In memoriam

OK, so this isn't an obituary per se, but this post is in memory of (and to process the death of) my cat Macho, who was put to sleep last Thursday. He was approximately 16 and a half years old.

This photo was taken more than likely in 2001, before he was officially my cat. In his prime, Macho was a swashbuckling manly cat. He had large forearm muscles and a flabby belly. When he would nap, he would become a humongous mound of orange fur. He was a bully. He was lazy. At one point, a vet put him on a diet so that he would lose weight. I think at his heaviest, he weighed 15 and a half or 16 pounds.

Macho was my dance partner, my music-study buddy, and my spokescat. (When both my cats were hungry, Macho would be the one to meow at me until I would get off my butt and feed them.)

If you've followed my blog for the past year or so, you're probably aware of the ongoing saga of health crises that Macho endured during that time. He would get sick, then he would get better, then worse, then better, then worse, etc. While I was processing everything, I felt like God told me that the way Macho would die was that his body would shut down. I kind of wanted him to die peacefully in his sleep.

This photo was taken 4 months ago. Toward the end, Macho was skin and bones. He had diarrhea (of and on, mostly on) for approximately a year and a half, which I had gotten used to, and which I thought was just a side effect from the food that the vets had prescribed. I had basically become his live-in nurse -- chasing after him to wipe his butt, catching him before he would pee or poop on my floor (but not always succeeding to catch him beforehand), and escorting him to the living room with me so that I could eat breakfast without him staring at the closed bathroom door and meowing nonstop like a senile maniac.

He had some issues (and I had considered putting him down almost every time he would pee on my bed), but I felt that he still had a lot of life left in him. He would still show up every time I would play my piano keyboard. He would hang out with me when I would practice my really loud, really primal-sounding voice drills. He would try to nudge my laptop out of my lap when I would type out a blog post. He would come find my lap and snuggle with me when I would hang out by myself and watch YouTube videos on my phone.

Last Monday night, I knew something was wrong when he didn't come find my lap. Instead, he ended up peeing in his own bed a couple of times. His hind legs were wet with pee, he was less vocal, and he seemed very uncomfortable.

The next day, I took him to the vet, and he got treated for a urinary tract infection. He weighed in at a mere 4 pounds, 13 ounces. When I brought him home, he had a chest and belly full of hydration fluids; considering the blueness of his cataract-eyes, I felt like my life had become a science-fiction movie (e.g., Dune). Heh.

But by Wednesday night, Macho looked like he was in a lot of pain, especially when he would walk. I noticed that he had been napping under my bed (which he hadn't done in a long time). I tried to groom his fur, but I couldn't seem to get rid of the large amount of dandruff near his hindquarters. For the zillionth time, I thought a vet was finally going to recommend putting him to sleep, so I snuggled with him and cried while I played the Gipsy Kings song "Amigo" on repeat on my phone.

On Thursday morning when I was about to leave to go to work, he was sprawled out weirdly on the floor by the litterbox. I dropped him off at the vet on my way to work. Then I got a call from the vet, who recommended a blood transfusion to treat Macho's anemia. He also said that Macho was deteriorating because he didn't respond well to a vital-signs test. In addition, Macho was treated for a low body temperature. The vet said that he was about to go out of town, so he referred me to an emergency clinic for the blood transfusion. He also showed me an X-ray of Macho's intestines; he explained that it was hard to tell with all the intestine-gas on the X-ray, but there seemed to be a large mass inside Macho that was possibly causing all his symptoms. The vet suggested that the emergency clinic do an ultrasound on Macho to get a better look at the mass (because my vet's ultrasound equipment wouldn't be effective enough for an official cancer diagnosis).

On the drive to the ER, Macho seemed very lifeless. I felt like God spoke to me and told me to let him go.

When I arrived, even though the ER staff knew we were coming, they were pretty defensive. (Kind of like the people at Kwik Kar when I had brought in my old car with 100,000+ miles for transmission service.) They were like, "Why are we supposed to do these treatments on this very old, very sick cat if the treatments might not even work?" The ER vet said that Macho was very dehydrated, and if they were to rehydrate him, his heart murmur could cause him to go into heart failure. She also explained that if Macho's intestinal mass turned out to be cancer, the ER clinic didn't have a specialist, so they would have to refer me to a clinic in a nearby suburb for treatment.

This sealed the deal for me. Since Macho had already been through so much vet-specialist runaround, I didn't want to put him through that again. I asked the vet if it would be inhumane to simply put him down. She said that no, it would be a very humane thing to do. Then the ER staff's tone changed from defensiveness to compassion.

