Originally emailed to folks on Dec. 12, 1997.
Ozzy, my cat, died last Wednesday. Just under 48 hours ago. And we buried her last evening while what little sun there was still shown, and a few birds made their presence known here and there. It wasn't really a surprise, though neither was her death expected. She had been ill for some time, but only in the last few days did I notice any real difference, and only in her last hour could I tell that her death was truly imminent.
I didn't first meet Ozzy as a kitten, so I've never been exactly sure how old she was. She had been a stray, and Beth, a friend of mine, wanted very badly to keep her. She couldn't. The apartment in which she lived had a very strict "no pets" policy. So one day she placed a message on the local computer bulletin board asking if anyone wanted a cat. I e-mailed that I might be willing to take her. In truth I had somewhat been on the lookout for a cat. I had recently moved into a new apartment that allowed pets, and was somewhat looking for a cat to share it with. Beth and I talked, and after a minor mishap where she mailed someone else named Sean mistakenly who didn't want a cat, we got together.
I picked Ozzy (named something else then) up on a Saturday night. Ozzy was skittish and afraid of most people then, so Beth and I sat and talked while Ozzy got a bit used to me. Beth showed me how to scratch Ozzy's chest -- Ozzy just laid there and purred -- gave me a few items, and I put Ozzy in a box and took her home. She meowed forlornly all the way to my apartment as I talked to her and sang, and I remember her slinking around the apartment that first night, getting used to the lay of things.
It didn't take long before Ozzy and I were good friends. We had a fine working arrangement. I fed her, took care of her litter box, scratched her chest, and in turn she purred occasionally, demanded to be let outside and lay on my bed at night making it difficult for me to move, since she would manage to lay in just the right place to anchor all the covers.
In truth I grew quite fond of her, and I like to think that she liked me as well. It was often hard to tell; because she had been a stray for so long, she was in many ways a fiercely independent cat. But each winter she would come lay on my lap and we'd share our warmth, and, at least until Stacey came into the picture, most nights she'd sleep on the bed with me.
We had other problems at night than her stealing the covers. For a while I sort of subletted the other bedroom in my apartment to a woman named Lynda. She brought with her a calico cat named, appropriately enough, Calla. Ozzy and Calla loved to play. Unfortunately, one of their favorite games was only played between the hours of midnight and four AM. It consisted of them chasing each other from literally one end of the apartment to the other. That alone was bad enough, but "base" seemed to be my bed. No, not underneath it, but on top, where I was. They would race down the hall at top speed, turn the slight corner into my room, and pounce upon the bed. Using their claws, they would then, without cutting their speed, make a U-turn and race back down the hall. After the initial occurrence, which would always wake me up, they seemed to time each successive occurrence so that they hit the bed just as I was dropping off back to sleep. I don't recall how I solved that one, but it certainly didn't take many nights.
We moved to Louisville, and later to New Jersey, and Ozzy came right along. For a while she shared the stage with two other cats, but most of the time it was just Lily, who joined Stacey and I about the time we left Louisville.
Ozzy never lost her love of being outdoors, though once we move away from Lexington she essentially was an indoor cat. Up to the very end she loved laying by the window, looking and listening to all the activity outside. Every once in a while she would manage to sneak out, but she never stayed long. She knew her place was inside, and she'd come back with only little urging from me.
Perhaps when we finally moved to the house we're in, here in Columbus, we could have begun letting her go out again. And though there was simply some selfishness on my part (I didn't want to deal with the flea problem), I had a lot of genuine concern for her. When we finally moved here, she'd been an indoor cat for six or seven years. And the road out front is a dangerous road. Cars go by quickly, and animals are often killed. I didn't want her hurt, so I kept her inside.
I think in the last few years since Iain was born, I perhaps didn't pay the same amount of attention I had. I know that Lily noticed it, and I think Ozzy did, as well. But while some of you may scoff, I tend to believe that Ozzy understood something of what was going on with Iain. Perhaps at first she recognized that Iain was a human kitten, as it were, and that he needed extra care. She took Iain in stride, and never seemed jealous of him. I won't go so far as to say she would try to protect him, but she did seem to like him.
Of course, by the time Iain was born, Ozzy was no longer afraid of people as she had been when I first met her. When we were first together, anytime someone new came in, she would hide. In the last few years she took people in stride, not bothering to hide for anyone. I always wondered if she had been badly mistreated early in her life. It's a question I could never answer.
And Ozzy was always a good natured cat. One little girl always called her "the good kitty", as opposed to Lily who was "the mean, mean, kitty". Ozzy took being petted very well, and would always try to leave rather than scratch or bite. She may have scratched Iain once, but if she did, I can't remember it. Much more often she would simply get up and extricate herself from the situation.
