My cat is being put down tomorrow. I am no longer moving up North. Everything around me is changing but not in the way I expected it would. I should learn to stop expecting.
It was hard to say goodbye to Midnight. I went to my mother’s house to see her during the week. She was still, calmer than I have ever seen her. She just lay on my lap for hours, breathing her little wheezing breaths. Her lungs are fine, she has just always breathed very loudly. That’s why we call her Moo Cat instead of Midnight most of the time: her funny way of exhaling makes a sound like mmmoo. I call her Moo Cat or Moomie or sometimes Shmoomie if she is being particularly adorable. She is very easily stressed out, so she always wears a soft cone so she can’t pull out her fur. The cutest one is her pink sugar donut ring. She looks so stupid in it. She has huge ears and bug eyes and this massive pink donut around her neck. I think she is the cutest thing in the world.
I have had a lot of pets come and go over the years but Midnight has been around for almost 20 years. I’ve had her pretty much my entire life. She is a beautiful cat, silly and anxious and particular in her ways but beautiful. I am going to miss her very much.
I didn’t want to tell anyone it was happening, but then I started crying at work. Standing behind the bar, facing customers and taking their orders and just crying. I didn’t have anything to say but the truth when I was asked what’s wrong. I’m sad because my cat is going to die.
It’s for the best, I know that. She has developed a particularly aggressive skin cancer that is literally eating her alive. They put her on steroids, thinking it was mites, but the steroids didn’t work and her whole face is covered in sores that she keeps rubbing away. When you pet her, she likes to move your hand with her paw and nudge you with her had until you get the spot just right. I felt sorry last time I saw her because I couldn’t let her do it, she just kept trying to get me to scratch away her scabs. I pet her back though, even though her fur was greasy because she hasn’t been able to wash herself very well. She was still soft and warm. When she finally left my lap the cold patch she left behind already felt like grief.