Lessons from the Littler Lives

Getting Ready for the Journey

My big, rangy, orange tomcat, Al, is preparing to leave me after 15 years of companionship and affection.

His diabetes has taken a turn for the worse, and he has been afflicted lately with seizures that wrack his whole body.  Worse yet, he’s stopped eating and drinking regularly … and I can tell he is lightening his load  in preparation for his long journey away.

I’m not sure he knows this.  I watch him stalk around the house, his collar bells still tinkling as he shakes his head.  Where once, his diabetes claimed all the strength in his hind legs, he has recovered much of his previous agility and strength.   If one didn’t know better, one might think Al was still planning on sticking around awhile longer.

Al is my friend and traveling companion.  When I was stationed elsewhere for a year, Kathy brought Al to me on one of her visits and he became my bachelor companion.  Every day I’d come home from work, he’d run up to me and sharpen his claws on my suede desert boots in greeting, while I brushed his fur.  At night, I’d sit on the couch and watch TV, and he’d sit on the back of the couch watching with me.  After awhile, he’d fall asleep up there, but not before reaching down and putting his paw on my shoulder.  I never wanted to move when he did that.  I never wanted to sever that connection between us.

Nowadays, when I come home and change out of my Best Buy work attire, I hear his tired meow coming from under the bedroom bench, and he slinks and stalks his way out onto the floor … demanding to be petted and brushed.

But the cat treats that used to send him into a tailspin now are left mostly untouched.  As I said, he’s preparing to leave.

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At the same time, one of my two maniac ferrets, S’Mores, is winding his little life down after a two-year battle with cancer.    

These two little guys have brought much joy (and patches of floor poop, truth-be-told) into our lives.  They sleep 12-16 hours per day and wake up (ALWAYS in a great mood) and want to do nothing more than party with their people.  S’Mores used to delight friends and family with his thievery of stuffed animals – many much larger than he was – clamping them in his his tiny predator’s fangs and scampering away with them to his stash under the chair.  

Too, it seemed like he was also working as an experimental physicist, checking constantly to see if gravity was still in control.  (He would wriggle his way behind a row of books on a shelf, and push them out and off with his nose.  It seemed at first like we had a poltergeist, until we’d see his little face come poking out to find out where the book had gone.)

But his lymphoma now is getting ahead of his daily dose of chemo.  Despite daily hand-feedings and nightly doses of banana-flavored steroids, this little guy‘s once-glossy fur now is bare in patches, and his legs fail buckle under him while he eats.   

S’Mores, too, now is apparently nearing the end of his stay with us.

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Cats, dogs, Guinea pigs, ferrets, hamsters, parakeets, goats, ponies and peacocks  … they've all come into the Breyfogle household over the years and have worked their way into our lives and hearts.  Each and every one gave unconditional love, affection and companionship, asking only that we feed and take care of them and spend a little time with them daily.

Each and every one has left a small hole when they inevitably passed away.

And that’s one of the first lessons from these little lives:  They go and you have to stay behind, grieving.

But if you've done it right, the memories of the joy they brought into your life more than make up for the brevity of their sojourn here.

So the companion animals in my life haven’t changed, really.  I've always known that cats and dogs and ferrets are relatively short-lived.

No, I fear that what may have changed is me.

Since I was diagnosed last year, I've felt the slow, gradual progress of the lung ailment that aims to claim me.  While I seldom think about it, watching my two little companions prepare for their final journey has made this Zen-like detachment of mine more difficult to maintain.

I've always told Kathy that I tend to live “…in the moment …” which has kept my disease far from my immediate attention.  The end is always an age away as the seemingly endless succession of “right now” and “this very moment” proceeds past. 

But as my disease advances – albeit slowly – I’m having a difficult time looking forward, especially since my two little friends are nearing their respective ends.  (sigh)

(Shaking it off ... sheepish grin)

OK … so that my friends and family won’t panic, I’m not succumbing to anything.  I've got a lot of fight and feistiness left in me. 

This sadness won’t get me for long, I promise.  I'm sure I can cajole Kathy and my family out of a toy or two.

And that’s another lesson from these little lives.  When there are caring humans around, there are always a few more treats to be had.