Elwood 'Gochis' RIP

Several times, tonight, I thought I saw him, walking bowl legged toward me, his big round eyes appealing to me for food or love. And one time, remembering he favored awkward locales to lay, like the entrance to the kitchen, I found myself picking up my legs so I wouldn't, as sometimes happened, step on him evoking a "yowl".




My lionhearted "Elwood' the cat is no more.  I'll be keeping one of the prescription bottles that identify him as in the title of this piece, Elwood 'Gochis'--silly, but somehow, right now, I like it.

It's only a few hours ago, that I could no longer hope for a  rally. He had done it before, particularly in the last six months, be on the edge of his natural death, and then with a little vet visit and medication, coming back from the precipice.

He began to lose weight, precipitously, early in the year. His fur got ridiculously matted. So I began thyroid meds, which at first seemed to turn him around; he even gained weight. And then it stopped working around September-ish. And other things started to become problems, back legs getting weak some days so much, he was dragging them both; there was always the increased appetite that signal kidney issues, although that seemed to be a not too pressing problem; ear infections; urinary tract infections; a constipation that turned out to be more about his system breaking down. But he still was showing interest in his little world and no matter how bad he looked, he wasn't, I said to myself, in consultation with my vet, "ready".  I have seen it before, three times of which I had to help it along, and a couple I did not. When they are ready, just like with us, humans, they lose the spark in their eyes and are just, there, listless, looking at a wall.




Last night I sat up with him all night, with occasional falls asleep, he next to me in a towel on my bed, showing little interest in moving--which is particularly un-cat-like. I could see that as bad as he looked a month or two ago, he looked even worse. Something about his gaze was telling me. And still this morning, I was trying to figure, no, he'll do something, this little Elwood moo--a nickname I had for him.

But there were also the howls of intense complaint, usually sprayed to the bathroom walls, like he was out of his mind. Dementia?  Pain?  Both? He'd be quiet in a chair and then one of those sounds would emit and it scared me to him. I'd pick him up and he'd be quiescent for a bit, and then a version of the wail, which seemed to say, "What are you waiting for?"

It is no doubt silly to pray to God that he take this one cat peacefully, given the many animals killed violently daily, and let's not talk about all the humans. He does not always intervene and I understand that, but I still had to try, to avoid the task I did not want to do, again, even after a good long life.

And so, I called the vet and took the appointment about an hour and a half away, 5:20 p.m.  I wrapped him in a towel again and we sat together on my favorite chair. He looked at me; for a moment sometimes, he seemed dead already, but then I saw the slow rising of his skeletal chest. I rubbed his nose. I apologized for what I was about to do.

And then it was time. A couple of those wails, less urgent as he lay awaiting his fate. He lifted his head when the vet came in, and for a moment, I thought, "Maybe I should just take him home."  But this time I knew I needed to stay strong, amid the tears and the effort to tell the vet everything about the years in which this orange tabby cat was in my life.

I'm pretty sure I've written about Elwood before--he lived next door for several years. I "met" him around the time of the Northridge quake in January 1994, when my new neighbor Doug, and I and his roommate and the upstairs neighbors gathered in the hall at 4 in the morning.  He was young, but he wasn't a kitten, so you do the math on how long he's been around--I wasn't kidding about that. Above average our Elwood in the life span department. 

He was about as neurotic as a human, if it came to that. He did not tend to like men, and a man was his owner. He would approach and then run away, tail always twitching--to the day, today, he died. And one day, he ran away from home, to our backyard, to be with the other cats of other neighbors. He was always careful to remain low man on the cat pole, in order to protect himself from harm. And he did well. He was out there some years and then losing his teeth, and his hearing, one rainy evening I took him in, and he never left. My own three cats were not in love, but they accepted a new roommate, particularly as the new snack became baby food for Elwood, which I shared with them.

He tolerated my move from the only building he ever lived better than my other cats, despite his failing health. His favorite spot remained the food dishes, whether he ate or not. He was beyond being able to clean himself, and pretty much everything was encrusted, all the time. He protested my use of wet wipes. But after I put him down, he'd stick around me anyway, so the protest was not all that serious.

There are more people than you'd imagine who are sad about his loss, his former owner, Doug, our friend Akiko, whom Elwood loved; she got to see him just after I moved here, and both of us cried over the tenacity of this little cat; my cousin Carol, who met him just after my father died. She liked him best of all my cats, because he was a personality unto none other. He trusted, while distrusting, and that was a fascinating combination.

I bawled in my car on the way home, after bawling as I touched his quickly cold furry head after he breathed his last; the vet said that he was on the way to dying indeed, and so, although he did not say this, it was a good thing I did not make him wait. He would have fought on this boy.

I will lean on my other three cats tonight, and I think for a long time, I'll see Elwood coming toward me for a pet or a little baby food. 



 Look at that well lived in face with a dollop of baby food on his nose. I'll be crying some more tonight.

