My friend and blogging partner, QuoinMonkey, has for the past two days been agonizing over her very sick cat, Mr. Stripeypants. Liz, QM’s partner, is also exhausted after nights of staying up, rushing Pants to the emergency vet, and monitoring his intake of food and water. So far, the veterinarians haven’t been able to figure out what’s causing the fever and vomiting.
I can relate to the helplessness that QM and Liz feel. Jim and I have had four dogs in our almost twenty years together, and we’ve dealt with the deaths of two, Roger and Rudy.
Roger I got from the pound for Jim after we’d been dating two months. I sensed right away that Jim was an animal lover — he talked all the time about his childhood dogs Tara and Shadow. Roger was Australian Shepherd mix with one brown eye and one blue. He ended up going with us on our honeymoon in Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons.
I still remember one cool pre-dawn morning driving through a misty meadow, giant mountains looming in the background. Several cars were pulled to the side of the road and a handful of people with cameras creeping toward a herd of grazing elk. We slowed the Camry to a crawl and rolled down the windows to get a better look. Roger must have just then noticed the elk because he let loose a ferocious bark attack from the backseat. All at once the elk startled and the photographers whipped angry heads back to see what idiot just caused the stampede. Jim stepped on the gas and away we zipped, a cloud of exhaust vapor in our wake.
A couple of years after we got Roger, a mountain-biking friend came to our place bearing a Blue Heeler puppy. She found him clinging to the side of the ditch and fished him out. She already named him Rudy and insisted that Roger needed a brother. Roger and Rudy were pals the way Otis and Rafael are today. Funny how our human children are girls and our dog children are boys.
Except, my dogs aren’t really my children. In fact, I tell my friends that in my culture, dogs are dogs and people are people. My grandfather was a rancher, and in the way ranching families often see things, animals serve a purpose. Dogs keep away intruders; cats eat mice; sheep provide wool and mutton; cows make milk and beef; hens give eggs; and roosters die early and often.
But truth is, my animals touch my heart in ways similar to (if not exactly the same as) how people touch my heart. I fall in love with them, and when they are hurting, I hurt. And the older I get, the stronger I sense the girl in me reminding that I never really did subscribe to my grandparents’ take on animal life.
Jim has influenced my changing relationship to our dogs. He’s even more connected to animals than I am. That’s probably a large part of the reason I fell in love with him. I sensed his expansive heart, his philosophy that life is life and that animals’ lives are to be valued as you would any other.
When Roger and Rudy died, Jim was affected most of all. He stayed by their sides for weeks to care for them. It brings tears to my eyes still to recollect how he couldn’t break away some nights from Roger or from Rudy as each was dying. How he cried and cried.
Three years ago I wrote a short story about a woman who leaves her husband for another man. Later, just over a year after the divorce, her ex-husband tells her he is planning to re-marry, which causes the narrator of the story to wonder whether she made a mistake by leaving him. Here is an excerpt from that story, which is titled “In the Moment.” It’s based on a writing practice I did about Jim and our family when Rudy died.
I hope, QM, it is not in poor taste to do a post about writing and the love and death of animals. I don’t mean to portend a similar ending for Pants. Rather, I hope to tell you that I realize how much your Mr. Stripeypants means to you and Liz. And how I know he is your number one priority right now. Take care of him, and take care of the two of you.
It’s Wednesday morning. As Leila predicted, Jack tells me about Luz. We’re sitting on a wooden bench on the front porch. I toy with the fingers of a gardening glove lying next to me. Jack’s hair is long enough now to make a small ponytail. He wears a t-shirt with a picture of a galloping pony. He looks good.
He apologizes for not telling me before Leila and Pip did. He figured it was a moot point if they didn’t go for the notion first. All this time he scans the yard. A pernicious grass we call foxtail even though we know it’s not foxtail invades the area where his garden used to be.
He’s going on now, talking about how the girls seem to like Luz, how Luz seems to like the girls, how they all love Edgar. You hate small dogs, I want to say.
I think about Olive, who died a couple of months before the divorce. She was Australian Shepherd cross, not that old when she died, maybe twelve, but she was blind and seemed ancient. Jack wanted her to go naturally. For weeks, he’d sit by her, pet her, tell her, “It’s OK, Olive.” Once he tried bringing her into the house but she almost went berserk. It was cold that winter. He fixed a nest inside her Igloo doghouse and carried this bed to whatever new spot Olive had found in the yard.
In the wee hours of the morning, Jack’s side of the bed would be empty and I could spot him outside in his parka carrying the Igloo. I would see him and think, If he outlives me he’ll care for me like that, sitting by my side, petting my head, letting me know I’m not alone. He knew I was having an affair and still he would take care of me. But by then I was immune to Jack’s steadfastness. Resentful of the alloy he and I together created.
