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Fri. Mar 03, 2006

Fuji Stott, 1992-2006

There’s a gaping hole in my heart. It’s where my kitty Fuji used to live, until I had to let her go on Thursday. And it’s a hole no other can ever fill.

I returned from my Dad’s bedside Monday night, partly because we’d gotten a talk with the doctor and favorable prognosis, and partly because Susan had called me nearly in tears at 7:50am Monday morning saying that Fuji was much worse than even her poor state when I had to leave on Friday, and she was taking her back to the vet.

When I was finally able to see her Monday night for the first time since Friday, it ripped my heart out. Again. And again. And again. With three cats all born the same year (1992), Susan and I had joked about how we’d soon be running a kitty geriatric ward.

It’s not so funny now.

And somehow, I’d always imagined Fuji would be the last. So did Susan. I never dreamed it could happen so quickly.

I won’t go into all the details. I can’t. It was so fast and so awful. But from the time I got back Monday night until late Wednesday night, I did everything I could think of to help her make even a small step back, and did little else. To try and get her to eat or drink anything. Sleeping on the floor next to her so I can comfort her and feed her via eyedroppers around the clock. Yet hour by hour she grew weaker, and the look in her eyes was breaking my heart.

We made another trip to the vet Wednesday for more fluids and appetite stimulants. For any shred of hope at all. It didn’t help. In fact, the appetite “stimulant” instead made her quite nauseous. She vomited at least half the fluids she’d been given hours before, and a river of bile. By nightfall it had become clear what had to be done.

It may sound strange, but Fuji and I always talked. She had quite a vocabulary, both in terms of words or phrases she understood (I’d say “it’s time to take a nap,” and she’d come join me on the couch), and the varied sounds she used to communicate with me. It was a true “call and response” developed over nearly 14 years, and she would keep it up as long as I would. And she always got the last word.

She did this time, too. She told me about her misery and pain with her pitiful moans. But mostly with her eyes. Her eyes tore me apart. An unbreaking unblinking pained stare. She was the one who told me it was time, even though it was my decision to make. She got the last word.

Susan and I spent the rest of Wednesday night making her feel as comfortable and loved as we could. I stayed up with her all night, giving her all the strokes she would let me. And then Thursday morning, we took her to the vet one last time. She went as peacefully as I could ever hope for, and stared straight into my eyes the whole time. But not with the pained look I’d seen for days. It was a look of relaxation. Like she knew.

When we left home that last time, we put Fuji in the pet carrier, set it near the door, and then placed Bosco and Coco a few feet away in front of her. The three of them never really got to be buddies, but over the course of nearly seven years, they developed a relationship. If nothing else, a respect for each other’s habits and space. Their own unique interaction, one that humans likely only undertsand at a surface level. And I felt we needed to do what we could to help them understand. The three of them looked at each other for a minute while we told them Fuji was going away, and then we picked up the carrier and left. We brought it back empty, and put it in the same spot by the door, still containing the towels full of her scent.

Bosco got in and sniffed around. He went to the few specific spots she’d been laying up in her illness, looking for her. Finally he got in the carrier … and stayed there about two hours. I’ve known this cat a decade. If there was ever a cat that was a joker, it’s him. And I have never seen him so morose.

At night, the Big Boys used to get shut up in the bedroom with us, and Fuji had the run of the house. Thursday night, we followed the routine of taking them to the bedroom, but left the doors open. About an hour after Susan went to bed, I found Bosco had wandered out. Now able to sleep anywhere in the whole house … he was laying in the middle of the floor on the towels from her carrier, looking pitifully sad.

Her passing has deeply affected us all, and each of us is far sadder than I’d ever dreamed. As I said the other day, Fuji was like my child, my first child, my only child, and we had nearly fourteen great years together.

Bosco and Coco are quite special to me, and there will be other pets in my life in the future, to be sure. But there will never be another Fuji. The hole in my heart may begin to hurt less with time. But it will never be filled.

Rest in peace, Sweet Girl.