that this whole time, he was truly suffering. Yet still, now that all is said and done, I still think to myself “What if I just waited it out a bit longer?”. In the long run, I know that these thoughts are just a part of my own guilt…my own selfishness to keep my happiness alive. I am glad that the decision was made then and not after five more weeks of suffering.
I thought several years ago that I once battled with the fear of death but as I get older and realize just indeed how little time I actually do have and how uncontrollable life is, my fear still resurfaces but with a bit more maturity, if that makes sense. I was watching the movie Cocoon the other day with Otto and he asked me “What would you do? Would you live forever on another planet or stay on earth and die?” I thought to myself, how could I choose to live forever simply because I am afraid of death? Is that truly a life?
It is not so much that death scares me but that death takes away from me the things I love and live for. I once asked myself, why love if it all comes to an end? I tortured myself for only a short period of time because when I look at Otto, my sweet cats, my parents, my beautiful nieces (I have two now!), and the amazing children I work with, I realized that it’s better to love than to not love at all…
Though my family seems a bit small now, I don’t think I would feel quite fulfilled if I didn’t have Blackie in my life at all. That cat has brought me joy, comfort, and laughter…and I hope I did the same for him.