Death and Cats

photo by Zero86.

A guy at work recently experienced the unfortunate loss of his mom, who died of cancer after a year-long series of misdiagnoses, chemotherapy, and pain management. “Pain management” sounds so abstract and antiseptic. We are not in the doctor’s office now, so let’s drop this façade of decorum and speak truly. It is more accurate to say “…a year of doctors making mistakes, of injecting poison into her body, of puking out her guts and watching herself slowly waste away in the mirror until becoming unrecognizable.” In the end, we greedily take the pills that deliver us from pain, even at the cost of losing our awareness. For most of us, it is even better to lose that awareness, because all thoughts are focused on the fact that death is real and it has finally arrived. It is no longer a concept, and we can’t stop wondering what is going to happen the moment the lights go out.

Westerners don’t deal with death gracefully, as we know. Our culture is wired more towards the here and now, and any thoughts about when we are gone gravitate immediately to the lives of our children, and often times for some odd reason, to how high their taxes are going to be. Spirituality is left to the mysterious meetings my neighbors and coworkers attend in dark, musty churches around the metro. I don’t know what they talk about in there--aside from the odd Christmas service, I have never attended church--but whatever is said, it doesn’t appear to prepare us to confront, or better yet “embrace,” our mortality.

Anyway, this is getting way heavier than I intended. I meant to tell you about the more curious episode of my coworker’s Mom and her pet cats. It was her wish that when she dies, her cats get put down. Upon hearing this, my first thought flashed to the ancient Hindu practice of the recently widowed wife leaping into her husband’s funeral pyre to accompany him into the afterlife. Yeah, that was a real thing, and you can read up about Sati on Wikipedia.

Why did his Mom want the cats put down? Probably to bring something loved and familiar with her into the unknown. If she didn’t believe in the afterlife, then maybe she was afraid nobody would take care of the cats and they would suffer. She knew that her surviving husband never liked cats.

During her last days, the kids tried to talk her out of it. There were other options, like the humane society and pet adoption. It raised ethical questions, particularly for those of us who consider an animal’s life as precious as human life. They were unable to change her mind.

The mom died. Debates started among the family. Emails shot back and forth about honoring their mother’s wish or finding a home for the cats.

The story gets fuzzy here, but there was some kind of miscommunication among the family members that voted to save the cats versus those that wanted to carry out their mother’s wish. My coworker’s brother was particularly passionate about honoring his mother’s memory. I think a decision had been reached to save the cats, but my coworker and his brother had not yet heard on the day they showed up at her house to gather up the cats. When they get to the house, the smarter of the two cats is tucked away behind the furnace. The dumber of the two was lying on the floor, watching these two men trying to catch the other cat. The brothers knew that if they put the dumber cat into a carrier first, the other cat would know something was up and would never come out. But like I said, it was a smart cat and already seemed to know what was going on.

So they caught the cats, brought them to the vet, and had them put down. I know, it is a sad ending. I was rooting for the cats too. I think it is wrong to proclaim a death sentence to a loved pet when we die, but I also know there’s enough fuel here to debate either side. Debates about right and wrong are not my thing. Instead what intrigues me about this is the parallel with Cancer coming out of nowhere, chasing after the mother during the months of her treatment, and finally putting her down. Maybe the brother that was passionate about honoring her memory found some kind of comfort in assuming the role of grim reaper and reenacting the ruthlessness of mortality.