Why I sleep with a dead cat-the end

In the next fifteen years Felix and I went through graduate school, divorce, major family battles, kids off to college, the dawn of brilliant physical and mental health, psychotherapy and a couple of unsuccessful love affairs (with the male type).

Through it all, Felix slept with me, all he ever wanted to do was lie next to his mommy. He slept on my feet or on top of my head. We read together and listened to the downpour of rain on the flat roof of my office. We played with the wire of my cell phone, I flipped to him and he flipped it back and then tried to eat the plug. I ate the cheese on the pizza and he ate the crust. I rubbed his belly and he slept on mine.

Upon my return from a brief vacation in September 94, I observed the little fellow slowing down. Well he was 15 so I guessed it was normal. However, he did not want to go out! “What’s the matter with you?” I asked him repeatedly. “Don’t you want to go out and play? Don’t you want to go out and bully some unsuspecting little feral creature?" I was angry! How dare he change his ways! How dare he change my life, my dependency, my security!

No response!

At his October appointment, I was told that he was in kidney failure. We tried medicine. Nothing worked. His decline was rapid. “Put him down now,” said the Vet.

I didn't listen, I never listen.

I watched him sit day after day while I attempted to live and work in the world. I came home hoping that he would be better. However, he would just sit. After a while I moved him to the window as he could no longer jump. Then he stopped eating; he sat there: a ghost. I begged him to get better, “just a little better please.” Then my plea changed to, “die, please die. I don’t want to have to do this. I don't know how to do this.”

I was a coward. He no longer looked my way. He was like a clay figure, where I put him; he stayed, whether on his side or on his hunches. His eyes stared ahead. He had left long ago. I needed one more night with him.

I held him, sang to him, put ice chips on his lips, and wiped his eyes with cool wet cotton swabs. I combed him and begged forgiveness, not for what would occur the next day, but for having failed to have acted earlier. We sat on our bed all night.

And I promised that he would sleep there forever.

The next morning I placed him in his padded bed on the passenger seat of the car. Tearfully, I said. “ You and mommy are going for a ride, so hold on.” On the way, I told him of all the wonderful sights. The gas stations and stores and, the motorcycles parked outside of local delis and when we got closer to that place, the wonderful expanse of land on either side of the road; the visible mirages up ahead which looked cool on this day. As we approached our destination, I felt as though I was entering another zone of existence.

After searching for weeks I found a little white stuffed kitten. I placed his ashes, wrapped in foil and plastic with his significant dates in the belly of the stuffed animal. It's almost fifteen years later: Felix still sleeps with me.

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