Ornoth

When we love someone, we hold their story within our hearts. When they pass, it’s incumbent upon us to bring that story forth and hold it shining like a gemstone for all to see.

Thus, I have to tell Grady’s story.

Two years after my first cat passed away, I was ready to add a new member to my household. In September of 2007 I went to the MSPCA’s Angell Memorial shelter and met a little gray cat. When I petted him, he had a very loud, easy purr, and I decided that he was the one.

The tag on his cage said his name was “Grady”, which is strange, because the previous owner had written “Grey” on the info sheet when she surrendered him. Of course, the tag also said he was “about 3 years old”, when the owner had said “one year”.

I’d thought I was getting an adult cat, but he really wasn’t much more than a kitten, and he had the energy and temperament to match. In the early years, he would often full-on attack me, drawing blood mostly with his teeth. When I got an animal behaviorist in, she tried to play with him until he was exhausted, but after 90 minutes of that without pause, she declared him “99th percentile”.

It got to the point where I was almost convinced that I would have to get rid of him, but we persevered, and I found that putting him in isolation when he misbehaved finally got the message through. He even figured out that if he really needed to play, he could come up to me, sit up on his haunches, and beg with his hands together. And if I wasn’t paying attention, he could tap my elbow with his paw first.

Play for him meant jumping for bouncing ping pong balls or leaping for potholders tossed like frisbees. He even played with little toy cars, rolling them around on the hardwood floor! But his favorite toys were the rubber wristbands that used to be popular; he’d run and chase them, then chew them up until they were destroyed. If you threw his stuffed toy pheasant, he’d run after it at full tilt, grab it with his forepaws, and do a complete somersault before administering a killing bite and bunny-hop kicks.

As he matured, he mellowed and came to trust me completely. Of course, whenever I came home, I could expect him to trot up and meet me at the door. He’d come snuggle any time I was on the couch, or nestle in the crook of my arm as I sat up in bed reading. If I was working at my desk, he’d come drape himself over my shoulder. We even got to the point where I could reliably hold him in my arms and rub his belly.

He was a good leaper, jumping across the kitchen from the island counter to the top of the fridge. He’d also jump several feet up and grab onto “his” particular part of the brick wall separating the kitchen and living room, or atop his scratching post. Every time I was on the toilet, we’d have to play grab-tag in the gap beneath the bathroom door. With people and loud noises, he was absolutely fearless… He had only one mortal fear: tinfoil!

Another daily ritual was feeding time. He was fed twice a day by an automatic feeder, and really knew how to tell time! Two hours before dinner, he’d start nosing around. With an hour to go, he would constantly prowl around. With 20 minutes left, he was downright agitated. And as feeding time neared, he’d pace around the feeder in high excitement, often biting it. I told him, “Don’t bite the device that feeds you!”, but that particular lesson didn’t seem to sink in very well. I think he knew exactly what it meant when I sang the “It’s almost time!” dinner song for him.

Speaking of music, Grady had both his own song, poem, and a special rhyming haiku. The song goes like this:

Grady, Grady, Grady cat:
Him not no average little ’fraidy-cat,
But him meows like a little lady cat…

His poem is:

My cat is full of grayness,
From his whiskers to his anus;
It seems to be quite painless.

And that rhyming haiku? Voilà:

My cat’s named Gradle;
He ate a raisin bagel:
It wasn’t fatal.

Perhaps his most unique trick was this: when he was watching you, if you held your hand out and rubbed your fingers together, his eyes would slowly close, as if from happiness. Very strange, but cute!

I’ve included a few good photos in this post, but I really suggest checking out all of Grady’s photos on Flickr. There are some real special pictures in that collection that capture his personality.

None of that, of course, says much about what he meant to me. Let’s just say he was a dear, dear friend, who made every day much better than it would have been without his warm presence.

So, what happened, and why is he gone?

On September 4th, we celebrated the seventh anniversary of his adoption with the traditional wet food treat. He was due for inoculations, so six days later I took him to the vet for his annual checkup. At that point, everything seemed fine, and continued that way for the following week.

The eighth day after his vaccination was Thursday the 18th, and he was his usual active self. The next day, he was lethargic and (for the only time in his life) ambivalent about food. I decided that I’d bring him to the vet if he didn’t improve overnight.