Being Gone

I do not intend to seem maudlin. But something about moving out of the apartment I lived in for 30 plus years has caused me to think about death. I guess it is because after taking all my stuff out, I have had the chance to see it empty because someone I know, my cousin, is moving in (subject of another story as to how that happened), and then slowly filling up with things she moved in piecemeal, and with which I assisted her.

So, let me step back.

 This is the entry to my old place in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. This vestibule was where my neighbors and I lurked back on January 17, 1994 after that monster earthquake we all thought might be the "big one."  It's kind of where I met Elwood, the Lionhearted Cat, who is still favoring his life despite advanced age.

Here's another angle, of the fake potted plant.

Oh, and the front entryway.

You see these front french windows?



I remember that I had a little desk in front of those windows, where I studied for the California Bar, while my then new little cat Hollywood, the size of the palm of my hand, sat on my Bar Bri books to prevent it.  That was 1981. Hollywood lasted till 1999, dying at the age of 18, after a long full life.

The living room had many changes of furniture. I always liked the large room and the bright cheerfulness providing by side French windows, although my wall space was then severely limited.The kitchen was only recently, like in April, remodeled from the original 1920's crumbling tile, but I only rarely hated what it was before that change--since I have never been much of a cook. I needed neither much space nor particular beauty in that room.

My favorite space was what had been once in time, likely, a dressing closet/room. When Oscar Rovinsky, the landlord at the time, gave me the keys for the grand sum of $375.00 a month, the little built in table with a built in mirror was falling apart, not really usable. My uncle took it out for me. At first, I used it basically as an ordinary junk closet, and then one day realized I could make it a library. Now, my cousin will use it to store the tools of her avocation, sewing.

So, what's this talk of a "death"? Well, here is the thing. Because I have been able to go back and see the apartment develop with the taste of my cousin, there is this sense that in a small way I am experiencing, with myself, what it might be like to go into an apartment of a loved one, clear it out and see what it becomes, without the former occupant. In a way, the thirty years of my inhabitantcy is wiped away with the removal of my "stuff". It is, as if, I was never there for well over a quarter of a century.

It gives some sort of perspective; I am considering what that is.  There is a book by Stephen Levine, called, "One Year to Live".  It tries to teach the reader to engage in exercises derived from the idea of what would it be like if you knew you had only a year to live. Now obviously this actually happens to people, but not to most of us. We don't get a timetable in advance. Or even close. One of the exercises is to go through a day as if you are not here, on this earth. It has an interesting effect--you become less attached to the self, because the exercise presumes no "self" literally. Since no one sees you, there is no opportunity or reason to be slighted.  It causes you to think about what is truly to be done by you in THIS life, if you were not trying to please or obtain the kudos of others. There was something of that exercise in emptying the first apartment I ever lived in as an adult (I was old when I ran away from home), and watching it fill up with someone else's possessions.

It's interesting being gone while being here. I have been in this apartment for just shy of two months. You'd never know I'd been anywhere else.  Until, of course, I'm gone, again. By the way, I'm in no rush. From my lips to God's Ears.

Eternal Boys and Girls, Oh My

When I was a wee Bronx Djinn, I was like all the other kids. I liked Halloween, the secular manifestation of the religiously based All Hallow's Eve. I'd get dressed as a Princess or something like that and with my cousins Barbara and Carol, accompanied by Aunt Rita, we'd go from building to building on our block, yelling "Trick or Treat" and getting some favorites in the seasonal shopping bag, Nestle     Crunch, Bazooka Bubble Gum and pennies and nickels. Sometimes, I seem to remember stopping to bob an apple or two at one of the buildings across the street.

We did not worry too much about dangerous candy--this being the era before razors in your gummy bears--although even then we weren't allowed to eat the unwrapped donations.

I grew up and not having children of my own, gave nary a thought to Halloween. But when I came to California and moved into my first neighborhood (and only one until about a month ago) in the Fairfax District, that first year, I had plenty of candy for the kids. But none came. In those days, it was attributable to the fact that most of the children were from religious Jewish families.  The neighborhood became more mixed ethnically, religiously and secular-ly, but by then we did have to worry about the people who hurt children and so trick or treating was like taking a dive off a cliff. So, still no children came to the door.

What had happened, though, was that adults made Halloween--the former province of children--their own, dressing up, like in this picture, say as Captain America, or the Faeirie Godmother in one or another of those tales, like Cinderella and partying hardy with modern candy or magical dust of one sort or another (wink wink).

Here in Los Angeles, they close entire blocks, at taxpayer expense, so that these 20, 30, 40 and who knows whether it goes into the 50s-somethings can cavort as skeletons on the boulevards. My vet had to deal with its own "skeleton" staff, because people could not get in and out of the area. Don't have a sick cat or dog on the night of the pumpkins and werewolves!

I hear that around Hollywood Boulevard there was a shooting, and they had to close that part of town down.
Some pour soul is now officially a ghoul.

Maybe we should return this holiday to the children.