Гвен Купер - Homer - The Ninth Life Of A Blind Wonder Cat

But, at the time, we still had to go through it all and make our decisions without knowing outcomes. Looking back now, I realize that I didn’t really have any decisions to make. Homer had made them already. All I could do was let things take whatever course they were going to take. But I didn’t know this then—or perhaps it’s more honest to say that it was a knowledge I resisted.

It was hard to believe that Homer’s condition could really be as dire as the vet had said. I scanned his ears anxiously when Laurence and I got home from the restaurant, and indeed, when I looked at them closely, the insides had a definite yellow cast beneath the black of his fur. But Homer quickly grew impatient with his ear exam. He was far more interested in the bag I’d brought home containing my uneaten sandwich. After downing a generous helping of sliced turkey—which pretty much depleted my sandwich entirely, and it was astonishing to watch Homer put away a quantity of food that would have more than filled me up—Homer trotted over to his bed on the desk beside my computer, waiting patiently for me to sit down after lunch as I usually did, and spend the afternoon typing away with him by my side. It was as if yesterday hadn’t happened.

I spent the next two weeks on a sort of doomsday watch. Every time Homer ate a meal with gusto (which was pretty much every meal), I counted it as a triumph. Every time I watched him chase a crinkle ball around, every time he cuddled up to have me spoon him on the couch, I thought, Is this it? Is this the last time? Every time he was slower to awaken from a nap than I thought he should be, I wondered if he was going to wake up at all.

I watched and I wondered—and I agonized. What was I to do for him? When Vashti had been diagnosed with chronic renal failure (and hyperthyroidism, and high blood pressure, and anemia), I’d forced pills down her throat once a day, and given her shots twice a day, and administered subcutaneous fluid injections every other day. I’d taken her to the vet for monthly check-ups and twice she’d had to stay there overnight. Scarlett had had surgery for her cancer, and I’d had to give her insulin shots twice a day for her diabetes. Certainly none of it could be described as fun —and the two of them had struggled and fled and clawed and even hissed on occasion enough for me to know how much they disliked all the poking and prodding and pilling—but all that had been a few unpleasant minutes out of our days, which the two of them seemed to forget completely as soon as it was over. And the reward for those unpleasant few minutes was the additional time we had together that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

But Homer wasn’t like Vashti and Scarlett. For the past few years, he wouldn’t even let me trim his claws anymore. I had known even before Homer got sick—back when I was going through everything I went through with my two girls—that I wouldn’t be able to do the same for him. Regular vet visits would be difficult enough, probably even impossible. As much as Homer loved and trusted me, I knew he’d never let me pill him regularly, or stick needles in him. The best-case scenario was that I’d win those battles (maybe!) but end up injured and bloodied for my efforts, and Homer would come to fear my scent and the sound of my voice as much as he’d ever feared the vet’s office. Homer would never understand why I was doing all these terrible things to him. What would be the point of extending his life only to rob him of all the security and love and trust he’d built that life on?

There would be no point, I had assured myself, back when Homer was healthy and these were only abstract thoughts.

But now the abstract had become concrete, and the sand beneath my feet had shifted. I couldn’t just do nothing, could I? I mean, maybe I couldn’t do anything —but I certainly couldn’t do nothing. The collective wisdom of Homer’s Facebook community recommended milk thistle, which I began liberally sprinkling into his drinking water. Perhaps it helped. But it certainly didn’t seem like the kind of heroic measures I should be taking on his behalf. How could a few drops of milk thistle be sufficient when I was willing to do anything—literally, anything —that could be done for Homer, if only he would let me help him?

I remember one day when it was especially bad with me, when the certainty that I was losing Homer and could do nothing to stop it was the only certainty I had in the world, and it sat in my chest so heavily I could hardly breathe. I was at my computer, and Homer was sitting on his haunches on the desk next to me, leaning the entire weight of his body heavily against my left shoulder, as he did when he sensed that I needed comfort. I went to his Facebook page and, unlike my usual habit of posting funny pictures and amusing little stories, typed a single sentence. How will I live without this cat? I quickly deleted it, embarrassed at having posted such a stark (and melodramatic) cry of pain on a Facebook page for anybody to see. But it had been seen already, and my phone rang a few minutes later.

Some months earlier, out on the “cat circuit,” I’d struck up a friendship with Jackson Galaxy—Animal Planet’s famous and infamous “Cat Daddy”—and, as it turned out, he was every bit as compassionate in real life as one would expect from his show. He’d called now to see how Homer and I were doing, and I laid out my dilemma for him, sparing no details in describing Homer’s recent visit to the animal hospital. I concluded by asking him the same question I’d been asking myself non-stop for days: Didn’t I have to do something more for Homer—try some new doctor, some kind of medical treatment, something more than what I was doing?

Jackson listened until I’d talked myself out. “Homer is sending you a very clear message,” he said when I’d finished. “And that message is DO. NOT. WANT. I do not want this! It’s not fair to ignore a cat when he’s talking to you that loudly and clearly.”

“But how can I just do nothing for him?”

“Treating Homer with respect and dignity isn’t nothing,” Jackson told me. “Seeing him through this last phase of his life—however long that might be—with mindfulness and love isn’t nothing.” He paused for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. “You have to be selfless now,” he finally said. “You made an unspoken deal with Homer the day you adopted him. In loving him, you promised you’d always take care of him. Taking care of someone means putting them before you. And that means you, in this moment, don’t matter. Your sadness doesn’t matter. You’ll have plenty of time for that when he leaves. In this moment, you’re a parent with only one job. You have to listen to Homer, because the only promise to keep is not to wait until it’s his worst day. Let him leave knowing love, not fear, not pain, not the flipside of love. Do you really want, now , to rob him of all that love and confidence he’s had in such abundance his whole life?”

“No.” My voice was husky. “No, I really don’t.”

“Just because doctors can do something doesn’t mean they should . Just because you did certain things for your other cats doesn’t mean you should do them for this cat. Every cat is different. You should follow Homer’s lead.”

“But Homer doesn’t understand the choice he’s making. He doesn’t know what I know.” I truly did want to let it go, to accept the reality of what was happening and make my peace with it. But the struggle had been too hard for me to give it up all at once.