Little Midnight

One week ago today  I took Midnight to the vet for the second and the last time.  Midnight was our cat. He came into our lives five years ago when he was nine.  Despite our nearly thirty years of marriage, Midnight was our first "large" animal.  Before Midnight, we owned hamsters and fish.  Midnight was to be my 17-year old daughter's pet but he really belonged to my husband and me. 

I remember when Midnight's foster mother, Joyce, came with him to our house that October first night.  She carried him in a crate and we saw his black shiny fur and huge green eyes through the crate’s mesh.  Like the expert she is, Joyce took Midnight from his crate and settled him on her lap while she told us his story.  A contact at the ASPCA had called her to say that someone had dropped off Midnight and his brother to be euthanized.  She saw this as an unfitting end to two perfectly good cats.  Joyce, who runs a shelter,  placed one cat in a loving home and posted Midnight's profile on the internet. It was that little side shot captured our hearts. 

Midnight saw us through a grueling time when my husband suffered harassment and retaliation after he  reported scientific fraud.  Ostracized by his peers (never by Midnight), insomnia drove my husband from our bedroom to the den where Midnight greeted him with a snuggle a purr and a consoling "meow".  Evening was Midnight's favorite time because our assemblage in front of the T.V. offered him a choice of laps on which he could "kneed" his muffins.  If my computer beckoned and I broke away from the ranks, Midnight would eventually follow and protest with meows as if to say "Get back with the family!".

We spared not the treats.  Mornings meant a taste of cream cheese which Midnight would lick off my husband's index finger.  On Saturdays, Midnight got his fair share of smoked salmon from the bagel store.  He loved sliced ham and roast chicken breast.  

 We noticed Midnight losing weight which my husband and I assumed resulted just from his advancing age.  We couldn't, however, explain the drool or the worried expression on his beautiful little face.  Nor could we understand why he no longer made the trip into our bedroom each morning to wake us at precisely the same moment. Midnight  always enjoyed excellent health and we were confident in the belief that, as an indoor cat, he  would live into his 20's.  It was time to act so I took Midnight to the Vet who removed a tumor my husband and I did not see growing.  Biopsy revealed malignancy.

For the following six weeks, I cooked for Midnight.  I pureed for Midnight.  I did what I could to coax him to eat.  He would skip to his bowl and, most of the time, walk away.  A pleasure had become a torment.

I don't know how I knew that his day had come.  "Putting down" a pet is a right of passage.  Thirty years ago, my parents had their dog put to sleep and they cried as they recounted the story to a somewhat dispassionate, much younger me.  What goes around comes around and now the shoe was officially on the other foot.

 I called the Vet's office so that they would be ready for me.  My husband prepared Midnight's carrier, picked him up, kissed him and placed him in the carrier.  I knew that I was better off with just Midnight in the car.  Sorry but my husband had to stay home.  Midnight was quiet except for a meow that broke my heart. 

The vet on duty pulled into the parking lot at the same time I did.  At the reception desk, I signed the paperwork and, when summoned, took Midnight, who was looking at me with his gorgeous green eyes through the grate in his carrier into the examination room.  The assistant gave me his bell collar, still warm off his body.  I kissed his head five times to say good bye assuring him that we will meet again one day.