A Tribute to Baba Cat

We put our cat to sleep today. Baba developed some sort of abdominal cancer, or something that cats get called FIPS, or something else. It hardly matters what, now. I took him to the vet an hour ago and had them kill my cat.

I feel guilty about putting him to sleep, even though it still seems right and humane. It’s because he was a cat, and couldn’t understand what was happening, and his last hour of life was spent in a vet’s office, surrounded by strange animals and smells. He couldn’t tell us whether or not he was ready to die. As if anyone or anything is ever ready to die. His last hour of life was spent anxious, too distracted to want to sit on my lap and be comforted by me. It feels like I killed him, rather than put him to sleep.

I’m still in shock, denial, that I’ll never see him walking around this house again, that he’ll never sit on my lap again, it seems impossible that he’s gone. My mind rebels against the idea, and keeps finding itself re-surprised that he’s gone forever.

Baba was only 9 years old. Perfectly healthy, other than the thing that killed him. He is survived by his brother, Ghanoush (Noosh for short). When we finished the boat trip in 2011, my mom called to say that she rescued two farm kittens that had fallen out of the barn. She kept them in the farm house and bottle-fed them until Karen and I arrived, fresh off the boat. We named them Baba & Ghanoush, and promptly drove back across the country in the xterra with them. They would sleep up on the dash, at the base of the windshield, too small to block the view. Or else on the back of my neck, between my head and the seat rest.

They were always great brother cats. They never fought; they frequently play wrestled together, slept curled up together. I don’t know what Noosh will do, with Baba gone.

Baba in particular was my cat. I was his special person. It was my attention that he coveted; my lap that he needed. When I returned from work, he would wait for me at the top of the stairs, and roll around the bedroom floor on his back like a dog, begging for attention and scratching. He would follow me into the bathroom, and he would playfully try to grab my leg to prevent me from getting into the shower, so jealous he was of my attention. He could wrestle with me without scratching me–he was great at keeping his claws retracted enough to prevent harm.

From an early age I kept a special toy stick –feathers on a string– and both cats would go crazy with anticipation when I talked to them in my special play-time voice. It was the tone of voice more than anything else, but they knew– and they made these cute smacking noises with the excitement.

As far as we can tell, they were Norwegian Forest Cats. Undoubtedly not pure-bred, coming from the group of farm-cats as they did. But they had the big manes of hair on their chest, the fluffy tufts between their toes, the huge fluffy tails. They certainly had the friendly demeanor. They never scratched or hissed at our crazy boys, even when they surely deserved it. They were quite large. Baba was the smaller one — Noosh can put his front feet up on the kitchen counter, and his eyes are nearly level with it.

The saddest thing for me is that Baba will not have the opportunity to develop a better relationship with my boys. I had always imagined Baba being there when my boys got old enough to better appreciate cats. When the boys become old enough to be patient enough for cats, to enjoy sitting still with a cat on the lap. I had imagined Baba starting to sleep at the foot of their beds, as he often slept on ours. Perhaps that was wishful thinking, perhaps we would have needed them to grow up around the boys as kittens for that. He was always only ever my cat first, Karen’s cat second, the rest of the world far behind.

He would lay his head in my hand, and fall asleep that way.

He loved getting under the bed sheets and chasing imaginary mice when we were returning them to the bed after laundering.

He wasn’t perfect. He puked a lot. And after we had children, he started peeing on my stuff. For the first few years, it was only my stuff he would pee on. The message was obvious– he was clearly pissed that he no longer enjoyed my undivided attention. He would always pee on something when we left on a long trip. Eventually he expanded his anger to include the whole family–lucky them. Right now, the puking and peeing seems like an insignificant price to pay.

Of the two cats, we refer to Noosh as the “simple kitty”. He just wants food, and he’s not complicated, and not particularly smart. Baba was the more complex cat. Baba was the one who always knew when we were going on a trip, and was clearly upset about it.

About 2 months ago Baba got super sick and we took him to the vet and he ended up spending almost a week in the hospital, getting IV antibiotics and fluids and steroids. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, and still don’t know. After a week we brought him home, but the doctor said he was probably going to die soon, days or months, and that there was nothing more to be done for it. Within two days of that hospital stay he recovered, and for the past month and a half he acted like a perfectly healthy and happy cat. We were all quite hopeful that he was cured of whatever it was, and had years more ahead of us with Baba.

In that way, at least, we got extra time with him, and were able to love him and give him attention. I was able to newly appreciate those special things he did. Then two days ago he rapidly got worse again, and it became clear that tons of steroids weren’t going to give us another month this time. Fortunately, the decision to put him to sleep was…not easy…but perhaps as easy as it gets.

We still have Noosh, and I think it will take some time for him to realize that his brother is gone for good. As I said, he’s our simple cat. Not sure whether that will make it easy for him, or more confusing.

I’m going to miss Baba so much. He was so very cuddly and loving. He made me feel loved, and he let me know that my love for him was coveted and appreciated. It feels like there is a big gaping hole in our family, for the absence of our littlest cat.