Fly, brother, fly

It’s been a week since Claude breathed his last breath in my arms, as we lay quietly on the carpet upstairs, music playing, flowers overhead, candles burning in hopes of sending his spirit quickly skyward, as Dr. Sue sent the medicine through his veins that ended his suffering.

But I’ve been unable to write about it because I knew I would come unglued again, lost in a soup of grief, memories of feeling and seeing him die with his chin on my upper arm, and self-reproach. But every passing day brings a bit more perspective and a renewed sense of the positive, and so I forge ahead.

In the middle of Litquake week, he began to retreat again – disinterested in food, looking distant. Worse, he would get “the heaves” – like a constipated cat would get, where they shudder and arch their backs in an attempt to poop. I took him to the vet for “the works” – fluids, antibiotics, steroids… and a blood test to see how his organs were doing. If the tests showed his organs were doing fine, they told me, his downturn would clearly be because the cancer was taking its toll. He had one really good day after that: active, peppery, at least a little hungry. Then the bottom dropped out. He retreated to his quiet spot under the bed, and this time when I crawled under to cuddle him, he did not purr. His eyes were wide, as if in alarm, and he did not sleep. And I got the news that his blood tests showed his organs were fine, so the shuddering heaves were because the cancer had thickened his innards to where he could neither eat nor pass anything.

Everyone with a sick animal always agonizes over how to tell if it’s “time,” but there was no doubt in my mind. I scheduled the vet visit for Friday, and arranged for others to take over my duties at Litquake’s huge headliner event that night. But because there was no one to help with a lunch for Paul Theroux I was responsible for, I had to go and host, feeling at any moment I could lose my shit.

I raced home to be with Claude, and was able to spend a couple of quality hours just lying with him, telling him what a good boy and wonderful companion he’d been, and how I would miss him. He stared, caught in that gauzy area between life and after-life, but seemed to understand. After the medicine had done its job, releasing him from pain and sickness, I lay with him for a while, and sobbed.

And yet, my grief needed to be contained – I was needed the next morning, afternoon and evening, to conclude this festival I spent a year planning. Feeling hollow, bereft and even angry, I went about finishing the festival with the requisite bang. I left the closing party as soon as I could slip away.

I then had two days to pack up my life and start driving north to Seattle for Litquake’s satellite Lit Crawl event up there, so my grieving again was pushed to the side – reserved for moments when I saw his food dish, or the glasses of water he drank from on the floor, when the pain would erupt from me like a geyser. It was only on the long, long stretch of road did I have time to sort through what had happened, and even appreciate the timing of his departure. Even as I was publicly expressing confidence that Claude would be with me for months yet, I’d been fretting about what would happen if he starting losing his battle while I was away. So perhaps it was fortuitous – perhaps even engineered by Claude – to nip that worry in the bud.

And yet I was still left with the grief – I couldn’t stop thinking of his still body on the blanket. And I was crushed by the guilt that I had been unable to spend more time with him in his last weeks, and that he had stood by for ten years while I got deeper into my rescue pursuits, gamely accepting that there would be a constant stream of stranger cats to contend with – cats that diverted some of my attentions from him. Claude was the good and faithful boy, never “complaining” by eating plants or pooping outside the box. Did I repay him properly?

As I sped north on I-5, heading into the southern Cascades, the song “Into the Deep” by Kula Shaker – the Britpop band heavily influenced by Hinduism – came on my CD player. The lyrics hit me hard.

Fly brother fly, may you feel the love tonight
Fly brother fly, well I hope you meet your maker
I know the time has come to let you go
Time to sleep, to sleep

After that line, a soaring guitar and the first sight of Mt. Shasta ahead combined for a major psychic jolt. I envisioned Claude’s white-light spirit ascending, through my arms holding him close on the bathroom floor, until he was gone and part of the air. It was breathtaking – a real gift.

Now, some days later, when I think of him, I am more often thinking of him as happy, healthy, gorgeous Claude, usually tailed by his adoring mate, Lena. And I try to remember that I gave this discarded and mature black cat a wonderful life – as wonderful as I could make it.

Fly, my love, fly.
St. Francis, give him a special spot at your table. He likes tuna.