Fearless

The Northeast Georgia Humane Society employee who retrieved this guy for me to take home -on an August day in 1996 - asked me:  do you have any children?  Any other small pets?

(once again with the children question!)

No, I replied.  Interesting questions, I thought.

Ok, she said, visibly relieved.  That's good.  Here he is!

And I brought home a not-quite adult cat.
A wily, energetic, pretty fearless friend.
I began to understand why I was questioned that way.
Discipline issued? He would rear up and swat at me...even at my face.
He would wait for me around corners of interior rooms, and reach out with Ninja accuracy and speed to smack my ankle with a paw. It occurred to me that I might be seen as a large...toy?
Little toys briefly amused him, but were no match for his eventual size and power.  Pet store employees started recommending dog toys because they were more resilient.

I could be working in my studio at one end of an old, rented hardwood-floored house, and hear him thumping around from room to room - doing what, I didn't know.  A case of the 'cat crazies'?
And then, a happy little trill behind me.  A round-eyed face, looking up at me in earnest.

Hello kitty! What is that in your mouth? Is it...moving?

Hi Mom!  I caught a Palmetto bug.  He's still wriggling.  Here, let me put him down for a second.

Ugh!

We spent a lot of time together.  Learning about each other.  He was hyper-everything: curious, tough, affectionate, demanding.  Such a rough-and-tumble boy.  He watched people's faces when they conversed, as if he understood them.

He snuck outdoors once.  Wandered over to the next-door neighbor's front porch, where I found him: a little disoriented in this strange, vibrant world, skulking and uttering a low, chatty 'wow-wow-wow.' Rather than risk his running away from me because I tried to pick him up, I instead talked him through a short stroll back home.   We walked together, very slowly, and returned inside.

That day, I realized that we really trusted each other.

He didn't like treats, and he didn't know what to do with soft food.  Kibble and water, thanks, and don't mind my strange eating habit of conveying kibble bits to my mouth by fishing them out of the bowl with a paw first.

In spite of his spartan food choices, he packed pounds on an already large frame.

When visitors sat in the living room, he would sit on the floor in front of them, raised up on his haunches, wave his front paws in the air in a peddling, slow motion. Like a circus bear. A head scratch for the kitty was the request. How could anyone say no to that plea?

He slowed down a bit, over time, thanks to that inexplicable girth.
Yet, he was still prone to chasing a bouncing tennis ball down the length of the house, or a softball rolled across the floor. Softballs were better for grabbing with the front legs and hugging to the belly, so as to free up the hind legs for kicking the ball.  There was a lot of aggression to work out, apparently.

And when I adopted a feral stray that I (absentmindedly, so forgive the lameness of it) named Smokey, he spent a lot of time and energy notifying her repeatedly that this was HIS house, and she was not welcome.  For years, she lived in the periphery around his large personality.  I knew she was not adoptable, and so we were going to have to progressively work out our differences.

For Salvador, those differences were never worked out: no peace agreement was ever struck between himself and The Interloper. I will always wonder if she was, in fact, a key piece to his longevity.  Life is still more interesting if you have someone to occasionally yell at: 'Get off my lawn!'

We had our sleeping rituals, which usually involved his 19 pound self wedged between my knees or on my ankles.  I would wake up in the same position in which I'd first fallen asleep, because I was anchored by a dense, warm weight at my feet.  But after a particularly bad car accident with a drunk driver, in which I broke my hand and dreamt repeatedly about the moment of impact, startling awake every time, Sal wisely moved to sleep with his head on my shoulder.

And that's when I realized that he did, in fact, understand what I needed.

When he was first introduced to the man I now call 'spouse' - who happens to be a veterinarian - Salvador calmly looked at this stranger with his large green eyes, and my date for the evening reached out to stroke that soft, soft fur and said, with some measure of awe, 'that's the largest cat I've ever seen.'

One year into our marriage, he was predictably diagnosed with diabetes. Early in the treatment regimen, when we rushed him to the emergency vet for a late night blood sugar crash, we all stood and looked at him on the examining table, and the vet said, 'you know what I think?' - to two people who were freaked out at this stumbling, robotic cat who behaved like a complete stranger.

What? we asked.  What advice or declaration will he make? 

'He makes a GREAT foot-warmer, I bet!'

For five years, we administered insulin. Twice a day.  We provided him with some of those carpet-covered cylinders intended for cats to scratch and hide in, but in his case they were meant to ease his access to sofas and the bed.  It was becoming tougher to ascend on his own.

As he grew older, he slept more.  But if he was awake and you entered the room, he never failed to greet you, either with a murmur or a sharp mrowr! You could leave the room momentarily and return to yet another greeting.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

He slowly became deaf, but he never stopped talking.

At some point, his weight dropped a little.  And we had a wobbly, unsteady kitty at the clinic again. Was this a signifier of The End?

He was, after all, 18 years old.

Oh - diabetes in remission?  X-rays revealed his advanced arthritis.  In the lower back and knees.
The new regimen: twice-daily pain medication, in place of the insulin.

At age 20, he had 9 teeth extracted when an also-fearless veterinarian said she was confident that a cat his age would still get up from the table after all of that business.  And it was true.  After a quick recovery, he was back to eating dry food - which he still preferred.

As we readied ourselves and our belongings for the move to Rome, he suddenly struggled so much with lower back pain that we thought this might signify The End.

We mourned and twisted our hands with worry.  We made The Appointment for him, and mourned some more.

