The Wife and I had to put our beloved cat, Piffle Puff, down.
First. That name. The Wife came up with it. Growing up, she lived across the street from another little girl who made up her own names for animals. Cats were “piffles”. Dogs were “woozles”. The word stuck in her head. Twenty-some odd years later, and a few months before she met me, when the Wife picked a grey kitten out of a litter at the Houston Animal Shelter, she named her “Roxy.” But we called her “Piffle Puff” because in our opinion, she was a ridiculous cat and needed an equally ridiculous name. "Roxy" just didn't fit. She was a big cat, at her heaviest, topping out at 16 pounds. She had a brash, aggressive personality. She’d chase you and swipe your ankles if you cut her claws and she wasn’t in the mood for a manicure. She’d bang incessantly on doors to be let into rooms where she was shut out. She’d yowl for her breakfast in the morning. In the middle of the night, she’d half kill bugs and then drop them in the bed while we slept. She was never shy with an affectionate head bump or a snake-like hiss. She was “Roxy” on the dotted line; “Piffle Puff” in our hearts.
After fourteen years though, just like it does with all of us, time took its toll on our poor kitty. Her thyroid got out of whack and did a number on her heart. She stopped eating and lost half her body weight. Her lungs filled with fluid and the vet suspected she had a stomach tumor. Her poor heart was constantly beating so fast that she couldn’t sleep. She was in imminent danger of suffering a massive, painful heart attack. So we made the wrenching decision to put her down. She died on July 17, 2017. The numerologists would probably have a field day with all the sevens in that date.
If you’ve never had to put your pet down, you’re lucky. The anticipation is the worst part, at least for the humans. We visited the vet for the last time on the Saturday before her death in a last-ditch effort to see if something could be done. It couldn’t. The only humane thing we could do was give her a peaceful, painless death. We made an appointment for the following Monday.
Of course Saturday, Sunday and Monday were terrible for the Wife and me. We knew what was happening. Piffle Puff didn't. She was in a pretty decent mood thanks to a shot of cat morphine that helped with her pain. She didn't eat anything, but was unquenchably thirsty. The whole weekend she shuttled herself from one bathroom to the other, hopped in the tub and stared at the faucet until the Wife or I pitied her enough to turn it on.
I broke the news to the Toddler Daughter that Piffle Puff would be going to kitty heaven — that she is very sick and old and that when you love a pet very much, you have to be kind enough and brave enough to let her go. Truth be told, she took the news pretty well. There were a few tears from her, some from me. But she accepted this in the matter-of-fact kind of way toddlers can often accept what you tell them. She accepted her cat’s death a lot more easily than she accepted that she can’t wear water wings to daycare or eat chocolate pudding for breakfast. She pointed out that I was also old and asked if I was going to die too. “I’m not that old,” I let her know. “You’re pretty old,” she insisted.
The Wife and I both took the day off from work on Monday. Braydyn was pretty sympathetic, but did remark that his parents never let him have a pet because of his allergies and that his parents, step parents, aunts, uncles and all of his grandparents are still alive so he hasn’t had to confront death yet. After dropping a disappointed-to-be-water-wingless-Toddler Daughter off at daycare, the Wife and I spent the morning trading off sitting next to the cat in the bathtub, stroking her fur and telling her how much we loved her and just making ourselves busy around the house. I had some photos of Piffle Puff printed to make a memory book for the Toddler Daughter. We couldn’t really eat and the Wife and I barely spoke to each other, each of us processing the day in our different ways. At 3:10, we packed Piffle Puff into her pet carrier for the last time and drove to her 3:30 appointment.
When we arrived, we were quickly shuffled off to an exam room. This one was different than the bright, sunny one we had visited on Saturday though. It was more somber, with boxes of Kleenex and darker lighting. Instead of happy framed pictures of kittens playing, there was an older cat sleeping in a basket under a tree. A caption read, “It’s not good bye…It’s still ‘I love you forever.’” We let Piffle Puff out of her carrier and she started exploring the room.
