Pet Blogging

Dear everyone,

I’m deeply sad. Yesterday morning we had to say our last goodbye to Tikka.

Tikka was a great cat. Gorgeous, best nose in felinedom, and utterly uncompromising. He was basically a one-person cat: I was his human. He tolerated my wife and son. He came to love, and near the end, draw great comfort from Champ.

And that was it. My sister and sister-in-law, both cat people to their bones, convinced there isn’t a Felis catus they couldn’t charm, bear the scars of their presumption.

He was my dear companion for seventeen years. He slept in his corner (and I mean it was HIS corner) at the end of the bed for almost all that time. (He would flip corners from time to time. Didn’t matter. Wherever he was, that was his.)

It was only in the last month or so that he’d spend most of the night in a previously scorned cat bed on the floor.

He kept me company through four-and-a quarter books (he was here through the start of the one to come). He had a raucus purr which he’d unleash pretty much whenever I petted him. That’s how I knew the end was close, actually. Over the last few weeks it would take longer for the rumble to get going react and sometimes he just would slump into a doze.  He wasn’t a hugely talkative cat.  He’d save his meow — closer to a yowl– for 4 a.m. and his disdain for the indolent servant who had not laid out a middle-of-the-night snack.

And he had that stare. Turned on you, it confirmed that you had been judged and found wanting.

We got him as a rescue when he was about 4 months old. He’d had a tough life up to then, the vet said, which helps explain his extreme wariness around almost everyone.  He really could terrorize the presumptuous.  He was a gentleman: he’d give fair and very audible warning before he’d swipe. But if you persisted in demanding that he allow himself to be stroked, well…it was not quite the arm-off-at-the-elbow but he left no doubt on your poor judgment.

That changed over time, though his reputation never did. He grew more mellow and approachable (not really cuddly for anyone but me) as he moved through his teens. But what I love about him still is that he was always sure of his own self and autonomy. He let me love him, but I never had any doubt that it was his choice, one for which I will always be grateful.

He’d been declining for a few months, but over the last week went downhill quickly. I took him to the vet–actually Angell Memorial, the big veterinary hospital in town–on Wednesday and they confirmed it. Too many different things were going wrong, with treatments indicated that contradicted what some other problem required. There was nothing more to be done.

I was able to take him home for one more night. I pulled out a mattress and slept (mostly not-sleeping TBH) on the floor. He spent much of the night in his usual position–curled up against my left leg. When we got up around 7:30, he was able to tolerate my pets and then began to purr; we stayed like that for quite a while.  Then I went to get dressed and he mustered the strength to climb down the stairs to find one of his favorite sun patches, the one on the welcome mat by the front door.  I curled up with him again and once again he started to purr. Not the idling diesel engine sound of his youth; this was more of a wheeze-and-rattle. But it was there.

After another while–maybe half an hour–the hospice vet arrived.  She was sweet and very compassionate and talked us through what was going to happen. In time, she injected Tikka with the first dose. I was holding him, and started to cry. It went fast–he was so tired and so ready. In a couple of minutes the second medication went in and in no more than a minute or so he was gone.

I miss him terribly. I’m tearing up a little as I type this. He–up to and on his last day–curl in his bed just behind my writing desk. I’d spend every day with him, stopping for a visit every time something in the book needed a few paces to work out. We’d hang and chat and then I’d get back to the keyboard.  I’ve been looking over there all day today.

I know his powerful gaze and occasional goofiness gladdened people here. I was privileged to spend almost two decades under his withering scrutiny.

Tikka was a great cat.

PS: Champ is perplexed and deeply needy. She may kill me yet–she keeps undercutting my ankles as I walk around the house. She’s never known a home without another cat, having come to us straight from her birth litter.  And yes: we will get another cat, and probably soon. But not just yet.

Goodbye, friend.

 

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