And he rallied.  Righted himself, somehow.  Resumed his normal, if still creaky and slow, state.
We moved forward with our original plans, and brought him with us. He managed the trip like a champ. I was happy to have my best buddy here with me.

In our new home, we made adjustments to the height of the bed.
Fashioned a kind of makeshift staircase made of gymnastics mats so he could get up and down with some degree of ease.
Little area rugs set up between bed and food station and litter box, because the floors are slippery and it's tough to make your old limbs behave sometimes.
Lowered the walls of the litter box.
We administered medicines for pain, for inexplicable infection, for slowly degrading kidneys, a recent return to a diabetic state.

We existed like this for 6 months.  He slept between us, resting his head on someone's arm.  Through the bedroom window, he watched the pigeons alighting on the rooftop of the church directly behind us.  He snuggled in next to one of us as we sat and read, invariably placing a paw on his human.

He recently lost control over his back legs for some inexplicable reason.  For the first time, he seemed afraid of how his body would not obey his wishes. The Spouse was gone on work travel for most of November, and so my schedule was orchestrated around Italian language classes, grocery acquisition, occasional meetings with students, and just spending a lot of time with Salvador.
We administered additional treatment for suspected spinal infection and orthopedic coordination.
The Spouse handled the chemistry side of this enterprise.  I was the physical therapist and coach.
And when Salvador seemed ready to take on the challenge, I put him through a workout.
Placed him on a yoga mat (good grip for old toes) some distance from me.  And waited.  Called to him. Over and over and over again.
He complained.  He murmured.  He complained some more.
And he struggled.  Struggled through getting up on arthritic hips and knees that didn't want to cooperate.

Once he got upright the first time, I scooped him up and called it a day.
Once he got upright and took a couple of steps, I scooped him up and gave him a break.
Once he got upright and walked several steps to me, I moved the target again.
And once he got up the gymnastic mat "steps" to the bed - on his own - I thought:  we've really done something here.  It looked as though Sal would be around for at least one more Christmas.

Any cat living for 21 years is an amazing feat that nothing can erase. 21 is winning, everyone wants to proclaim.  And all of these paragraphs attest to the brave battle, fought alongside our running commentary about quality of life: was he eating, drinking, purring and generally bright-eyed?  What if some days were better than other days? How bad are the bad days, exactly?

I have not-so-jokingly commented to The Spouse that doctors like him can have 'God problems,' that scientific knowledge emboldens them to push things, to fix things, that should perhaps be left to develop on their own, because it's time, for crying out loud.  Sometimes, it's time to let go.

But letting go takes bravery.  The kind that Salvador Cat Looney (the name that the pharmacy placed on all of his insulin bottles) has had in spades.

I have done some pretty brave (and maybe occasionally stupid) things in my life, especially if you consider where I came from and what I once knew.  This season in Rome, I have navigated a dense bus system to a wide variety of new places to take students for a class that I quickly - without thinking too much because there was no time to do that - applied for as a last-minute appointment.  I have traveled on the Italian rail system to another town by myself.  On a daily basis, I confront my very limited language skills in service of living here. Previous visitors to Rome would argue that I'm brave for stepping out onto a busy street here, given the nature of the traffic.  I can't argue.

And I am still not nearly as brave as Salvador Cat Looney.
For his sake, though, when he finally had a truly bad day, I had to pretend to be.

When its time to go, the body gives signals, and if we're lucky, the owner of the body tells us that the signals are there.  And of course, Salvador communicated.

The Spouse and I tried very hard to listen, and to somehow make a heart-rending, brave decision just last Wednesday.

Salvador Cat Looney was with me for almost half of my life.  A fixture like no other.  Twice as old as my primary relationships with any person.  A bond that the The Spouse attests he has rarely seen between an animal and their human.

My most beloved friend.

The bravest entity I have ever known.

The length of this post is, relatively speaking, a tiny testament to the depth and the span of love and, upon reflection, awe at such fearlessness.

And I now walk the streets of Rome, putting one foot in front of the other, but not because I'm really present or fully into any kind of holiday spirit.  My heart aches, or it has a hole in it, or it is just broken.  I can't decide.  I am relieved for him, but I never, ever wanted to be relieved of my responsibility for him.  At least once every hour, my mind reverts to the track it's been on, with ever-increasing frequency over the course of 21 years:  is he o.k.?  How long have I been gone from him? What does he need? Is he waiting for one of us?  How is he feeling? What should I be doing to take care of him right now, given how he took care of me, as a great and wild companion, for so long?

And then I remember that there is no more worrying for him.

And the heart aches anew.

So I persist.

I put one foot in front of the other because just one week ago, Salvador did.  For me.

For us.

Salvador, 1995-2016

post-script:
A massive, heartfelt thank you to the following people is issued for the care they extended to my best buddy, and therefore, me:

Animal Medical Care in Gainesville, Georgia
Briarcliff Animal Clinic, Atlanta, Georgia
Veterinaria Fleming, Roma, Italy
Dean Adams, Gainesville, Georgia

and finally, to this person (here with 'his' Smokey):

Dr. Doolittle, you gave everything in your power to give - to me - and him - for more time with Sal. I'll stubbornly try, but I'm certain that I can't thank you enough.  And yes, I know, it's because you love us. Our family is smaller, but your heart may very well be the biggest thing in it. I am so grateful for that and the fact that while you mourn with me, you still are a source of strength as I grieve.

I have been - and continue to be - unbelievably lucky to know two wonderful guys.