Goodbye Jenny :'(

Though I had a lot of interesting things happen this week--my nephews leaving Utah, visiting sports medicine, pioneer events at the Church History Museum, MoTab Pioneer Day concert, Draper Days parade, high school reunion, biking to said reunion and having a young kid take unusual interest in me and my bike--my week was overshadowed with a feeling of darkness and emptiness, as we had to say goodbye to our kitty, Jenny.

Last week, we noticed that she didn't seem to be eating much. We wondered if maybe she was eating when we weren't around, or if she was stressed out with all the company we had. She tended to just lick her wet food instead of eating it, whereas normally she loves it and eats it right up.

By Sunday evening, I could tell for sure that she wasn't eating at all, and she was really low on energy. Even my nephew Preston (12) commented that she seemed really sick, and I don't think he'd even heard us discussing her. My mom agreed to take her in the next morning. Jenny wanted to go outside, but I wasn't going to let her out in that condition.

When I got up the next morning (Monday), someone had let her out, so I went to find her so she would be inside when my mom took her to the vet. I found her sitting placidly on the lawn of our sideyard. That was quite uncharacteristic of her; usually she hides under bushes or sits on non-grassy surfaces. She purred when I pet her but otherwise didn't react much. I picked her up and put her inside--she tried to go outside again, but she could barely move. She had deteriorated significantly just overnight. I took her to my room so she could sit out of the way, and she meowed distressedly as I took her. She settled down on my carpet, whereas usually she goes behind my bed or in my closet.

I was recently disappointed to change cubicles at work, but on Monday I was glad that my new one was a bit more isolated. My mom texted me and asked if I could call her. That didn't seem like a good sign. She said that the vet said her temperature was really low and her kidneys were inflamed. They could do an expensive operation, but they didn't think it would do anything. They could do a cheaper treatment by giving her an appetite pill and filling her with water, so we both felt good about doing that.

My sister-in-law (who went with my mom) sent me these pictures of Jenny. Jenny would never consent to being wrapped in a towel.

My mom later told me that the vet had to pour water on her to stop her purring so she could hear her heart. Last year, Jenny was diagnosed with a heart murmur, and her heart murmur had become very pronounced.

Not long after the first call, however, my mom called me again. Jenny's condition was really bad--her eyes kept rolling back, and the vet recommended that putting her down was the best option. So we reluctantly agreed. I felt bad for my mom having to be there to make the decision.

I was kind of weepy the rest of the day, which made it a little hard to focus on work. When I got home, I found out that her body was downstairs in the room she loved to hide in. I thought my mom would leave her at the vet, but it was more expensive, and she thought it would provide more closure to bring her home.

When I went down and saw her little body, which did not purr at all when I petted it, I just broke down. As I sobbed, a bunch of things went through my head:

• How pathetic. Here I am a grown man, crying over a cat. And not even a particularly friendly or loving cat.
• If I'm this sad over a cat, what will I do when it's a person?!
• But we had Jenny more than half of my life. I can remember driving home from the Davis County animal shelter with her one autumn afternoon in 2002, when she was just a kitten. We hadn't even named her yet. That era has come to an end.
• We had her longer than my brother has been married, and longer than my niece or nephews. That's five people who have been in the family for less time.
• In fact, my niece, Allie, used the word "Jenny" or "Jen" to refer to any cat (or other small mammal) when she was a toddler.
• If it had to happen, though, this was a good time, because we are going to New York this week, so we don't have to find someone to watch her.
• I've read that the average life span of a cat is fifteen years. I don't know when Jenny was born, but I estimate it was August 2002, so she was right there.
• She was old, and she wasn't in perfect health. It was probably the heart murmur that did her in (though the vet speculated she could have eaten poison), but she also had arthritis and hyperthyroid. She had gotten pretty skinny recently, probably from her thyroid.

Although seeing her dead was much sadder than I expected, in a way I felt like it allowed me to get it all out of my system and accept it. Then I was ready to take her up and outside to be buried.

Last week, my dad disassembled a slide platform from my childhood because it was rotting. He extended one of the holes where it had been anchored in the ground, and we put her in there. My nephews got their last pettings in. (They weren't very sad, since they don't live here, and Jenny wasn't friendly to them.) So in the ground she went, covered with dirt and a cement block to prevent her from being dug up.

Monday, of course, was the hardest, and Tuesday still stung. I was doing better Wednesday, but then Wednesday night, I had a dream where I was buying cat food that could restore cats' health. In the dream, I thought, "No, it's too late, she's already dead, we buried her," but then I thought, "No, it's not too late, because after we buried her I saw her walking around." (That part was fiction, of course.) So Thursday was a little sadder just because that stupid dream got me wondering if we could have done anything else for her. But I'm doing better now.

This experience has me thinking about sympathy and empathy. I know cats aren't for everyone, but I appreciate others' sympathy. I'm not a dog person, but I hope to be more empathetic about people's dogs, especially since dogs have more personality and are better companions. (I would argue that the best dog is better than the best cat, but the worst dog is worse than the worst cat. I feel like of all pets out there, dogs are funnest, and cats are second funnest; but of all pets out there, dogs are the most work, but cats are the least work, with maybe the exception of fish.)

We knew this day would come someday, but I didn't expect to be so sad when it did. 

This is a screenshot from a video my grandparents took when she was a kitten in 2002.

Scrapbook image of her playing in a Christmas garland in 2003.

June 2006

A messy room and ugly carpet, February 2007.

2008, when I was on my mission.

December 2009. She always got poofy when she saw another cat outside.

She loved garlands. 2010.

And she loved soft things, especially when they were new. 2012.

Sometimes she slept in odd positions; this was one of the weirdest. August 2015.

Sleeping on my fall rug, 2016.

In February 2017, she got really sick when she had an abscess. We were more worried then than we were this time; this time we thought it might be another abscess that could be fixed. We spent a lot of money to restore her to health in February. It only bought her five more months, but I don't regret it. She seemed more loving those last five months. We had to give her thyroid pills, and even though she didn't like it, it gave us an opportunity to bond.

Whenever a new drawer or cupboard was open, she had to explore it. April 2017.