My stray feline Strouper is dying and his life is so unfinished. I took him to the vets to find out why he’d gotten so thin, thinking it was worms. When the vet said he had an abdominal mass and his color wasn’t good, I was stunned.
Why didn’t I see how fast he was losing weight? Especially when I’d worried about this little guy’s health and adjustment to our household every day since adopting him seven months ago. The only answer I can think of is that I was more worried about his holding his own against his terrorizing Siamese ’sister’, my first cat.
Strouper’s previous life must have been unusually frightening, judging by his cowering behavior. He came into my life through a colleague, Steve, who lives in a house that is mostly glass and set in the middle of the woods. Strouper hung around until Steve took him in, in sixteen degree weather, thinking no cat without front claws had a chance of surviving as a stray.
Being allergic to cats and a creative marketer, Steve made a pitch at a meeting, “Does anyone want a lap cat? I found a stray that is looking for a computer lap to sit on.” I was in the audience and got hooked on the sweet and pleading photo of a skinny yellow kitty he passed around.
Should I? I wondered. I’d been thinking of adopting a second cat. But the timing was awful. The doctor was weaning me off an old asthma medication because it had dangerous side effects. And though I’ve always been allergic to cats and always had them, could my body handle another cat? I had to try because the cat needed me and because I would be living in fear if I didn’t.
So two weeks before Christmas, 2006, I brought Strouper home. Poor kitty nearly died of fright in the car, meowing his insides out on the dashboard. Things went downhill when he discovered I already had a cat - Mocha the Siamese. I was at my wit’s end keeping peace. I named him Trouper with an S in front to honor his rescuer, Steve. Strouper wore his strange name with dignity, even when my son asked if it were Dutch.
Ever so gradually he made progress, gaining in trust, courage and weight, moving his headquarters from under the secretary to the chest of drawers, to higher up on chairs, and then on tabletops. About 6 weeks ago, before he started to get thinner than he had been as a stray, he took possession of my bed, on top of the pillows. For one day he was king.
Now he reclines on the coffee table, cold and hard – but cool in the summer – with eyes still wary and half open, watching what goes on. He cannot get comfortable and I know I will need to take him back to the vets soon to be put to sleep. The vet said what I needed to hear: we can choose what we do about our pets, though we can’t do that for humans. I’ve stayed by the side of so many dying animals and it gets harder each time. I still haven’t recovered from saying goodbye to my last cat William, a favorite, nearly a year ago. I’ll bury Strouper beside him, near the pink roses.
Still, in the last few days, Strouper’s illness seems to be inducing the congeniality and harmony I was hoping he could experience. His rambunctious sister knows something is up. She rubs noses with him as much as she attacks him, then climbs in my lap for love, as Strouper has been doing. I’d give anything for things to be perfectly serene in his last days and, the fact is, he is making it so. I swear he understands he can’t do anything to change her but he can control his own response.
He’s making my life more secure, too. This wonderful stray has turned out to be a special cat by teaching me about living in the face of fear. The timing of his example is auspicious because my summer, too, has had threats of an unfinished life. Something suspicious showed up on a chest x-ray, a CT scan and an ultrasound and I have a biopsy ahead of me. It’s on my neck where Strouper gives the best little kneading massages. Now this kitty is paving my road with some of his courage. He’s not the first animal that has shown me the way instinctively.
Steve and his wife e-mailed their sympathy; they love him as much as I do. Their thoughts have eased my conscience and impending loss by reminding me that because Strouper has been through so much, he’s prepared for what comes. I tell myself Strouper doesn’t think his life is unfinished. He keeps conquering, doling out love to me as if it’s a staple like eating and sleeping.
Nothing makes time more urgent and precious than a health scare, so as I work faster to achieve my writing goals, this kitty’s courage will do more than inspire me. It will live on in me. Because I have so much to live for - meeting the kids’ future spouses, playing with grandchildren, visiting Italy and Egypt, making random friends, reading the books I bought and haven’t gotten to, and laughing….hopefully at myself.
As for Strouper, I hope his next life is outrageously fun. No little creature deserves it more.
