Critters Part 2: Passings

Our super handsome, big, gray, male tabby cat passed peacefully at home in the wife's lap on a Sunday recently. He was 17. We got him from the animal shelter at MM106 in Key Largo. He helped raise 3 dogs, did his part to control the iguana population and loved to snuggle. He got along with all the other animals that have come in and out of our lives. He wasn't fond of new people but who could blame him? People tend to suck. Like the neighborhood kids that shot him with a BB gun years back. Life on planet Earth isn't easy for any of god's creatures.

His passing was expected, and welcomed, as his suffering with the ravages of old age was finally over. It wasn't that way at all with our teeny tiny Lily puppy. She got sick on a Christmas night and died the next morning in the wife's lap in the car on the way to the vet. That ripped our hearts out. Totally unexpected. A sucker punch to the privates, a kick to the head, stabbed in the heart with a glowing red fire poker... We felt so completely helpless as she gasped for her last breaths.

It took six months before we could even talk to each other about it. We both felt so guilty for not being able to prevent it. Little Lil hated to be left alone. We had a little plastic fence that created a space where she had some toys and a bed. We would leave her a little food and water in a bowl. We had a little pet camera set up on her so we could keep an eye on her remotely. Technology, huh?

She would carry-on with her shrill barking, flip over her food and water bowl, shred her potty pad to pieces, sling her bed around in a fit of rage, growling like a gremlin... I used to feel so bad having to leave her alone at home when we had to work.

She didn't really care for people either. She was a biter but she had to be because she was so small and people couldn't help but fuck with her. Most living beings don't like to be pet on the head by people they don't know. We really miss her. The screensaver on our TV plays photos from our photo collection in the cloud and it always jerks on my heartstrings when I see her pictures. That technology thing again.

Our first kitty, as a married couple, was found in a dumpster in a bag with the dead bodies of its siblings. They had all had their skulls crushed but this little female managed to survive. Her cries is what attracted our attention. We gently cleaned her up as best as we could from the blood and brain matter matted in her fur. We were just trying to make her comfortable until she passed. We fed her some warm milk from a baby dolls, plastic milk bottle. It was late at night and it was the only thing we could find at the convenience store at the time to make it possible to feed her.

The next morning she was trying to stand so we took her to the vet. The vet said she would probably die in a few days and just try to make her comfortable until then. Every day she got stronger and she walked in little circles. As she explored her environment, her circles got bigger and bigger and the next thing we knew she was jumping on and off the couch. She was blind as a result of having her skull crushed. We named her Pugsley because of her misshapen head.

She was a road kitty cat. I would bring her to the gig and she would crawl through the hole in the kick drum head where the microphone goes and curl up on the deadening cushion inside the drum. She started doing that at rehearsal and because she was blind I couldn't leave her alone. She would often climb up and ride on my shoulder as I drove as if she could see out the window. She would freak out and have a hissy fit if I wasn't within sniffing distance of her. She would have seizures occasionally, we would just hear her thumping on the floor under the bed or the couch and have to retrieve her from there to prevent her from hurting herself from the tremors.

About three years later she had a series of seizures and when we got her to the vet they said she had a urinary tract infection as well as swelling of the brain, she had another seizure right there and they recommended putting her out of her misery. She might not have seen much but she certainly got to travel around the country quite a bit during her short existence in this realm.

We got a tuxedo kitten from one of my wife's customers at Hog Heaven who was mad enough to kill it because she was a kitten doing kitten things like climbing drapes, getting stuck in the blinds and knocking shit off the flat surfaces in the house. We named here Tika, like tiki but with an "uh" sound at the end.

She liked to snatch the toilet paper out of your hand when you were trying to wipe your ass, then liked to watch the poop spin around in circles before it disappeared down the hole when she was a kitten. The wife and I had hair to our asses and when we brushed our hair, Tika would attack, her sharp kitten claws clinging to hair and digging into skin for traction. Not the most pleasant sensation but she was so damn cute and fun...

She was lingering at her water bowl and seemed confused so we took her to the vet. She was dehydrated so they gave her a shot for that and then determined it was kidney failure. She was curled up on my lap in the vets office when they gave her the shot to end her life. I always felt like I betrayed her. She would've been much happier going out like Tinker did, at home, not at a scary vets office.

T-Bone was our first dog. My wife was dealing with anxiety issues and we thought a dog might help with that which it did. I was playing a gig at Gilbert's resort when I noticed a flyer for puppies, free to a good home. I gave my wife the number from the flyer and it turned out to be our good buddy Hubert, one of the bartenders there at Gilbert's. T-Bone was a once in a lifetime dog. He used to sing with me... around the world, there are hundreds of tourist that recorded video of T-Bone singing with me. This was before cell phones had video capabilities.

Unfortunately his life was cut short due to cancer when he was only 10 years old. We had the vet come over to euthanize him at home rather than taking him to the scary vet office. He hated going there... I think mostly because they always stuck something in his butt and he didn't like that. I don't think many living beings enjoy having a doctor stick things in their rectum. Objects like that may be designed for ease and comfort but that doesn't make them necessarily pleasurable and fun.

Passing is just part of the process of life, just like being born, but it doesn't ease the pain for those of us left in this realm mourning the passings of our loved ones. The older you get, the more dead people, and pets you know. C'est la vie. Nobody gets out alive. ☮️❤️😊🎶👣🖖

Tinker the mighty hunter. Left this world Sunday, September 8, 2024.