I held Princess while she passed

[Jeebo]

8. One of the most profound experiences of my life ...

... was when I had to have my old orange tabby cat put down. I adopted him from the Humane Society in December, 1984. I called him "Boy" while I was trying to think of a name for him, but I never came up with one that stuck and I just ended up calling him "Boy" for the entire 17 years and 4 months that he and I were best buds. He got cancer in his jaw about 1999 or 2000 and the vet had to cut it out, but she said she couldn't get it all without removing his whole jaw, and that there would come a time when I would have to perform a certain melancholy duty. "You'll know the time," she said.

Well, she was sure right. One Monday morning in 2002 -- I remember the date because it was coincidentally Income Tax day, April 15 -- I got up and gave him something to eat. He nibbled at it for a minute or two and then wandered over to his current favorite perch for a nap. When he was settling in, he looked at me. He looked me right straight in the eye.

Who was it who said that "The eyes are windows into the soul" ? I always think of Voltaire when I hear that, but you can correct me.

Well, the eyes certainly are windows into the soul, and for a couple of seconds on that Monday morning, my old cat and I were looking straight into each other's souls. For those two seconds, there was a nonverbal communication that was passing between him and me. And I knew that this was the time the veterinarian had told me to be on the lookout for.

I called the veterinarian's office and told them that the time had come for me to carry out a certain very melancholy duty for my almost-18-year-old cat. They asked me how soon could I get there? I said about 35 or 40 minutes. We'll be ready, they said.

The veterinarian told me, while the lethal drugs were just beginning to flow into a vein in his right front paw, "Now just pet him and talk to him and let your voice be the last thing he hears." Until that moment, I had been kind of emotionally numb, but when she said that, the realization suddenly hit me, like the proverbial ton of bricks, that I was never going to see my feline friend again. A flood of memories came into my consciousness, overwhelming me, memories like the way he used to jump up into my lap when I was on my computer checking e-mail, always cross-ways in my lap, with his head on my left and his tail on my right, and I would rub his back and he would just purr. The realization hit me that none of those things were ever going to happen again. I just lost it. I tried to talk to him but I was too choked up, couldn't talk, the veterinarian's assistant handed me a kleenex. I guess I must have really loved the little guy.

About a half hour later, when I got back to my house, my older brother, who was living with me then, was just getting out of the shower. He looked at me with a question in his eyes and I answered, "Yes, the cat's dead." He said, "That's odd, I thought I just heard him meowing in my bedroom." And at almost the exact same moment when he said that, I heard the meow too. You live with a pet for almost 18 years and you can recognize that pet's sounds. A dog's bark, a cat's meow. Just like a human voice, they're individual and they're recognizable. And I tell you, that was my old cat's meow that my brother and I heard, coming from that bedroom, a half hour after he was put down.

I've always believed that the little guy was just coming by to say goodbye on his way to wherever good cats and dogs go to in the afterlife.

Did I say that day was one of the most profound experiences of my life?

I can tell you really loved Princess too, and I am sure she is where my old cat is.

-- Ron