Jose
May 5, 2007
My cat died today. My little Jose. Jose Cuervo. Josefina-lina. Jose toes.
She was born on September 22, 1999, so that makes her about seven and a half years old. That’s not enough time. She was a sweet kitty.
It’s weird how much I miss her, having not seen her more than once or twice a week for months. Maybe it’s not so much that I miss her, but that I know she won’t be there the next time I stick my head under the bathroom sink. She won’t ever again knead my head while I’m trying to sleep, or stand behind me silently and creep me out. I won’t ever again get to pet her plushy fur and tickle her cold little toes and kiss her on her little black nose. I won’t ever get to see the pinkness of her ears showing through her solid gray, or feel the crick at the end of her tail. Or pick her up and force her to snuggle with me while she squirms to get away. No more sniffy tours. No more tuna yowling. No more sweet little kisses between her and Guinness or between her and Tulla.
It’s so unnerving that she was fine just this morning. My poor little baby was having seizures and in terrible pain. She went into arrest and they couldn’t revive her.
The technician brought her out on a little fuzzy blanket, and it was like she was sleeping. As I petted her body, I kept imagining that she was doing all the things she would have done if she’d just been sleeping. Like twitching her ears, flicking her tail, stretching and wiggling in happiness. Except that one of her eyes was still open. The other was squished shut against the blanket, but her right eye was open, and it was like looking into a clear glass marble. Jose wasn’t in there anymore. At a glance, it was her, but there was something missing when I looked more deeply. I really wanted to close her eye, but I couldn’t do it for some reason, and part of me didn’t want to.
We had to decide what to do with her body. The choices were burial, cremation to keep the ashes, or group cremation. I can’t stand the thought of her little body rotting in the earth, so burial was out immediately. And keeping her ashes seems so morbid. It’s just her body, not her little spirit. I’d rather have photos to remind me of her life, not ashes to remind me of her death. So we decided on group cremation. I can’t even think about that…my little baby cat being shoveled into an incinerator with a bunch of other well-loved pets.
The horrible thing is that I kept thinking inappropriate thoughts while I was saying my good-byes to Jose. All kinds of terrible thoughts would pop into my head. Things like “One down, three to go” and “At least Guinness will be happy now.” It was terrible. I didn’t want to be thinking those things, but my mind was all over the place and weird little phrases kept drifting through.
It’s Cinco de Mayo today. We always joked that today was Jose’s holiday, because she’s Jose Cuervo, our little Mexicat. Guinness has St. Patrick’s Day, Buca has April Fools’ Day, and I guess Tulla never got a holiday.
I can’t believe my little Jose is gone. It was just so sudden. I get a phone message that she was acting unwell and that they were taking her to the emergency vet. I get in the car and drive to the vet. When I arrive, everyone’s outside and Chris tells me that Jose passed away. It just doesn’t make sense. She was just fine.
Almost nobody will miss her, because nobody else knew her. She was a scaredy-cat, paranoid in the extreme, and pathologically suspicious of anyone other than Chris and me. But she was so sweet. So loveable and loving and affectionate. She was a weird little ball of anxiety, but there were times when she was so relaxed and blissful that it made my heart ache.
I miss her, and I love her. She was a good kitty, and if there’s any justice in the universe, she’s in some kitty heaven rolling around in catnip, chasing a string, and eating all the tuna she can get her little teeth on.
