My heart is completely broken.

Yesterday, almost without warning, I had to put my oldest cat down. I have never had to do that before (we’ve always had indoor/outdoor cats that would just wander off and not come home when it was their time) and good god I don’t want to do it again, even though I will have to eventually.

Dante was 18 years old, which I know is old as hell for a cat. He’s been slowing down considerably for the past year and a bit, but it wasn’t until yesterday morning when he just didn’t get up for his food and tried to stagger to his feet but wobbled and sat back down… he hadn’t used the litter box and just wasn’t himself.

I called the vet and made an appointment. He also had something weird going on with his eye (looked like blood in the iris) so while part of me just wanted to get him looked at, the other part, well…

The worst part was getting him into the carrier. I have never seen him fight that hard; hissing and spitting and swiping…much thanks to Jamie for helping with that… but that reaction made me question if he really was at his end. If he’s fighting that hard, maybe he’s okay? But a sick/injured animal will attack if feeling threatened, and in my logical brain I know that. But this is my baby, my familiar… I don’t want to lose him.

He wasn’t any better when we got to the vet. The vet couldn’t do an exam with how aggressive Dante was, sedation isn’t the best idea considering his age, but the eye blood was very concerning, and everything else was just… once again, many thanks to Jamie advocating for me when I was crying too hard to form words. Putting Dante through a bunch of testing to just go home, wait for results, only to find out that he’s got cancer or his kidneys are failing and have to go through the literal trauma of bringing him back to the vet for the inevitable just… didn’t seem fair to him. He would have gone into hiding once we got home and that’s not how I’d want his last days to be.

So I made the call that it was time.

They went to give him the sedation, through the carrier and with kitty gauntlets on…they even had to muzzle him which made me cry even harder, but they took it off once I held him. I felt like a monster.

But I saw it through to the end. I was not going to let him go alone around strangers.

And the he was gone.

I got Dante when I first moved up north. He was my first friend here, with his too big ears and tail, I knew he’d be a beast of a cat someday. He would sleep by my face and crawl over my head when I rolled over. He wasn’t the cuddliest cat back then, he’d rather sit beside me than on me, but he was always waiting for me at the door.

The older he got, the more willing he was to sit on me. When I had to have an emergency appendectomy and couldn’t have any weight on my belly, he waited so patiently to sit the way he normally would, and avoided that side of my stomach for a whole week.

He was the only cat I ever knew that loved having his belly rubbed. He’d run down the hallway ahead of me, turn around, and flop down onto his side. If I walked by without giving the belly rubs, he’d yowl at me. He’d also hop up onto the bed and flop over there too. He didn’t do it much in the last year or two… he wasn’t as spry as he used to me.

His name came about as a joke like six months before I got him. I was working for a landscaping company and we were talking about getting goats to eat the grass for us. When thinking of names for our imaginary goats, I said I’d call one of them Dante. After our goat dreams were kiboshed, I said I’d name my first cat Dante after the goat I’d never have… and I did.

He spent his the majority of his life inside my apartment in Fort St. John, but when I moved to Dawson Creek, he got to touch grass for the first time. He hated it.

His favourite place to be in the last few years was on the couch, on my legs, but only if I was covered by a blanket. He was always annoyed during the summer when the couch blanket went away for the season, because heaven forbid he actually touch my legs.

He used to be able to jump to the top of the bookcase, and he’d knock the Knick-knacks off the shelf below him. He’d look me dead in the eye while he did it.

He went by many names, aside from his given. He was my handsome boy, mister man, mister Dante butthead, baby boo, bubbies, baby boo bubalub, fuzzy butt, grumpus…

I love him. I miss him. I’ve cried so much my whole face hurts and I’m probably dehydrated.

Me and Stormy will figure out how we’re going to adapt without him, but for now, I just wish I could hug him.

– A.