The girls bluster onto the porch. They’re ready to get into Jack’s car. I ask them to give the chickens and ducks scraps from breakfast. We’re going to move the birds to Jack’s once he builds a pen. The girls run off. Jack is waiting for me to say something.
“Do you remember the morning Olive died?” I ask.
He looks at me surprised. “Yeah.”
“Remember how she just wouldn’t let go?” I picture a ring of our four bodies and heads bent down toward Olive, all of us crying. Leila saying, “Don’t let her die,” and Jack and me saying, “Yes, honey, Olive is ready to go now.” I tucked my hand under Olive’s front leg, over her heart, and I felt it beat, the valve slowly rising, then dropping. Jack told her, “It’s OK, Olive, you can go now, just let go,” and Leila said, “No Olive, don’t go,” and I cried big tears and snot that dripped from my chin to Olive’s body. I looked up at all three of them and said, as if to warn, “I have to say a prayer.” I waited just long enough for Jack to protest if he needed to, and then I said the Hail Mary. Jack sobbed, which made Leila and Pip sob, and still I could feel the rising and dropping of Olive’s chest and still she heaved out steamy breaths. I asked Mother Mary to take Olive to the other side, and at that moment her heart stopped.
When Jack dug Olive’s grave and laid her body inside, I think he placed his will to save our marriage in with her. I conjured my most perfect memento of us, testimony to the life slipping away. Jack, me, Leila, Pip sleeping outside on the trampoline. A healthy Olive underneath us, grunting in slumbering pursuit of rabbits and squirrels. Me waking up whenever one of the others rustled, and then falling back into dream thinking We’re a forest of aspens, connected by roots under the surface. When Jack shoveled dirt into the hole, I wailed, beside myself with loss. The divorce was final by April.
“I’m happy for you,” I finally say.
Now he watches me. I don’t have anything else to comment about his plans.
“Are you OK, Eve?” he asks.
Maybe he thinks I’m regretful. I brush my hand through the air as if to say I’m fine.
“You’d better get going or they’ll be late for school.”
[…] Check out the resf of this post over here […]
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YB, you are a powerful writer. I can’t re-read your story. It is that strong. It made me cry at work.
QM and Liz, my love and prayers are with you and Mr. Stripeypants. I hope it’s not his time to let go, if you all aren’t ready.
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QM and Liz…my heart to you…
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QM, I hope your cat is soon better, as if nothing happened. A couple times our Millicent recovered that quickly; at 8 the vet told my wife she wouldn’t live long, and she made it to 20.
yb, When my parents’ 2 cats died my Mom told me she didn’t want to get any more. It hurt her; yet they did, eventually, and dote on their 2 kitties now. These pets bring us so much, and ask so little really, it makes them a different kind of special.
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I had cats growing up. Tiny Roy. (I know, but when I tried to name him just “Roy,” my mom said, is that all, just “Roy”? and so he became Tiny Roy.) I won’t tell you what my parents did to Tiny Roy, only that it went back to the cultural view of animals.
I love cats, and I had Omar (he had a mustache) when I was single. I wish we could have them now but Jim’s allergic. As I recall, cats do seem to be prone to getting horridly sick and then bouncing back. I do hope that’s what Pants will do. Bounce right back.
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ybonesy, I’m so grateful for this post. This is the first time I’ve seen it and it does my heart good. We took Mr. Stripeypants back to the vet after work yesterday. We really like both our vet, Dr. Goldblatt, and her assistant. They are really good with Pants.
This is the 3rd visit to the vet this week and we’ve also made about 5 calls at various times of the day and night. Well, Dr. Goldblatt checked Pants out again. This time she gave us a medication that counteracts the nausea from the antibiotics. And she gave us another kind of antibiotic to try. She thought it might be a reaction to the drugs causing him the added symptoms he was having.
His fever of 104.9 was down to normal yesterday. But he still didn’t eat last night. And I was the one (this time) that broke down and cried beside him on the bed (Liz did the night before). Later, he did curl up beside us on the bed for part of the night (he was going off by himself before).
And this morning, for the first time since Sunday, he purred when Liz was petting him. He also ate a little wet food the vet gave us. And kept his meds down without too much energy. All good signs.
