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.