I don’t know if I have ever been more glad that it’s Reading Week. It has been quite a slog on the teaching front, with a fair amount of marking (students from courses last term submitting revised/expanded versions of their assessments) and a timetable that gives me four straight hours on a Friday morning, actually an adrenalin buzz but the come-down is substantial. But the main reason is that the last month has been dominated by Hans very gradually deteriorating and fading away, beyond any hope but still hanging on, still purring and happy more or less until the very end; last night he finally slipped away, this morning I was out in the rain burying him, and now I am very happy that I don’t have to make an effort to talk to students or put up a front, but can just stay at home, cleaning – he’s been down in the sitting room for the last week and a half, as he became less capable of managing stairs or the jump up onto the bed, and we didn’t want to disturb him, and now it smells – and occasionally sniffling and sobbing.
In some ways this feels very sudden – he wasn’t that old, and even though he’s largely been confined to his basket for weeks, it still feels incredibly abrupt that there are now only two cats in the house (and I feel this). In other ways it’s not sudden at all, not just because we’ve had nearly a month of knowing it was just a matter of time, and not just in comparison with his sister’s very rapid decline back in November, but because he’s been chronically ill pretty well all his life. Both the twins had a vicious digestive infection as kittens, and lots of antibiotics as a result – and he then suffered from regular chest infections (cue more antibiotics, until a vet suggested it might be asthma) and endless digestive problems (initially tackled with drugs and laxative, until we discovered a special fibre-rich food that largely solved the problem – if only we’d known about it years before). No wonder his whole system was a mess.
It must be admitted that Hans didn’t always endure this stoically – understandably, one might say, given that he obviously felt thoroughly rubbish at times and we (and the vets) completely failed to grasp what was wrong. He gave me years of disturbed nights, prodding me awake or crying, and all I could do was stroke him and try to calm him down in the hope that he wouldn’t also wake A.. He pissed EVERYWHERE – on the rosemary bush just outside the back door (that is now on its last legs), on the kitchen furniture, on the bedroom door, on my chest of drawers, and on the coat of a visitor who had a cat. This provoked our biggest rows about child-rearing methods, so to speak; I argued for a cat psychologist, A. shouted at him and tried to terrify him into obedience. At some point, I suppose, we will have to come to terms with no longer needing to strew mats and puppy pads all round the house to limit the damage.
Certainly he was my cat in the “if we ever divorce, you’re taking that one” sense, but there was a deeper bond. The idea of a ‘spirit animal’ is New Agey, cultural appropriation-y bollocks, but it did feel at times that he was something like that. After a while, it wasn’t that he woke me, but that I simply woke when he needed my attention, and vice versa – and as someone who regularly suffers from raging insomnia, I am desperately going to miss having a cat who would come and cuddle when I needed company at three in the morning. Especially over the last three and a half years of my own chronic fatigue and tendency to phlegm and other flu symptoms, I’ve had a lot more appreciation of his relative stoicism (and no envy of his lack of inhibition in expressing discomfort or insecurity by pissing everywhere, not at all, honest).
For I will consider my cat Hans. For he appreciated every moment of sunshine, if only to go to sleep in it. For he was patient with annoying over-exuberant kittens, and knew when to take himself off on his own rather than squabbling over the cat basket. For he thoroughly appreciated his food. For he defended his territory with a fierce determination, but never to the point of violence. For even when he lost his voice he would purr deafeningly, to express contentment and love. For he was gentle, and patient, and endured. And I honestly don’t know if these final weeks have been trying to teach me a lesson about fortitude, or about the perils of bloody-minded stubbornness.
Sphinx 