The awful uncertainty of trying to know, or trying to know how to know, when to say goodbye.

Content note: This post is about pet loss.

Whiskey Bearcat isn’t able to keep himself very clean on his own these days, so this morning, he’s getting a bath from his buddy, Stella. She’s licking his paws and his ears while he sleeps, which is what he does most of the time now. Months or even weeks ago, this would have quickly turned into a play-fight. Whiskey is the dominant cat in our house, and while His Majesty will put up with a little bit of bathing for a while, he usually turns it into a kerfuffle before long. But today he only snoozes quietly, letting Stella groom him before she stretches out beside him and joins in the catnap.

I am watching this quiet and precious act of care, and I am wishing for a time machine or a glitch in the fabric of reality or a wormhole or a crystal ball or just anything that will allow me to know for sure and certain and beyond a shadow of a doubt when Whiskey, my best friend and dearest companion for the last 18 years, will have his last good day. 

Even as I write this, I know that that day is almost certainly already behind us, but I am not ready to face it. Whiskey’s last good day will not be a day when he needs to be carried to his litter box, or lifted from the floor to his favorite spot on the couch, or urged to take just a couple of licks of Fancy Feast. And those things are what I do with Whiskey’s days now. These don’t feel like good days. 

I am so angry that I didn’t realize in the moment, whatever moment it was, when Whiskey was having his last really good day. Was it a day when I closed my office door to keep him from walking across my keyboard and demanding attention during a Zoom call? I would cancel a thousand Zoom calls, lose a thousand jobs and a thousand clients and a thousand scoops and a thousand contracts and a thousand stories, to see him so spry and salty again. What a shitty, pointless thing to preserve the peace of — a fucking Zoom call — at the expense of another hour with my sweet boy. I am so mad at myself. I would cancel everything, anything, for another good hour. For another opportunity to rub catnip on Whiskey’s little fishing wand toy and let him chase me in circles around the kitchen. I would have done more, something, anything, if I had only known when it was his last good day. I would have spent all afternoon playing hide-and-seek around the corner of the hallway, swatting his rear and then running away, letting him trot after me, nipping my ankles and calves to demand more pats. I would have stayed awake as long as I could stand it, letting him walk back and forth across my hips in the bed, cruelly and hilariously teasing the dog with the prospect of a coveted cat-butt sniff, until he was good and ready to curl up in the crook of my shoulder. I would have recognized and cherished the last night we ever fell asleep in our big bed with the whole family together – my husband snoring on his side, Fizzy Doge curled up between us, Stella in a loaf on my hip, and Whiskey playing little spoon, letting me bury my nose in the soft, sweet-smelling fur of his neck, my hand hugging his jiggly belly, letting the sound of the old mancat’s purrs carry me off into unconsciousness one more time. 

If I knew just anything at all about Whiskey’s last good day, I imagine I could be freed from the torment of these days, when I am wondering whether another good day will ever be possible. If you have nursed an old pet, you know what these days are like. Nights go on forever. I sleep on the couch or in my office, wherever I can get closest to Whiskey to help him eat and drink and use his box without spooking him. Daylight simply disappears. I get a text message and realize I’ve been reading about feline kidney disease for three hours. The oven beeps and I’ve lost 40 minutes replaying an Instagram highlights reel of Whiskey photos over and over. I’m involved in a terrible and constant game of four-dimensional chess-slash-Tetris with Whiskey’s food bowls and water fountain, thinking I might restore his appetite and vigor if I could just arrange them in the right configuration. I don’t know what to do, so I try everything.

The not-knowing is awful. I wonder whether there is some treatment or therapy that would bring my best good boy back to his old self, even if it’s only for a little while. Or whether there isn’t any such thing, and I could at least know that it is time to make the Hard Decision. I have said goodbye to pets before; I have made the Hard Decision in the past. But I have never had to make this choice about an animal who was this dear and this special to me, so much a part of my life and my story, my whole soul and being and purpose wrapped up in one furry body.

Whiskey’s vet, who makes house calls, is coming over tomorrow morning to help with the not-knowing. I hope. Our appointment has been on the books for months; it just happens to be time for Whiskey’s twice-annual senior checkup. Usually, Whiskey passes these exams with flying colors; he’s been living with chronic kidney disease and hyperthyroidism for six years now. Dr. B knows Whiskey’s been having a rough time lately. He knows we made a visit to an emergency vet for a UTI a couple of weeks ago, and that while Whiskey recovered from the infection, he’s growing weaker and less mobile every day – every hour, really. The last time Dr. B saw Whiskey, he was still climbing on the furniture and harassing the dog and begging for treats. That was just six months ago. I can barely picture it.

Dr. B will see a different cat tomorrow, and I am full of fear and shame imagining what might happen. Will Dr. B think I am the worst kind of monster, someone who obviously should have done, or known to do, the thing anyone else would have done, the clear and rational thing which any cat mom who was not a monster or an idiot would have done to save or prolong Whiskey’s life, but which I did not do? Will Dr. B tell me those things, or only think them? Or will he tell me I have done all I can, I am a good cat mom, and it’s fair and humane and okay to say our goodbyes? Or will he burden me with more not-knowing, offering to try this or that or another thing, not knowing whether this or that or another thing will work, but they might, and who can really say?

Or will he tell me: look, we’ve got medicine for this! Let’s get this old guy fixed right up! I don’t let myself hope for it, except for the moments when I forget to keep myself from hoping for it and my whole body becomes hope, warm and tense and bubbling, with something that feels like champagne or butterflies or gazillions of little shooting stars filling up my forearms and my thighs and my stomach and I think what if what if what if what if what if what if??????? before I remember that I am not hoping. (Yes I am, of course I am.)

When I know more – or know that I can’t know more – I will tell y’all Whiskey Bearcat’s story, from his humble beginnings as a Hurricane Katrina rescue kitty to his life as a cosmopolitan cross-country traveler to his golden years as a feline household patriarch. But I am not ready to write the last chapter yet.

For now, this old man can still lean on his friends. Literally.