They left me alone in the room with Macho -- whose bedding stank with pee, and who had stopped fighting us while we were handling him -- and I explained to him in my usual matter-of-fact way that the doctor was going to kill him. Then I started talking to him in the same tone of voice that I always use before bedtime: "Are you ready to go to sleep? Let's go to sleep. Let's go to bed." The vet came back into the room and matched my tone of voice while she administered the euthanasia medication. My little deteriorated Macho manly cat was gone. I guess you could say that he died peacefully in his sleep.

I kept his collar, and I showed it to Choochie when I came home without him. I explained to her that he won't be coming back. She's been adjusting to being the only cat in the "house," but I honestly don't think she misses him. (Would you miss someone who was twice your size and who would bully you whenever he felt like it?) She is currently purring and perching on my thigh while I type this.

I decided a long time ago that if Macho were the first to go, Choochie and I would be OK on our own.

"Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast." (Psalm 36:6)

Recently, I've been thinking about how God has used Macho's life to teach me about grace. (When I say "grace" in this context, I mean the "unmerited favor" definition of the word.)

Macho wasn't always my cat. I met him when he was a kitten in January 2000. He belonged to a friend of mine who I ended up rooming with. When she moved to Europe as a missionary, she didn't want to pay the extra money to have him shipped to her, so Macho roomed with me and Choochie for several months.

Macho wasn't always nice to Choochie. I caught him trying to mount her (even though they were both fixed, and even though he was technically a guest in our home) I think a few times. I would pick him up and tell him to his face, "I love you as if you were my own cat, but if you hurt her, I will kill you." Eventually he stopped. Heh.

During his latter years, it was challenging for me to control my anger whenever Macho would do dumb things like eat my food without permission, sneak into the bathroom cabinet, poop on my kitchen floor, etc. When I would give him a talking-to, he would meow-talk back at me like a defiant teenager. As a pet owner, I had every right to drive Macho down to a veterinarian and have him put to sleep -- just out of anger, out of spite, out of wanting some peace and quiet in my home.

But I didn't. (That was grace.)

In my current job, I'm an editor. God has shown me that in my job, I'm learning how to serve people. I work behind the scenes to make sure that our clients' messages are communicated with as little distraction as possible. I don't always agree with our clients' messages, but I make sure their voice is communicated anyway. I try to make sure they look and sound as good as possible. (That's grace and good business.) And their messages help people connect with God. That needs to happen as effectively as possible. That's the most important part of my job right there.

In my church choir, I'm a leader. I've seen all kinds of people come and go from our group. I've seen all kinds of things happen behind the scenes. Not to be rude, but just to be honest about how I feel, I've seen all kinds of [bleep]holes be honored in all kinds of ways -- whether I felt they deserved it or not. Regardless of how I felt about them, they were still considered a part of the choir, a part of the family. (That's just grace.) I've learned that if God gave them a gifting, I don't have any business not honoring it. I need to honor who they are and who God created them to be, and I need to trust that they'll let God work on them -- just like God has been working on me. I mean, I've done plenty of stuff that could have gotten me kicked off the worship platform, but they've kept me there. (That's [bleep]ing good grace -- um, I mean, amazing grace.)

And that's just a taste of how God feels about us. Jesus didn't kick Judas Iscariot out of His twelve-disciples group, even though Judas stole money from Him and later betrayed Him to the authorities for some money. I mean, God didn't kick me out of His family when I attempted suicide nearly 16 years ago or when I cussed Him out (at least, I think I cussed Him out; that time of my life was kind of an angry blur) while I was working through some serious emotional healing about 4 or 5 years ago.

I adopted Macho into my family. (Or maybe you could say that he adopted me.) Although he gave me plenty of reason to, I didn't kick him out of my home, out of my family, out of my life. I gladly let him stick around (with plenty of discipline, etc.), and I wish that he could have stuck around even longer. I prayed for a very long time that Macho would live to be at least 30 years old, but I'm confident that he died in the manner that was best for him (and me). When God comforted me shortly after Macho's death, He showed me that he passed away at the exact time that was best.

For the first couple of days after Macho's death, I could still hear him (in my mind) meowing at me in my apartment, and I was still waiting for him to trot around the corner and demand my attention. Oh, don't worry, little Macho -- you still have my attention.

Even though I had many months to mentally prepare for Macho's death, I still miss him. I miss my lap-cat. I miss singing to him, loving on him, and taking care of him. But I have to admit -- after his death, it has been very nice to not be woken up at 3:30 every morning just to feed him. It has been very nice to not suddenly feel moisture on the bottom of my sock and realize that I've just stepped on yet another carpet-puddle of pee. It has been very nice to be able to feed Choochie in the bedroom instead of the bathroom (due to separate diets, which I had to strictly monitor). Choochie and I have been enjoying peace and quiet in our home. But I still miss Macho, and I'm probably going to grieve the loss of my cat for a lot longer than I thought I would.

I miss my fluffy, humongous, little meowing buddy, but I am so thankful for the years that I had with him.