my fifth grade teacher was mrs. bold. she was an odd woman who looked like dolly parton, had too much plastic surgery, but a heart of gold. her cat had kittens and she was looking for homes, and my mom let us take one in after much pleading from my part. i remember going to her house to pick one out, three or four weeks after they were born - i chose martin, and i remember him crawling on my leg, the size of a chipmunk. i remember waiting for him to be old enough to take home, which felt like eternity, and i remember how excited i was to finally have him with me. mrs. bold had named him martin, and i liked it, so it stuck. i remember teaching him to climb stairs, and the bed i made for him out of a cardboard box tipped sideways with a pillow in the bottom, and toys dangling, taped to the roof of it. he was a curious kitten, getting into trouble but also sweet and gentle - letting us dress him up in doll clothes, and letting me carry him around everywhere. he quickly grew into a huge, handsome cat, weighing fourteen pounds and almost three feet long. he had gorgeous grey and white fur, soft as silk, and big tufts of fur between his toes, affectionately referred to as his “toe fluffs.”
quickly, he made it clear that he was not the family’s cat. he chose me, as i had chosen him. he no longer really cared about anyone else, or paid much attention to what was happening in the rest of the house. he was my cat. when we moved to vancouver, canada, i was 16. martin was 6, and my mother made it clear that she thought he should remain in virginia. to be fair, he wrecked a few couches, carpets, etc, with his claws, and i had to fight to keep him from the early years of his life - so this was nothing new. but moving across the country, losing the rest of my friends, i couldn’t imagine life without at least bringing martin. i won that battle. he had to be sedated for the plane, and i remember how scared i was that he wouldn’t wake up.. but eventually he was his normal self, exploring his new home in west vancouver. i was alone in a new country and martin was always there. i hated my new school, new neighborhood, new job. i resented my family for dragging me across the continent, away from everything else that i knew. i would have had no one, but i had martin. i cried, and he cuddled with me. he was always there for me when i needed him.
i moved out to an apartment a couple of years later, and took him with me. he always hated my roommates, until he realized he was stuck with them and began to warm up. this usually took three months of every-day hissing and hiding in my room. he wasn’t mean spirited, just fearful and wary of anyone who wasn’t me. eventually i moved out on my own, and got another kitty - same thing, a few months of hissing and then (mostly) peaceful coexistence. later that year i went on a trip for three weeks and had a friend look after my cats and my apartment. i came home to see martin had lost a lot of weight, and quickly took him to the vet. they told me he was diabetic, and had pancreatitis, and would need to be on medication for the rest of his life. he was 11, then. i was 21, a student, broke, and terrified. i remember getting the call, right before i was meeting my mom and brother for dinner. i broke down and cried and had to leave before eating, and go be with him. everyone told me i should just put him down, that he’d “had a good life” but that i should let him go. i ignored everyone and knew he had years left to go, and that there was no way i could give up on him like that; he never gave up on me. the next few months was an exploratory process of medications - when insulin was too much for his system, we moved onto chinese herbs that had been proven to work. he went to the fancy alternative medicine vet because normal vets didn’t know what to do with him. his life expectancy with diabetes was a couple of years more from then on, living with medication. two years later he was still doing fine, and needed dental surgery. mark and i scrounged together and made it work, got his tooth pulled, and tenderly nursed him back to health - syringe feeding, days off work, etc. he recovered completely and was his normal self again, for years to follow.
last week i noticed he was eating about half as much as he normally does, so on friday, i took him to the vet. the vet told me he had a urinary tract infection and that his pancreatitis was back. he’d also lost more weight. they started him on five medications, twice a day, including an appetite stimulant. the vet also mentioned that it could be getting close to “his time.” this terrified me, and i was baffled - he was his normal, happy self, aside from a slightly decreased appetite. i took him home, and started medicating him. he quickly progressed to not eating anything at all, a day later. i bought chicken, tuna, salmon, seven different kinds of food, cat milk, etc., but nothing interested him, and he stopped drinking, too. we syringe fed him, and syringed water to him, as well as taking him in to get subcutaneous fluids (under the skin injections) on friday and monday. he vomited at least half of the medications, food, water, etc, that we got into him, and he became incredibly weak. i started to realize that the vet was right. by monday night, he couldn’t walk. he would get out of his bed and walk two steps and sit back down, apparently in great discomfort. by tuesday morning, he couldn’t even hold his head up. he was done. we had an appointment to get more fluids in him, but when we took him to the vet, we knew he was done. his eyes were glassy, he was no longer present, and it was clear that he would not get better. the vet took a look at martin, listened to his heart beat, tested for reflexes, and said “he’s so ready.” we put him to sleep, but he was not long for this world; he was suffering too much.
i fought for martin his whole life, and he knew it, and he fought back as hard and long as he could. the vets said he was a miracle, having twice outlived his life expectancy for diabetes, but his body just couldn’t do it anymore. most people never got to know the real martin. he felt threatened by people he didn’t know, and as a result only my partners over the years have had a glimpse of what i had for fifteen years. martin was smart, quirky, loving, and unconditionally empathetic. he was my best friend and we were lucky to have each other. i’ve had him in my life more years than i’ve lived without him. i lived in nine different houses with him, in three cities and two countries. everything feels wrong without him. i keep thinking i hear him in the other room, keep putting my shoes up high so he can’t get to them (his favorite thing was to ‘hunt’ shoes, toys, socks, gloves, hockey skates, full-sized bath towels, etc. - anything he could fit in his mouth and drag to us, meowing bloody murder until we took it from him and praised him for bringing us ‘dinner’)… things will never be the same without him, but i am so lucky to have had such an incredible best friend for most of my life. my heart is broken. i miss him very much, and i always will.
xoxo
