Making memories with Bluey: Preparing for the Death of a Pet

I woke up this morning at Mum’s house in Carmel, California, to a fifteen-minute face-lick from tail-wagging, Duke, my sister’s 2.5-year-old pooch. I landed in San Francisco last night, fresh from my journey from Adelaide, and boy, was Duke happy to see me! Squealing, jumping, licking with delight after my 18-month absence!  And they wonder why we love our animals so much! Who can resist such unabashed, completely heartfelt adoration?

The last brings me to Bluey, my just-turned-sixteen  cat. He’s a big, boofy, ginger, so full of love for me that it’s a wonder his heart doesn’t burst. How vividly I remember the morning I woke up to him, about 3 years ago, with the entire length of his body hugging me from hip to head, and his face buried in the crook of my chin and neck. His whiskers and soft breath had tickled me awake. He slept on as I tousled about, dead to the world and in utter trust.

As much as I love to visit the family, it gets harder each year to tear myself away from Bluey. He’s getting old, and even though he’s fit as a fiddle and his vet says he’s like a healthy ten-year old, I’m acutely aware of his mortality. Sometimes, when I look at him, I catch my breath because of it. Other times, when I look at him, I feel a knot in the middle of my chest; it’s grief, waiting to form, of a special kind. I know it because I’ve felt it before; it’s the weight of mourning, with tears just nearby. He has developed a limp from arthritis in his left shoulder that worries me; I wonder if that will be the thing to take him from me, if it will simply get too painful and awkward for him to be able to enjoy life.

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I’m back home now in Adelaide. Bluey’s limp was heavy when I first arrived, but his vet put him on Meloxicam (an anti-inflammatory), which relieved his pain and took away the worst of the arthritis. It took away the worst of my fears too; there are therapies that will keep him comfortably on his feet for a long time to come apparently. Meanwhile, he’s developed another old cat symptom: his right lower lip, irritated by his long, sharp canine, has developed a fluid-filled sac. Apparently, according to his vet, the swelling can be eased by draining it, but only temporarily; I see no point in the exercise, which would only satisfy aesthetics, disturb him, and not get rid of it at all. Fortunately, the sac has remained the same size, and Bluey is not discomfited by it in the least. So now there is nothing to do but to treasure him for as long as have him with me.

I pay constant attention to him. Right now, as I type, I can hear him walking down the hall, his nails tick-ticking across the floorboards. He’s heading for the food bowl. Soon, I will be able to hear him crunching away on his favourite biscuits (Royal Canin, of course!). I love the sound of him eating; he purrs as he chews. Earlier today, wondering where he might be, I went looking for him and found him on my bed (I work from home) sleeping. I lay down with him, curled around him and buried my nose in his fur to capture, yet another time, his special scent. I used to not be quite so attentive, but that was when he was younger, when thoughts of never seeing him again, of never holding him again, of never smelling him again, didn’t so much occur to me. Now, I take time out at least a couple of times a day to spend totally Bluey-focussed minutes with him, and when I do, I take special care to note little things about him, from the direction of his fur, to the pads on his little paws, his tender, pink nose, and so on.

It's not just that I am watching out for Bluey’s health when I pay him all this attention; I’m doing what I call ‘swallowing’. It’s something I learned to do when my darling, Silverstar, my tuxedo cat,  was diagnosed with cardio myopathy at only 12. During the 6 months that passed from his diagnosis to his death, I spent every moment I could with him, determined to record in my mind’s eye every detail of him, so that, when he finally did have to leave me, I would be able to call on those memories. And during that time, it did feel like I was trying to swallow him, all of him, whole, so that he would stay inside me forever intact, breathing, purring, mewling. The memories I have of him are indeed vivid, they have nurtured me, and they have taught me how to love better my other animals, like Bluey.

Oddly enough, it helps my animals to love me better too, this ‘swallowing’ of mine. My Silverstar, long gone though he may be, continues to love me through the media that are my memories of him. And when Bluey goes, which somehow, I imagine, will be quite a few more years from now (he really is super-duper healthy!), he too will be able to show his love for me from the great beyond. Of this, I am sure.