I really appreciate the well wishes of those of you who love animals. Some people get what it means to be emotionally close to them, and some don’t. It’s a particular kind of bonding that I really didn’t understand until well into adulthood. And Liz has taught me a lot about that kind of love. Our cats have a kind of Zen quality that I admire and adore.
yb, thank you for this post. And for posting your story. It’s touching. I couldn’t believe when I read the part about how the character was imagining that the partner would take care of her in old age and death because she could see the way he was caring for the animals when they were sick and dying. I had EXACTLY that thought this week. And it was so comforting to know. I’m glad you have Jim. I’m glad I have Liz. 8)
I told Liz about your post. I’ll keep you posted. We are more hopeful this morning than we have been all week. It’s been so exhausting not to know what’s wrong. And to sit by while Pants is in pain. I hope ben’s right. And he bounces back with a vengeance!
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Good stuff ybonesy…Roger was a special dog. I liked him.
I haven’t been a pet person because of my lifestyle…going here and there, etc.
When I got to Venezuela, I aquired a small parrot (a brown-throated parrolet, Arratinga pertinax). I figured he had a escaped death by predator or car. Some accident had led him have a broken wing and a friend found him before the feral cats did. I named him “Tio” from a character in a children’s book.
Tio went from a wild animal, to a semi-tame bird. I loved Tio and I think he accepted me, but hated my wife. He would ride on my shoulder as I rode my bike around the neighborhood (that got some stares from the locals). I could take him all sorts of places and he’d just stay with me all the time.
One day I left a boiling pot on the stove, forgot about it and it overheated. The Teflon vented fluorine gas into the room and killed Tio. He gave his last peep in my hand. I have now learned that parrots are extremely sensitive to Teflon. I felt so guilty and much remorse. I am still sad with I think about him because he had become part of my new family; me, my new wife, and Tio. We were a trio.
Sorry to hear about the cat. We love out pets. They are part of the family.
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I tried to read this yesterday and couldn’t do it. I made it all the way through this morning, in tears at the end. You are indeed, as someone else noted, a very powerful writer.
My thoughts and good wishes go out to Mr. Stripeypants, QM, and Liz. I went through a similar experience a few years ago with CJ the Wonder Cat, a feline member of our family. It’s hard when you don’t know what’s wrong.
CJ the Wonder Cat recovered from her mystery illness. She went on to hunt for a little while longer before being taken by a red-tailed hawk. I think the little huntress probably preferred to go that way.
Shana, a cat we’d had for almost 18 years, died in my arms a few years before the red-tail swooped down on CJ. She’d had a long life, bringing both of my children lots of joy and a few swats when they deserved it.
I still miss them both.
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It’s hard to have cats when you live in a wild place. Many cats get taken around here by coyotes or hawks and eagles. I’ve seen photos of your environs, Robin, and it looks like a haven for predators of all types. Amazing your Shana made it to age 18.
mm — poor Tio. That’s such a sad story. And the thing is, he was his own unique self. Any other parrot will never be the same as Tio.
I got Dee a rat (Norman) one day (one strange day of intense weakness on my part). He lasted five days. I took him wrapped in a dry washcloth, cupped in my hands, to the vet to give him a shot to put him to sleep. I cried and cried. Poor little Norman.
QM, the signs look promising…yeah!! Sounds like your persistence with the vet has turned out to be a good thing. Sheesh, what if the meds were what was ailing him most?!
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BTW, QM, I’ve heard it said that people in love should have the opportunity to see how the other is during travel or sickness before making any long-term commitments. That’s true, but the thing that I’ve watched most is how my husband is with his mother (because if he doesn’t love his mother, chances are, he might not really love women) and with animals.
As you know, one of the lessons I’ve had to learn these past many years is about committing to someone or something. Commitment to marriage, commitment to being a mother, commitment to being the breadwinner. I’ve often contemplated what my life might be like if I gave up one of those commitments, especially the commitment to marriage. Whenever I’ve had those thoughts, I’ve tried to examine what it is I love about my husband. The things I love most about him (his “solid as a rock, I’m there for you” way of being) are often what I’ve resisted most. It’s strange how this works. Or maybe it’s just strange how I work.
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ybonesy, yes, definitely travel with someone first, and see how things go when one person is sick. Sound advice. The mother thing – interesting about men and their mothers, related to relationships to women. Something to ponder.
No, it’s not just strange how you work – it’s everyone. The things we love most about loved ones and friends are also the things we resist and have the most trouble with. And the same when they deal with us.
I’ve noticed about myself, I want to be independent and strong and do it myself. While at the same time, I want to be taken care of and vulnerable. What stands in the way of having both? I do. I have to risk vulnerability, I have to trust, and be willing to receive. And I have to compromise. Give up control.
Being willing to receive – that’s one I find that many people have a hard time with. People can take, take, take. And live in this scarcity mentality that there’s not enough. But they don’t have the humility and grace it takes to receive what others have to give.
I have found that caretaking others is a way to control. It’s not always from the heart. I’ve really had to work on receiving. There’s a vulnerability that goes with that.
