A Great Cat

This afternoon, after a VERY quick and unexpected illness, we had our kitty Maya put down. She got sick last week, lost a bunch of weight, had a LOT of fluid in her chest, and was having big trouble breathing. We tried antibiotics, and had the fluid removed once, but it filled back up . . . basically just marking time. So, to avoid a painful death by starvation, dehydration, or lack of breathing (within a week), we chose to end it quickly and peacefully.

The hardest part, by FAR, was the fact that Maya was Christina's best buddy. She would sleep on her bed, let her carry her around, and do all those things 10-year-old girls expect from beloved cats.

I was at the vet with Maya, and Cindy and I made the decision by phone. She then brought Matthew and Christina to the vet to say goodbye. Many, many tears. By all. And some good talk about why this was actually better for Maya, and what would actually happen. We talked about death (no, she wasn't "put to sleep" - she's dead), and how they would give her medicine to make her sleep, then some more medicine to stop her body, so she wouldn't feel any pain at all. Then the doctor came in, and took Maya away.

The kids and the adults then discussed the options: Either the doctor's office could bury Maya (actually, she'd be cremated, but I didn't want to get into that with them!), or we could take her home and bury her in our back yard. (There was a third option - we could take the ashes after cremation, but only if you bought one of their fancy-schmancy urns to bring them home in, and we would have wanted to sprinkle them somewhere, not put them over our fireplace. If we had a fireplace.) Not surprisingly, the kids chose home burial. So Maya was returned to us in a nice white cardboard box (I don't know, maybe the size of a nice gift ham?).

After I dug the hole (in the sunny spot in the yard where Maya loved to roll), we had a brief service, everyone said something, we all threw a handful of dirt in, and then we covered her up. Actually, the kids liked pushing the dirt back in more than anything else. And Christina put one of her shoelaces in with Maya, the one Maya liked to play with.

We got Maya in 1995 in Tallahassee, to keep Maggie company. Unlike Maggie, whose family we knew, Maya came from the shelter. We picked her up, and she snuggled into your neck and purred, "Pick me! Pick me!" She was only a couple of months old, and had some respiratory problems. We named her Maya. We nicknamed her "Wheezer." So she came in a wheezer, and went out a wheezer. Seems appropriate.

She was a most unique cat. Other nicknames were "Roadkill," for the way she would sleep on the floor on her back (she had more width than height), "Flounder," for her unmistakeable profile, "Dogcat," because she often behaved more like a dog, and "Jambalaya," because, well, it kinda rhymed. As in, "Maya, Maya, Jambalaya, Wheezer-Geezer pants on fiyah." I guess you had to be there.

She loved the outdoors, and her black chair. She took crap from no one. And she'll always be remembered as the cat who actually LIKED other people, as opposed to Maggie the Scaredy Cat.

We'll miss her greeting us at the garage door, meowing throughout the house in the middle of the night, trying to dash through a briefly open door, or "bunny-feeting" a hand or piece of yarn. Bye Maya!

p.s. And about 10 minutes after burying her, I was off to a rehearsal. Story of my life! (It was good, though - it's always good to be with good people.)