Member-only story
A Man, A Cat, A Lifetime
Requiem for a living-room lion.
A week ago, we lost the great and powerful Oreo. Oreo was my cat. She’s appeared on these pages before.
Less than 24 hours earlier, noticing her sudden weight loss and lethargy, I’d brought her to the vet. They said she seemed stable, but also sick and dehydrated, and they’d probably need an ultrasound to properly triage. In the meantime, they topped her off with fluids, an appetite stimulant, and some anti-nausea medication.
The doc encouraged me to feed her a feast that night, and I did. Then I spent some early-morning hours just sitting next to her, petting her, and feeding her before I went back to bed just before dawn.
Around 9 a.m. on Thursday morning, I woke to my partner’s tears as she rustled me awake. “Something is wrong with Oreo; she’s in my office.” Oreo lost control of her bodily functions and was struggling to walk and breathe.
My partner wrapped Oreo up in a blanket. She held her while I put on clothes, and handed her off to me. I instantly burst into tears, staring into the full-length mirror right back at me, swaddling my cat the way I assumed you would do for a newborn. I think deep down I knew. Oreo never let me hold her like that before.