Since he didn’t improve, I brought him in to the vet first thing Saturday morning. He had quite a fever, so they kept him until 4pm, giving him IV fluid and antibiotics.

At the end of the day, he hadn’t improved, and since the vet was closing and wouldn’t be open on Sunday, they advised me to bring him to the animal hospital at Angell Memorial: the same shelter I’d adopted him from.

After an anxious cab ride, I brought him into Angell Saturday night. The doctor planned to run a bunch of tests and give him more fluid and antibiotics, which meant Grady would probably be in the hospital for a couple days.

Sunday his temperature had come down a little, but he wasn’t eating. All the tests they ran came back with only minor variations from normal. More tests needed to be done.

On Monday morning his temperature was back within the normal range. Monday afternoon I got a call from the doctor saying that he seemed normal and stable, but he still wouldn’t eat for them. Given that, she suggested I bring him home, in hopes that he’d be more comfortable and more liable to eat in a familiar environment. I just needed to wait a couple hours for them to get him ready to go, until 8:30pm.

At home, I cleaned out his food, water, and litter containers, in hopeful anticipation of his return. At 8pm, just as I was getting ready to leave, I received a telephone call from the woman who was getting him ready. “He’s in respiratory arrest. Do you want us to resuscitate him? We need an answer right now.”

What? But his fever had broken! The vet had pronounced him stable! Four days previously, he had been a lively and happy cat! And he was only eight years old! This wasn’t supposed to happen!

I was utterly staggered. Grady had spent three days in the hospital, but they had absolutely no idea what was wrong with him. The woman on the phone tried to be tactful while reminding me that even if they resuscitated him, it was likely to be only a temporary, short-term thing. Could I ask Grady to go through more trauma than he’d already endured? Was this his way of telling me that he’d had enough?

In the end, I took it as a sign that it was time for me to let him go. I told them not to resuscitate. They called back five minutes later to tell me that he was gone.

Grady—my lovely baby!—was gone!

I spent most of that night howling the horrible animal pain I felt. The comments I got from friends on Facebook were helpful, albeit to a limited extent. The next day, when I talked to the doctor, I agreed to spend the money to perform a necroscopy seeking answers about why he died.

Ultimately, the necroscopy was of no more use than any of the veterinarians who had treated him. Grady had a few minor health issues, but they found nothing life-threatening. Was his death due to a reaction to his vaccines? Was there anything the vets didn’t do (or anything they did) which contributed to his demise? There was simply no evidence to base an opinion on.

So now he’s gone, and we will never know why. It sucks mightily that we had such a short time together. I was so happy, and I really expected to have a lot more than just seven short years with him.

One of the most difficult emotions is my sense of responsibility for his unexpected and premature death. I mean, I used to look him in the eyes and tell him, “I *own* you…” And he trusted me so meekly when I brought him to the vet for his checkup. And yet, twelve days later he was dead, despite my feebly ineffective good intentions. And his well-being was 100 percent my responsibility. That guilt tears me up from the inside.

The condo, without him and all the cardboard boxes, the toys strewn all over, the food, water, and litterbox: it feels as if I’ve had a roommate move out. The place is silent and empty and lifeless. It might seem odd that living alone feels so radically different than living alone *with a cat*, but so it is. While my friends’ sympathy certainly helps, life just isn’t the same without my lovable little guy.

Seven weeks before Grady’s illness, I rode in my last Pan-Mass Challenge, and spent Sunday night after the ride at my hotel in Sandwich, on Cape Cod. Monday morning, my support person and I went and explored the Sandwich boardwalk, a quarter-mile foot bridge crossing a tidal marsh, connecting a parking lot to the town beach. After storm damage, it had been rebuilt in 1992 and again in 2013 with money raised by allowing people to purchase inscriptions in each wooden plank of the deck.

As we walked along, we read a sampling of planks. As I neared the beach end of the boardwalk, my eyes landed on one which simply read: ♥ U GRADY. Whatever the original intention had been, the plank reminded me of my little roommate, whom I hadn’t seen for four days. For all the feelings that reminder of him evoked, I stopped to snap a picture of it.

I didn’t know then that Grady had only a few weeks left to live.

That photo I impulsively took is now a very poignant memory and perhaps a fitting memorial in honor of my trusting and faithful little roommate, for whom I held so much affection, and who had brought so much warmth and joy into my life. Blessed be, my little one! I’m so, so sorry.