The teenager upstairs tearfully knocks on my door with a tiny white fluff of fur nestled in her hand. Her boyfriend just gifted a precious kitten to her for Valentine’s Day and her mom had quickly vetoed the idea of her keeping him. Could I please keep him? She would babysit anytime, please please please? I said yes without really thinking about the responsibility. I named him Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Singh, expecting fully that he would grow into this lofty moniker. At first he was too tiny for his collar and it quickly became a belt but as he grew I found a pretty reflective orange collar and I squeezed his entire name into the identifying tag. Hamlet had a big personality and loved to attack the ankles of my guests, frequently ripping holes in their socks. We lived in harmony, mostly, except that he kept killing my houseplants by surreptitiously peeing in their pots. When we move to a new house he hides behind the fridge for days before cautiously emerging. He watches from the window and never fails to greet me at the door ever day when I come home from work; he sleeps on my chest and likes to purr and knead my thighs as we watchTV on the couch. He loves to puke up furballs and leave them as surprise presents around the apartment. One day I even found a sausage shaped fur ball on top of my comforter. Hamlet had no shame. He was entirely snow white and my clothes always announced that I had a white cat. A coworker gave me a lint roller when she saw me wrapping my hand with scotch tape one morning removing fur. It was a magical invention. Seven years elapse and we live in three homes, endure several relationships, and one marriage. One morning I find him wheezing by the fireplace, gasping for breath. I call an emergency vet who tells me to try spraying him with an asthma inhaler my sister had left behind. It has no effect so I drive him over to the animal hospital. They hook him up to a tiny IV while they run tests. I see his little paw attached to a bag of fluid and he is barely conscious as I leave him and reluctantly go to work. The call comes later that morning. True to his Valentine origin, his heart is too big. The vet says he lived as long as he did because I kept him indoors. In the wild he never would have survived. The best option is to let him go.
I call my husband to let him know and he advises me that his mother, who had not spoken to us in 6 years and had refused to come to our wedding the previous year, wants to meet for dinner that very night. Big Sigh, I find that I cannot say no because it is the breakthrough gesture that he’s been hoping for.
I go to the animal hospital after work and hold Hamlet’s paw and hug him as they put him into that eternal sleep and watch him shuffle off this mortal coil into the undiscovered country. He slips away quietly and quickly. I leave him behind for a mass cremation. I never see him again.
I stop crying and try to pull myself together for this very important dinner. My husband drives and when he stops for gas I cry quietly in the car. I am bereft of my furry companion.
At the restaurant my husband’s mother is there with his sister waiting for us. The dinner is awkward but hums along. My husband mentions that I am sad because I just put my cat to sleep. I get some sympathetic murmurs and I’m holding it together, but when no one is looking my mother in law whispers cat noises to me. She meows and purrs. I don’t react because WTF, I honestly don’t know what to do. I don’t mention this to my husband because he is so happy to have his mother back.
I never see my Hamlet again but I feel him and I hear him. I occasionally hear him jumping from the top of the refrigerator and some nights I feel his weight on my chest as I drift off to sleep. He was a good companion and I was glad to be his Horatio. The rest is silence.
unbecomingjane 