RIP Marvin

May 2005 - January 2010

Marvin was the greatest cat in the world.

Last night around 9:30 Marvin came to lay on the couch next to me for our evening ritual of "come on, you know you want to rub my belly and bury your face in my luxurious fur" while I tried to finish up some homework. Within the next fifteen minutes he was on the floor meowing in pain (Marv never never never meows) and kicking his back leg as if it was hurting him. He progressed from irritated to paralyzed in ten minutes. He lost his bowel and urinary control, was dragging himself along the floor to hide, and was making the worst sound you've ever heard come out of someone you love. We rushed him to the emergency vet, my old stomping ground.

Saddle thrombus. His heart (which had always seemed perfectly healthy) had thrown a clot to his back end and he was in a lot of pain. This is a shitty prognosis. There are, of course, ways to treat the clot (blood thinners, pain management, many days of fluids, then if the clot does begin to resolve itself you have to treat the urinary tract infection they got from loss of control, and the deep tingling sensation of life coming back to dead limbs. Then a cardiologist to treat the congestive heart failure. It's a painful and expensive mess for a treatment that may not work.) but my baby was in an unbearable amount of pain. As we stood talking to the vet I knew that as they were wrestling him to get a catheter in is leg that we would be saying goodbye to one of my best friends. I held him while we gave him the injection, the way I've held so many of other's loved ones when they were too grief stricken to do so. I shed some tears onto his head, as I've done so many times on bad nights when I needed a friend to hold. I said goodbye, told him we couldn't possibly have asked for a better 5 years. The whole experience was so fast and surreal... At 9:30p I had a healthy kitty, by 11:30p he was in the ground.

Marvin, I will miss you.

Miss you stealing Sean's pillow so he's forced to sleep with his feet hanging off the bed.
Miss you petting my eyelashes.
Curling up under the covers between us.
Belly rubs and your amazing orange fur.
I'll miss you knowing the sound of the tuna can opening (spaghetti sauce, refried beans, etc. need not apply. You wouldn't come running to the kitchen to those sounds... But on tuna casserole night I couldn't shake you.)
I'll miss the way you were so klutzy you would often miss the window sill and go tumbling to the floor.
Miss you stomping on Stuey's head when he gets too aggressive with his licking.
The way you freaked out Huckleberry.
How you insisted on sitting in every box, bag, open drawer, closet, and impossibly tiny cupboard.

Your amazing kitty personality is already sorely missed.

We buried him in the yard under the fruit trees. It was dark, still, and bitingly cold in the forest last night and as I stood watching Sean digging a hole for my child and companion I was reminded that we all come back to earth in the end. The energy of life, of the world, is shared by everyone and one day, we have to give it back.

I'll think of Marvin often.