The Japanese word for ‘cat’ is ‘neko’. In our house it’s Neko – a proper noun. That’s because Neko is the name of our 15 year old male Persian cat. Neko is not in a good way of late.
His health has always been just a little fragile. He’s battled kidney and urinary issues most of his life. In the last year or so, his jet black coat has turned gray. Concurrently, He started spending nearly all his time sleeping. About six months ago, he also started acting extremely anxious. A little anti-depressant medication helped him calm down. Behind the anxiety, said the vet, was a polyp in his throat. Over the last eight weeks or so, we’ve been working with the vet to try to manage this fast-growing throat polyp which increasingly blocks Neko’s esophagus. He’s barely eating – he can’t smell (cats won’t eat what they can’t smell) and he has obvious trouble swallowing. His breathing is labored. Clearly this thing is taking up much of the available space around it.
The vet said surgery to remove the polyp is ‘multiple thousands of dollars’. So, instead, we’ve been using some steroid drugs to try slowing the polyp’s growth. As of this morning, however, Neko can no longer purr or meow. There is a noticeable bump on the side of Neko’s neck, near his larynx. I would guess that the steroids are not achieving the desired result, that the polyp is not been slowed at all by the medications.
The last time we took Neko to the vet, she agreed to throw everything at this to see if we can make any improvement. If this didn’t work, the vet warned us, our choices were surgery, euthanasia or allowing the polyp to cause natural asphyxiation.
Like I said, today, Neko cannot meow. C just called me from the vet. Neko’s polyp is, in fact, a cancer tumor that started in his nasal passages and broke through into the palate. The tumor’s consumed the bone in the top of his mouth. It’s filling his throat. Given that the tumor started in his sinuses, it’s impossible to diagnose until it breaks through into the throat or palate. By that time, it’s really just too late. The vet says he’s got two or three days, give-or-take, before he asphyxiates naturally. State-of-the-art chemo might buy him eight weeks, at great expense to us.
***
There was a day, back in early 1995, when C – then the woman I was dating – asked me to stop by a pet store in Raleigh Hills (next to the Fred Meyer store, now a Starbucks, but what isn’t these days?) to give my take on a black Persian kitten in the store. C already had a cat, she was thinking about adding a kitten to her life in her one-bedroom apartment.
I did as she asked. That Persian kitten seemed so aloof, so disconnected. I held him, petted him, put him back, and told C that I’d pass if it were me.
Well, it wasn’t me. She bought him anyway and named him Neko. He promptly started terrorizing the place, complicating life greatly.
Once, when he was about six months old, he strayed too close to a candle flame with his bushy tail and lit himself on fire. It must have been like like watching Shere Khan at the end of The Jungle Book… I wasn’t there at the time, but I was on the other end of the phone when it happened. The commotion was on par with Fibber McGee’s Closet.
Whenever I was around, however, Neko would curl up on me. Not with me, on me. He slept next to my head. He tried to sleep on my face. He licked my hair, giving me a bath. He purred directly into my ear. At 3 in the morning. “Damn tormentor of a cat!” I’d say. “He loves you” C would counter. We were in disagreement, but we were both right.
Always one to make it more complex than it needed to be, not even getting Neko neutered would be straightforward. The vet could only find one testicle. The vet said that having only one wasn’t that uncommon. “Take him home and see if he’s still got one up inside somewhere” he said. So we did. Everything was fine… for a while.
A couple months later, when C and I combined our lives and everyone lived together full-time, Neko responded to his new family by marking his chosen belongings. I remember once when we’d folded the laundry but stacked it neatly on the floor under the window just before going to bed. The next morning I awoke to the smell of cat spray in our bedroom. Mad, I climbed out of bed an went in search of the source. The source was the freshly-folded laundry. Even more angry, I started sniff-sorting the laundry into ‘smelly’ and ‘clean’. It didn’t take long to realize that the ONLY clothing in the ‘smelly’ pile was MY clothing. That little so-and-so had surgically marked only my clothes.
That same week, he sprayed the inside all my dress shoes. “Damn tormentor of a cat!” I’d sneer, after threatening to go after his remaining testicle myself, with a spoon in place of a scalpel. “He loves you” C would counter, unphased by my threats.
Ultimately, we took him back to the vet, who went back in and found the second testicle way up inside. None too soon in my opinion.
The foundation of the relationship was now set: Neko and I were to have a love-hate relationship based on an unconditional respect and affection for each other while still somehow having an ongoing battle of opposing wills. In many cases, the activity that looked like hatred was, in fact, motivated by love. Oh, that was so hard to see for so long.
Take Neko’s one hunting conquest, for example. Neko never was much of a hunter. In fact, the only prey he ever caught was Max, my pet cockatiel, who was about 13 years old at the time. Max was out of his cage – as he’d lived for all his life with me – when Neko cornered him. In the dark. Neko didn’t even kill Max, just wounded him mortally, leaving Max to die of trauma hours later. I was mad. That cat was so afraid of the real world outdoors that he hid in the woodpile and resorted to hunting a family member. The outrage! In my eyes, he was a yellow-bellied worm of a cat. It took me months to overcome the urge to kick him every time I saw him.
And yet, I could never completely disown him. We still had a bond. Couldn’t break it.
He avoided the children when they were very little – too fast and unpredictable for him. I’m pleased to report that, as R got older, larger, and moved more carefully around Neko, Neko started sleeping on R’s bed with him. The two became close in the past year or so. M is a bit younger, Neko has started being a little interactive with M.
***
In August, we had to put down Aki. That day, Neko started insisting on sleeping with me instead of R. I don’t know why for sure, but I can guess. I’d go to bed and Neko would appear from out of nowhere, demanding to sleep on TOP of me, purring constantly.
See what I mean? Irritatingly loving. He affected my sleep greatly. Damn tormentor of a cat, once again. Except we’re both 15 years older, and both a bit wiser. Now? I’m not so much angry as I’m quizzical. Did he need me as he mourned Aki, or did he think I needed him? I greeted his efforts with love an acceptance. We found compromises so that we both got what we wanted. After a while, he learned to curl up in the crook of my knee as I slept on my side. That, it turned out, satisfied us both. He continued to sleep with me until he couldn’t make the jump to the bed any longer- until the polyp (nee tumor) had sapped enough strength to make the leap impossible. Once he couldn’t get on the bed, he turned to sleeping on the floor of the bathroom – something he’s never done before. I tried carrying him to bed with me. He’d opt to hop off and return to the bathroom floor. It’s becoming clear to me that Neko is waiting for something. I believe, knows full well what’s coming.
Just as we did last August, the family once again stands nose-to-nose with the prospect of moving on without one of the animal members of the family.
C is scheduling an at-home euthanasia for Neko tomorrow. Afterward, I’ll make t
he trip out to Banks; Neko can go with Aki once again, prowling the farm together in the afterlife, as they did their mortal life. Bounding around together, free of their bodies that simultaneously were fighting cancer together.
***
We chose to experience this day back in 1995, when C brought Neko home to her one bedroom apartment. We didn’t know then how it would play out. Naively, at that time, I don’t think either of us really cared about the end-game of life (have kids, face cancer. You start paying real attention to the end-game). Whether you think about it or not, that time inevitably comes. And here it is.
You know what? for all the torment and complexity he brought to living, he’s bringing the most amazing wisdom, grace and peace to this particular process.
Neko, you’ve grown. You’ve challenged me to grow, too. I’d like to think that I have indeed grown through your torment. You’ve taught me about unconditional love; about the irritation that goes along with loving living beings. Thank you for the caring, love and presence you’ve been. It has been a gift.