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QM,
At this point, if Pants is eating a little, go get some baby food…like turkey or chicken…scoop it on a spoon and let Pants lick it off. I’ve had much success with this route. It’s very important to keep Pants well hydrated…even if it means a eye dropper with a little water in the corner of the mouth. As soon as I heard the symptoms, I thought there was a reaction to the meds. Cat’s are very sensitive creatures…and very difficult to diagnose…just like people…and Vets are only so good, like Doctors. I’m QM, am one that does “get the emotional part”. Bless Pants and Bless you both for your love and kindness.
H
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A little update on the Pantster. When Liz and I got home today, Pants greeted us at the door and did some of his usual behaviors: rubbing paws on our pants, allowing us to pick him up and pet him, lollygagging on my shoulder, licking my hair (which I usually don’t like, but today, it was so great to see).
Pants also played fetch with me for a few minutes. His eyes are a little groggy still. And he gets tired fast. But he’s showing some very positive signs. We’re going to sit down to feed him in a bit.
Heather, thanks for the tip on the baby food. And thanks to everyone for sharing your stories. Hopefully, Pants will keep improving over the weekend. At least we’ll be home and won’t have to rush back and forth all over the place to make sure he’s okay. What a relief. The weekend is here.
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Great news!!! and I have a “hair gnawer” as well 😉
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Oh, my goodness. I thought Pants was the only hair gnawer. Our other cats don’t do it (at least to me). But Pants loves to groom. He’s the cleanest cat I’ve ever seen. And he loves to wrap both paws around Chaco’s head and clean him as well.
Pants ate a little Blue Buffalo Spa Select wet cat food this morning. But not much. I told Liz about the baby food and she’s going to pick up a few jars when she’s out. Beautiful day in the neighborhood – sunny, bright, and orange – blue skies. It’s Fall. I’m heading outside!
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glad. Mr. stripeypants is on the mend..
this story was wonderful, ybonesy. This part really struck me, I love how you worded it, “But by then I was immune to Jack’s steadfastness. Resentful of the alloy he and I together created.”
And the little motion she makes with her hand, a perfect note to end with. Releases Jack’s character to move on, but reveals something a little deeper to the reader. ‘as if to say I’m fine’
great writing
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thanks, amuirin.
I need to rework that particular story. It’s long–6K words. But there’s a lot there. A lot of potential. I submitted it several places, actually rec’d positive feedback. I think enough time has passed that I know what needs to change. But personally, I so dislike the revisioning process. I feel like I kill my writing. I think a lot of writers feel that same way about revising and overworking.
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amuirin, Mr. Stripeypants is a lot better. He’s still not eating but about a teaspoon of food a day. But his little spirit is back. It might take him a while to regain his strength.
Heather, we tried the baby food, turkey & vegetables. He ate a little bit of it this morning. Liz just tried to feed him again and he only wanted the Spa Select and a little of the food the vet gave us. He’s not able to digest much yet. But is so much better!
yb, I’m glad you submitted that story. Revising is hard. I agree – a lot of writers feel like that. The least favorite part of writing – revising.
Ann Patchett mentioned last week that she met a writing friend early in her career, and they’ve revised each other’s work for years and years and years. She said she trusts her with her life. It feels like she’s one of the luckiest writers in the world to have a mutual relationship like that with a writing friend.
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I believe strongly that animals are not people, and shouldn’t be treated as people… but that doesn’t stop us loving and admiring them for what they are. I have a mutt who is now 8 years old. I sometimes imagine the day when she will no longer be with us. I will be sad beyond measure. She isn’t part of the family, but she is a dear sweet thing who is loyal and affectionate, and will be missed.
Beautifully written.
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UPDATE: Sir Lance-a-Pants seems to be doing quite well. Liz pilled him with his last antibiotic this morning. He’s a little sluggish still. And we’re going to see how he is this week before final determination. So far, eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, getting into curious trouble, going strong.
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Yeah!
Hey, do you ever call him Sir Pantsalot? 8)
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Why, we called him Sir Pantsalot just last week. And, in fact, a lot over the last weekend. How did you know?! 8)
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[…] Birthday, Mr. StripeyPants. Here’s to another 10 years, and counting. I didn’t realize until today, you have the same birthday as Mom. I’ll never forget […]
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[…] me on the bed, running to fetch the ball and bring it back to me every time it goes out of bounds. Last year (after nearly dying), Pants also competed in the Olympic Fly-Eating contest and won the Gold Medal in […]
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[…] of us surrounding him. (I incorporated that experience into a short story, which I included in a blog post in 2007, when QM’s Mr. Stripeypants got seriously ill. Fortunately, Pants also […]
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