Huxley is under the bed, dying. After weeks of thinking one more thing will turn things around, this rugged, angry, difficult and – in the right place and time – extraordinarily loving being is calling it quits. We don’t know what this is, or why its happening. Diagnoses, like signposts, provided temporary direction. Culled from chapters in a textbook, links off the internet and the stories of mean-well friends, they have been the soup of our days. But, nothing finally to know. And because of this, we kept trying different meds, foods, applications. Finally, I employed a rinsed out dropper full of kitty formula that he hated as a final indignity. No, he said, growling. I thought the growling was dying. I sat up ready to say good bye. But, then he rose and limped to the other side of the room from me, and lay down. No, he said, panting. I’ll go on my own now. Thank you.
He’s under the bed now, dying. People called him devil cat. Bruiser was the bully of the litter. Bigger and more forceful than the others, he was the first picked by the new couple, my girlfriend and her ex, nearly ten years ago. Due to circumstances, he was pulled from the womb too soon. Once back in the apartment, he was introduced to the resident cat – and presumed surrogate mom – Jules. No mother at all, Julesy proceeded to beat, growl and intimidate him daily. Huxley walked carefully around her but, still a bruiser, he cowed to no one else. He’d take food off your plate, sleep on your side of the bed, or bite your leg if you passed without saying hello. And, he wouldn’t bite and run. He’d bite and stare you down. Swat at your leg, or herd you into a corner by his food bowl standing there as if to say ‘treats or die.’ This was a real Baltimore cat, like from The Wire season one. And, like any cat-banger, he’d roam the hood, dodging cars, running from dogs and beating rivals. He’d yowl at the door, and come in torn and triumphant, lying exhausted at his water bowl.
Huxley loved the young couple with possessive fierceness. He’d crawl onto their chests and stare into their eyes purring. The young husband began calling him his monkey. And, as he grew into a handsome and athletic orange tabby lion, he became their “monkey man.”
After the divorce, Huxley stayed with the house and the wife. I started coming around not long later, and it took time for him to warm to me. He’d jump up in bed with us, stare me down, then walk onto Jennifer’s stomach and settle in, paws on her breasts. He’d look into her eyes with a fearless love and admiration. He was her baby and her knight. If I was lying beside them, he’d throw me a look of possessive superiority, bleat at me, and turn back to his girl, his love, his lady. His purr in these cases was so mighty you could hear it across the room. And, if I turned to them, he’d turn back with that cat seat grin and bleat a warning to back off.
Far from being put off by this, it made me love him all the more. We were much alike.
Huxley is dying under the bed, as I write. I’m giving him space to do what he needs. To take his exit his way, on his terms. But, he’ll be sent off tomorrow by an angel of death who makes house calls. I hate this idea. I hate that he’s there helpless and scared, angry one last time, and that because people don’t want to see him suffer, he’ll have to leave on their terms, not his. People are, after all, the boss. They’ve done so well with that. Children of God, under whose scrutiny their stewardship has let creation fall into disuse and disgrace. The Huxley’s are expendable. They are a feel good commodity for a world built on convenience. If it were up to the doctors, he’d be dead already. But, no. He fights and I fight for his right to fight until all fight is gone.
Huxley is lying in the dark, close to the end, I guess. Alex, the ex, has come to pay respects. Huxley didn’t move from the shadows beneath the bed, but they touched hands, paw to finger, as Alex cried. I hear him from the other room. I’m typing to give them space together, and he’s crying with the girl he used to love, and the monkey man who created so much havoc in their lives. They had dreams then, but now there is only this. Tomorrow he’ll be ashes and they’ll each get an urn.
Huxley is dying under the bed and my heart is torn in more places than I understand. Buddhists will say that all life ends and begins and ends and begins. But, he’s such a cool guy. My hero. My buddy. In the endless wheel of suffering, some connections feel unique.
Huxley comes bounding out from the bed and into the office. I look up startled form my computer. For a second it seems its all a dream. He’s fine? Bounding with an energy I hadn’t seen in days. And then he falls again. Rises, stumbles and falls again. I go to him and he growls. Then I realize, he’s come looking for Alex who had just left. Although, he never moved from the bed, save his extended paw, while Alex was there, it was like him to rouse the energy and bound out after. It was his style upon re-meeting to act nonchalant at first, but then then warm up with excitement. Only, he missed him. Alex was gone, leaving the house tearful and broken only moments before. Huxley lay defeated, his head in his paws, inconsolable, the life being pulled from him into the earth.
There’s no way he can understand this. There’s no way for me to explain it, as I don’t understand it myself. The only explanation is that we failed him, and that I, in particular, have turned on him. We get him to drink some water, and offer him some soupy food. He rejects that and stumbles back under the bed. Jules comes and gladly finishes the food. She doesn’t have the tortuous searing gilt I carry. She’s like, ‘oh, well, gotta eat.’
Huxley’s back in his shadowed redoubt. I’m back at the computer. Jens praying with lighted candles. We’re trying to create a world easy for him to leave. He’s still too tired and broken to stay, but with too much fight and anger to let go. I know how this goes. He’ll suffer all night because I’m holding out for rights he probably doesn’t want. Then an angel of death who makes house calls will come to take him in her van. Then there’ll be two urns with ashes. And a lot of space without him.
