death of a beloved cat

I’m sitting in my living room next to a beloved cat who died yesterday. Later we will take him back to the vet, who will arrange for his cremation. For almost 18 years Scamp and Pucci graced our house and our lives, but now they are both gone, Pucci having predeceased Scamp by just a few months (in February). The pain of their deaths is excruciating to both of us. Almost the first thing we did when we moved into our house in Chapelizod was to find ourselves a pair of kittens, Pucci and Scamp, who therefore grew into the house with us (to be joined by three others), where we still live. They were its heart and soul: every moment of every day we felt their presence and their mixture of independence and dependence. They, or rather Scamp (Pucci was as close to perfect in his general behaviour as I can conceive a cat being), could be exasperating, and during the last two years, illness meant that we had to devote quite a lot of time and money to their care, which occasionally I questioned or griped about. We also couldn’t travel away together for more than a few hours. Twice a day Scamp would need to receive fluids, which necessitated a bit of preparation and then three minutes of his not always totally willing company in the bathroom (Pucci also needed fluids, but – typical Pucci – he was a lovely patient). There were times when I wished we didn’t have to do this, but as I sit beside his still, cold body now, I would give anything to feel his warm fur under my hand and put up with a little hassle for the love and attraction he showed us.

Scamp was really my cat. He seemed to attach himself to me from quite early on, just as Suzie attached herself to my wife. He put up with a lot from me, and in his prime would often race into the living room in the hope that my lap would be his for a while. As he grew older and feebler I had less contact with him – something I intensely regret – but we did a great deal to give him a good quality of life in the later days, so there were periods when he was almost back to his old self and I could again enjoy a few minutes of his wonderful company on my lap or beside me in the living room. When Scamp’s health started failing in the summer of 2006, we took him to our old vet, where he stayed overnight. I vividly recall visiting him on the second day and coming into the waiting room, where my wife had already arrived (I came from College). As soon as I spoke there was a loud squawk from his cage in another room: his lordship had spoken and demanded my attention, which he quickly got.

People who don’t own pets, and some who do, have strange ideas about the animals we let into our lives. They attribute the closeness and love that grows up between us to projection or anthropomorphism. They argue that cats have no consciousness or soul, let alone personality, just a collection of instincts that some gullible or needy humans misinterpret. Having known many cats, done some reading, spoken to others, and so on, I know that the doubters are wrong. I don’t suspect it, I am as certain about it as I am about anything in my life. Some humans, I’m sure, are completely lacking souls, but not cats. They have an intricate consciousness that they use to establish a complex and often highly responsive relationship with their human servants. The value to the cats is obvious, for we give them food, shelter, warmth, and love, all of which they need and demand. The value for humans goes even deeper, for most of us live in towns and cities with minimal contact with other living creatures: cats (dogs, rabbits, etc.) are our communion with the living world beyond humanity. They are the medium through which we take our first faltering steps into a relationship with the infinite living riches of our beautiful planet.

Pets are not baby substitutes for us. They fulfill quite different needs. I have never wanted children but I’ve always loved pets. The death of three of our cats in under a year has been traumatic. The rent in the fabric of our existence will never be entirely repaired. I cannot imagine myself forgetting the two black beauties we let into our lives in 1990, one of whose ashes rests in our living room opposite the body of the other on the settee next to his grieving owner.

We are left with two lovely tabbies, Freddie and Jessica, who tended to play second fiddle to the others for many years. They will now claim the full attention they always wanted and deserved. Some may think it remiss that we allowed our love to be shared out unequally, but I think Freddie and Jessica knew the score soon after settling in: they were uncommonly deferential to Pucci and Scamp when they arrived and kept themselves to themselves quite a lot of the time (the arrival of Suzie was another matter, but that was a few years off). After the passing of Suzie and Pucci, they have stepped forward and made it quite clear that it’s their turn. Nothing could be less ambiguous. They will now take centre stage.

But what I wouldn’t give just to see Pucci and Scamp coming into the yard from the garden together as they so often used to do. They weren’t close, but every so often they would acknowledge each other and show that no matter how independent they seemed, there was a deep fraternal bond that allowed each of them to derive strength from the character of the other. Scamp could never be wholly Scamp without Pucci; now, perhaps, they are together again in the only heaven I can really bring myself to believe in: the one for cats.