2019 has been a hard year for me, and it shouldn’t come as such a surprise that it would draw to a close on yet another awful note, but here we are. Today my sweet Maine Coon, Shamus, had what the vet thinks was a serious stroke, so I had to make the decision to put him down, even though I really, really didn’t want to.
I’m thankful that he didn’t suffer very long, because I know he seemed fine when I finally climbed into bed at 2.a.m. When he didn’t wake me before my alarm went off at 9 I was surprised, but not too worried until I went out to get him in the living room and found him very disoriented. It was clear that he was not right, and just before we left for the urgent care appointment at the vet’s he went limp, never to regain consciousness.
We’ve seen each other through a lot of loss in the past four years, Shamus and I. He’d been my mom’s cat in theory, but as she liked to point out, he always liked me better. I was his “person”, as Meredith Gray might say. We lost Mom in March of 2016, then his bestest cat buddy Sassy in July of 2018, so it was just him, Dad, and me for quite a while. Then Dad departed too, just three months ago.
After Dad died he got clingier, and no wonder. For the first time in his life (or at least since my mom adopted him in 2006) he was alone all day while I was at work. I’d come home at mid-day a couple of times and found him curled up in Dad’s chair, listening to the radio I programed to play Dad’s favorite radio station while I was gone. I felt so bad about that and wanted to adopt him a buddy, but I wasn’t sure how he’d do with a new cat so I decided to put it off until the spring.
Since September we’d spent a whole lot of nights with him on my lap as “we” watched TV or I read a book or played a game, and I didn’t mind him becoming a lap cat in old age. In truth, having him around has made me less lonely without Dad.
And I knew he was 15, but I hoped he live as long as Sassy, who was 17 when she died. I knew it would be hard to lose him too, and I hoped…I hoped…
I’m going to miss his mad purring when I read, though I’ll never know what it was he loved about that. I’ll miss him on my lap, even though after three years of trying he never really got the hang of sitting in a way to make us both comfortable. I’ll miss him coming to the door to greet me (didn’t you know Maine Coons are half dog?) and the way he’d ask questions. I’ll miss his excitement over dinner, his reproachful glares when I dared come home later than 6:30pm and him ignoring me in the same room until I was suitably punished, the way he’d always join any online meeting I had on rare days working from home, his goofiness about demanding that you lightly swat at him with wrapping paper rolls, and I’ll just miss his Shamusness so very, very much.
It’s only been a few hours but already the house seems so empty, so lonely with no one else but me and a pair of fish. Who knew such a small cat could leave such a big hole?
I know cat threads demand pictures, so here are a few from the photos I took with my new camera in October. Yes, this October - he hardly looked elderly, did he?
Good night, my little Shamus, you were so loved.
