not right meow

          Goober is emaciated.  I googled his symptoms this last winter and deduced that he has either a thyroid problem or diabetes.  He’s hyper, drinks a lot, is very vocal, and has only gotten skinnier, no matter how much he eats. I tried feeding him raw ground beef (one of the suggestions online), but he lost interest. I tried feeding him canned food, but that wasn’t very much, and he started leaving even some of that in the dish. Now I’m taking some dry food, adding hot water and 1/3 of a can of canned food, and letting it soak to soften it and flavor the dry stuff with the canned. I’ve been doing that for a couple of weeks, and he finishes it by the end of the day.

Seems like he’s always pulled out patches of his hair, mostly mid-back, but lately he’s taken to pulling it out in his front left armpit and back left hip at the thigh joint.  It freaked Jylle out to see it.  I saw him walking around the backyard just now, and he looks terrible. When I pet him, I can only bear to pet his head. The rest of him is just fur-covered bone. He looks like a feline skeleton example from an animal teaching hospital.

I pray for mercy everyday, that one day we’ll just never see him again. I pray for him too, that it’ll be instant and painless, like maybe just dying in his sleep—but way out in the wilderness somewhere so we don’t have to bury him. Yes, I pray for a very thorough mercy.

Just watching him out back, he ventured into the tall grass, and suddenly I thought Maybe this is it. Maybe he’s going out to some mystical burial ground like the elephants do. Maybe this is the last time I’ll see him. G’bye, Goober…

          When I went to the garage a minute later though, there he was, all high-pitched meowing and head popped out from the top of the garden bench so it’s the first thing I saw when I opened the door. I fluffed up his breakfast with the knife I keep out there and set it in front of him, then closed the door. The day will come when he won’t be there to feed anymore, and a legend will have passed on. He really has been a great cat for us.

           (A tip of the hat here to Doug Demmert who gave him to us, even though he tricked me by saying this kitten was a tabby when clearly he was a solid gray. Dropped him off at our house in a box when we were gone. He was from a barn litter, so he was absolutely terrified and tore around the house like Taz until he finally fell into an uncovered heating duct. We let him stay there all night because it was super late, and we were exhausted. In the morning, Kev unscrewed the ducting mount, and we slid him down into the box. He never did stay in the barn though, always the garage. Goober, Garage Cat and Mouser Extraordinaire.)

I walk around ants so I won’t squish them. I relocate tree frogs to keep them safe from the too warm temperature of the hot tub. I cried when I hit a rabbit and when I saw a deer get hit. I’m not an animal rights activist—I just have compassion toward them. It's a decent thing to respect life.

Death is so not where it’s at. Sounds inane to say, but I hate death. It’s just not the way it’s supposed to be. Everything about it is wrong. Every dealing with it is depressing, and I mentally turn away from memories of past business with it.

It’ll be six months on July 21 since I lost my mom. I used to take a big inhale everyday of her pajama top that’s precariously sealed in a grocery bag in the washroom. I don’t do that very often anymore. I also used to say Hi, my Mom, at the picture on her Costco card that’s on my dresser. I had to stop doing that because it made me tear up. Both those things I thought would bring me some small measure of comfort, tiny as they are. They don’t though. Even seeing her picture pains me.  She died, and I am suffering her death.

This is not new—death’s been around since Genesis.  It’s new to me though. Death sucks, and that’s all there is to it.

Okay, maybe there’s one good thing about it. It’s the doorway to Life. Here, we live and strive and balance and walk and sweat and work and cry.  There, we truly live. We know life as He’s provided in a world where there is no death. Maybe there’s one more good thing about it. It’s knowing we’ll pass through that doorway too, and in the meantime, we know we have people there who’ll jump into our arms when we get there. It’s the faintest measure of hope and peace to me personally right now, because honestly, I just want my mom back. Since it’s idiotic to go there though, I discipline my thoughts to be reminded of the hope we have in heaven.  And that is only ours through death.

Having read Heaven Is For Real, I feel safe in believing there will be animals there, something I’ve thought my whole life. I have loved every animal I have ever had, and I have given thanks to their Creator for the marvel of their innocence, beauty, and affection.  If they bring glory to Jesus, then why shouldn’t they be a part of that eternal plan…

Finish strong, Goober.  We’ll see you there some fine day.  Give my love to Gulliver, Muttnik, Midget, Sham, Scooter, Bear, Fallon, Parker, Gadget, and Jake.  *paw bump*