This is the caretaker, speaking one last time and in my own voice. I have been struggling for weeks to make this final post. There have been plenty of words and plenty of tears and regrets to fuel them, but the stuffing was knocked straight out of me on Sunday, 13 August 2023, when we had to say goodbye to our darling boy, Merlin Blacktail, for I must now honor him by using his real name. He had been ill in February and never recovered completely, but until the Friday before he died, his life as a cat in his seventeenth year seemed deceptively normal, with naps and snacks and snuggles and kisses on the head and hours of keeping guard from his post on the back of the couch.
What we could not see was that his kidneys had been failing a little more each day until the disease finally ambushed him like a cheetah toppling a gazelle. By the time we got him to the animal emergency clinic, he had already begun the process of dying, his heart rate and temperature both well below normal. We were allowed to sit with him for a few minutes, and then the lady with the needles and electric razor came in to inflict the final indignity. The sedative shot came first, to calm him, though it seemed unnecessary by that point. As he lay on the steel counter and she shaved his leg for the IV, white fur began to float thorough the air, and I thought of Aslan on the stone table. But I knew there would be no resurrection that day. Only death, and with it another chunk of my heart chipped away.
Grief is a wearisome companion, especially during those first few weeks after a loss in which one is both achy and numb at the same time, unable to breath deeply, to sleep, to concentrate, to feel fully alive. Fourteen weeks and three days later, the wound is still raw, and any reminder will still undam a river of tears. Yesterday The Boy remarked that a piece was broken off the decorative angel he had given me and was wondering when the damage might have occurred. He did not know that two weeks before Merlin died, he uncharacteristically jumped onto the table where the angel stood and knocked it over. I will leave you, gentle readers, to make of that what you will.
Below is one of the last photos I took of the most loveable tornado that ever lived. If you ever have the opportunity to welcome a cat into your life, be warned that you that you will never be the same.
“Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
Thank you all for loving Rijn and Merlin. I hope their stories gave you even a fraction of the joy they brought me.
Adieu
The adventures of Buddy & Bear 