This summer things seemed to change, and I'm sad and sorry to say most of the major changes had to be pointed out to me. Ozzy became blind. I don't know when exactly it happened, but when someone pointed it out to me, I could remember when she started having trouble seeing. At the time it simply didn't occur to me what the problem was. And she grew thin, very thin. In these last few weeks I don't know how well she was eating. I do know that she was still coming for her evening canned food just seven days ago. I bought them some expensive, special food. I don't know why, but I did. The first night Ozzy ate, but sparingly, the second night I'm not sure she ate more than a mouth-full or two.
On Wednesday night I had a rehearsal for a church gig I'm doing. I came home and put Iain to bed, then sat down to read the paper. Just as I was finishing, I saw Ozzy. She seemed to be having trouble walking, and she halfway fell down, halfway lay down on the floor. As I watched her, I thought she might die then, that moment. She didn't.
She lay on the floor, her breathing very labored, and her eyes open and unseeing. I sat down on the floor beside her. I didn't know what to do. Once she got up, and it was as if she was trying to run from something, but she couldn't see, and she couldn't get away, and she kept coming back toward be. I wanted very badly to hold her, but when I tried, it made it even more difficult for her to breath, and she just wanted down. So we sat there on the floor, and like I had on our first night together I talked to her. I talked of the times we had enjoyed together, I talked of things I remembered about her. I talked about how we would bury her in a place where there would be birds and animals all around. I talked, hoping that maybe hearing the sound of my voice, the once constant in her last ten years, might comfort her a bit. I would be happy if I knew it comforted her just a tiny bit.
And I tried to decide whether or not to take her to a veterinarian. She was obviously suffering somewhat, not horribly, it seemed, but she was suffering. But I didn't know what, if anything, could be done for her. I could, at the time, think of only one real outcome -- that she be euthanized. While I could, intellectually at least, deal with that, the really difficult part was that she would have to die in a placed where she was not only suffering, but extremely scared. It was an extremely hard choice, and when Stacey arrived home a bit after 11:00, I still hadn't decided.
Stacey tried to reassure me that my initial feelings were right, that Ozzy should simply be kept at home. And it was at about that time when she walked for the last time. She struggled to her feet, and again seemed to be trying to get away from something. I tried to keep object out of her way as much as I could, and when she finally lay down, no more than three feet from where she had been, she half lay on a backpack that I then moved.
She lurched, her back arched downward and she stopped breathing. I covered my eyes, saying I couldn't watch, and Stacey put her arms around me. But I did watch. She jerked again, and her back straightened out, making her look less uncomfortable. Some number of seconds later she jerked one more time, and that was all. Whatever that made that few pounds of flesh and bone Ozzy wasn't there any longer.
I sat down beside her, crying, and petted her, knowing that these last few moments would be the last time she really felt like Ozzy. I then carried Ozzy up to Iain's room. I wanted him to have a chance to say good-bye to her while she was still warm, and not cold and stiff. She was limp. I'd forgotten what it was like holding a dead animal. I hadn't done that since I worked for a vet many years ago. I held her in a way she would have liked, and we woke Iain up and he petted her exactly once.
We took her back down to the living room, and I wrapped her in a white sheet. I knew we could leave her in the house, so I went to the garage to look for a place to lay her for the night. I didn't see one, so I laid her gently on the bench on our screen porch. Intellectually, it was a silly thing, but I couldn't bear to leave her there without some protection from the cold, so I had Stacey get me a blanket from inside, and I placed it gently over her.
I left work early the next day. Much earlier than I really needed to, I guess, but I wanted to make sure that I was able to dig a proper and deep enough hole before Iain and Stacey arrived home. Stacey was going to leave work at 4:30 to get Iain, which meant they would be home a little after 5:00. I was home before 4:00. I took the shovel and went outside to look for a place. I remembered my promise to her, and picked a place where there would be lots of animals around. In truth, that's most of our yard, fortunately, and I found myself at least somewhat practical here. I picked a place where a groundhog and destroyed our grass and dug there. I was finished long before Stacey and Iain arrived.
Iain announced himself by saying he wanted another kitty, and that we could name it Ozzy, as well. After a short conversation about that, we went outside. I had Stacey carry the shovel, while I took Ozzy. I carefully pulled the blanket off of her, and then picked her up, sheet and all and carried her to the grave. I knelt down onto the ground and very carefully unwrapped the sheet from her now stiff body. I petted her one last time, as did Stacey and Iain, then I gently placed her into the grave. The bottom of the grave was just her size. Stacey placed the first few shovelfuls of dirt gently onto Ozzy's lifeless body, Iain helped with one, and I filled the hole, finally at the end, pressing the dirt down solid. She had grown so thin there at the end, it didn't seem we had any dirt leftover.
I went inside, and once again tears ran down my face.
I remember that once my father, in a sermon, pointed out that we don't grieve for those who have died, we grieve for our selves, that those people are no longer with us. I grieve for loss of a constant companion that I cared for deeply, whom I will never see again excepting in the few photographs I have of her, and in my memory. And I will try to remember her as she once was, chasing Calla up and down a hallway, or sleeping, purring beside me on my bed. I will try to remember those things, because that's what she was.
I'll miss you Ozzy.