But tonight, I feel like I’ve let him down. That I didn’t provide in a way I might have. That after replacing his dad, I never became the dad he needed. I’ll never be a dad. But, he was one of my charges. He loved stronger, with more courage and more faith, than any person I’ve ever known. This is why humans love animals, and why we, perhaps, romanticize their power. Animals love with an intensity – and integrity – humans can only aspire to. These friends, many of whom live in neglect and suffering, are here to teach us, above all, how to be ourselves.
Huxley and I bonded when I moved in and began fixing the place and mowing the lawn. He hated the sound and commotion, but loved the effort. And, I think the boyness of caring for physical things. Once, when the lawn was done, I sat on the porch surveying the straight edges, and he came to sit beside, sniffing the wind like a great lion sphinx. He’d look over at me. Like most orange tabby’s I’ve known, he was smart and communicative. He got me that afternoon, and I got him. We sat like two bros for a bit. After that, he became my pal. He had this incredible fierceness, but also dependence. I felt like I owed it t0 him, to protect him, so that angry life could settle into something contented and safe.
But, you can’t save what you can’t hold. And, I was always heading someplace else. One foot out of the bed. Like my dad. Someplace else, and never here. Where was I going that I could ever find a moment that perfect? That cat, this great lion, that all our friends were frightened of, but who would sit on my chest – yes, finally – and when called would look right at me with enormous eyes of hope and faith. Yes, of course I’ll protect you little man. I’ll keep you whole and safe and sane.
Only, I didn’t.
We couldn’t keep the house. So, we moved into a smaller, darker place with no access for him outside. It fit the needs practically, but I fretted that he’d hate it. So, I held up accepting the place because I wanted us to find a place with a yard for him. But yards cost money, and money takes commitment and commitment takes faith in yourself. You can’t commit to what you don’t believe you deserve. But I wanted a yard for him, and so I held up the process then like I’m holding up the execution now. Because I carry the guilt. Because I am the white knight. Because I am stubborn and think I know best but I am nonetheless tarnished by lack of faith, lack of funds, lack of belief in the quest. I live to serve, but I’ve let the windmill win every time.
Huxley actually growled at me and went back under the bed. Maybe to die. Or maybe to lie in dark anger at how impotent his passion has been rendered by a virus, a poison, a disease we can’t even name. All we know is I can’t save him. I know it. And he knows it.
He knows it. His daddy moved out. And, I was unable to keep his home. Only months after moving from the hood he ruled, Huxley lies dying in a place he never wanted to be. And, I will carry this. Carry this. And carry this.
Tomorrow the doctor will come. And Monkey will be taken from the bed and wrestling, growling and hating, die without the peace I had hoped for him. And I will carry this.
CODA; MORNING
He’s alive in the hall. But, not moving. After along night of suffering, and stillness he was exhausted and all but dead. Jen goes to him, but he groans. So, she sits waking up to his pain on the floor beside him. The doctor will call soon, come and finish what I now know, should have been already done. He need not have endured this, but for my own stubbornness. So, we wait, as we have been waiting, in this jaundiced purgatory for the end.
Huxley lay in the hallway with Jen beside him. He wasn’t moving. Then, at one point, he woke, turned and reached out to her, extending a paw looked up at her, paw extended with that look of devotion, faith and love he had always given her. He was her knight, protector and child. It was so inspiring to see that. Absolute devotion. How could this direct contact to the heart come so profoundly, suddenly and with no explanation because of this troubled and wonderful being? But, this is what animals are here to show, isn’t it? How to love without complication. How to anger, lust and worry as we need to, without apology. In short, they teach us how to be ourselves.
The doctor came. She was a young Orthodox Jew, with headscarf, blankets and a bag. She knelt beside him, as he lay now motionless. After giving instructions, and receiving payment, she administered anesthesia. After a few minutes she administered the second, and final, needle.
We lost our cat Huxley this morning. He was brave, faithful and a holy terror. There is no only silence and a very large space. Good bye Monkey Man. Alex sends his love. I wrote you this piece and Jen wrote you a song.
Oh sweet jesus, Joe and Jen, your goodbyes are equally, heartbeakingly beautiful. Such a small loss, the death of a pet, or so it seems in the world’s calibration of grief. Why then is the hole left in our lives so large? The tiniest spaces suddenly echo with the vast emptiness they leave behind. I remember how my heart dropped every time I turned the key in my apartment door after my ex and I put down our first dog, Rama (after waiting too long, too many weeks searching for a cure that never came, too much stoic, patient suffering on his part as he hung on…because he sensed we couldn’t let go? that is a guilt familiar to many of us). One day, months later, thinking of him and some stupid, goofy, wonderful, amazing thing he used to do, a phrase recited in my mind that has come to stand for him ever since: Unrepeatable Glory of God. He was that. Huxley was that. We are all that. Maybe its their smallness that allows animals to teach us that.
Thank you for this lovely, and so connected, message. Its lovely to have you so closely and accurately in this with us. And, thanks for your lovely connection to her song. Jennifer has a rare and unfiltered connection to emotional expression. As do you, albeit in a verbal cognitive way. However, that estimable cognitive ability is driven by enormous heart and warmth.