The vet was sympathetic. She told us that she understood how hard this was, but we made the right choice for our cat. Nothing could be done and prolonging her life would just prolong her suffering. Piffle Puff was administered a sedative to help her relax. After about twenty minutes, the vet tech took her to a back room to place an IV catheter in her front leg. When she was brought back to us, we said our tearful goodbyes. The Wife and I told her that she had been a great cat and that we’d always love her. Once we were ready, the vet administered the final dose of pentobarbital. I whispered, “Good night, sweet girl” as her eyes closed. And then only 30 seconds later, the vet told us that her heart had stopped. She was gone.
As terrible as it sounds, after it was over, the Wife and I both immediately felt better. The dread, anxiety, fear and anticipation were over. We had given our cat a peaceful, fearless, painless death. I can never know, but I hope in her last moments, she felt safe and happy and, most importantly, loved. Or at least the closest thing to love that a cat can feel.
The reason that this cat death has hit me so hard is because Piffle Puff was an ever-present witness to the Wife and my life together. She was the only one there from day one, besides, of course, the Wife and me. She saw the ups and she saw the downs and she processed them all in the cold, indifferent way that cats casually look upon our human world, like we’re a TV playing in the background just because she likes the company of the noise. It was strangely comforting to feel both her presence and her aloofness. No matter how much we screwed up or hurt each other, she never took sides. She never judged. She just sat there most of the time, in her cat wisdom, knowing that human problems, insecurities, frailties and vanities are completely meaningless so long as she still gets fed on time.
She was next to me when I proposed to the Wife in the hallway of our first apartment together. She kept me company after I was laid off from a job I hated only a month after we said our “I do’s.” I told the Wife that I thought Piffle Puff could sense my depression and was developing sympathy depression in solidarity because she just napped all day. The Wife kindly reminded me that Piffle Puff was a cat. During our first Christmas together, she watched the Wife and I assemble and decorate our modest fake tree (which we still have and use every year). Later that night, she knocked it down. In 2005, in the midst of the massive Houston evacuation from Hurricane Rita, she leaped out of the Wife’s car while we were stopped on the highway and I had to drag her out from behind a wheel by the scruff of her neck, scratching and biting my wrist. She was there as we grew from a young-ish couple into middle-aged parents.
Piffle Puff was there as we fell in love and grew in love. The Wife sometimes complains that she’s not as attractive as she used to be. I tell her that she’s more attractive now because of all the shit we’ve been through together. Piffle Puff was there for all that shit. She saw the loving moments as well as the terrible fights that make a person feel as though his world is falling apart.
Now she’s gone. What feels like a critical piece of the history of the Wife and me is now buried in my parents’ back yard. We miss her. But we also miss that connection to our younger selves when life was simpler and parenthood hadn’t yet darkened our door with its incessant demands. We miss those days when we had free time and the hardest decision we made each day was where to go for dinner. Piffle Puff was a good cat, and we loved her in all her cat-like ways, but I think both of us loved her more because of what she represented. She was a chubby, furry manifestation of those easier days, and now she’s gone and there’s no denying that they are too.
So a part of our life together is gone. But this doesn’t mean our life together is gone too. We have a lot more now. Kid. House. Harder jobs. The Wife and I have a much deeper connection, strengthened in the furnace of time and molded on the anvil of responsibility. We have more memories and more shared experience. We have more love, and maybe more sorrow. Because of the Toddler Daughter, we have more hope and optimism. Maybe we also have a tinge more regret here-and-there. Like Piffle Puff, our love has aged and matured. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s natural. Her death could be a realization that we’re in a new phase of life. Not a bad phase, or even an old phase. Just a different phase.
We will continue to grow. We’ll build new memories and experiences with the Toddler Daughter. We’ll build new memories with each other. And we’ll always have our past. Now Piffle Puff is part of that shared past too. It’s painful to move on, but that’s really all life is in the end, isn’t it? Moving on from one thing to another.
Now it’s time to move on again. So thank you, Piffle Puff, for being a part of our lives.
And good night, sweet girl. It’s still “I love you forever.”
