R.I.P. Deets

I buried Deets this evening.

He was 13 last July 4th and had been in failing health for the last week. He kept to his regular routine: dry kibble breakfast before going outside, morning spent on the back porch, afternoon spent in the center flowerbed of the front yard and then coming in for wet supper at night, only he stopped eating. He tried, but it was just too much. Finally, sometime this morning, he lay down beside the gas grill and passed over.

I am sad, and I will miss him, but 13 is an old age for a cat, and he never did anything he didn’t want to do, with the exception of getting his nuts cut, and he never went hungry, except when he disappeared for three weeks before miraculously reappearing. We could have taken him to a vet and maybe extended his life another year or two, but he would have hated the car ride and the vet would have terrified him. So I coaxed him to eat, and rubbed his head and told him that I loved him.

I remembered my uncle, a crusty old farmer, down on all fours with a can of store bought dog food trying to coax his old blue tick hound, Dixie, into eating. I thought it odd at the time, but I did the same thing when my first old dog died.

Why do we do it? Why do we entwine our live with creatures that have an even shorter life span than our own measly allotment? When I look at a puppy or a kitten now, I see a foreshadowing of their inevitable ending. The joy of a new pet is now weighed against the future pain of their passing. It hurts and it sucks.

Someone once said that we surround ourselves with creatures that have a shorter lifespan than our own to remind us of how short life really is and how we need to treasure every moment, but I don’t think that truly measures what pets bring to us.

Mark Twain said that time spent petting a cat was never wasted and I agree but would add that time spent playing with a dog is a childhood revisited. Every purr and every lick tells me that I am loved without condition and that is something we all need as much of as we can get. Pets are our children that never grow up until they grow old. They become part of our family, always happy to see us and sensing when we are upset. The small cost of their upkeep is far outweighed by pleasure of their company. And when the end does come, it teaches us valuable lessons that prepare us for the greater losses living inevitably brings.

So we shouldn’t think about the ending and we should concentrate on enjoying right now as much as possible. I still have Deeter’s brother, Kirby. I think I’ll go rub his punkin head.

Rest in Peace, Deeter cat, King of the Whole Front Yard.