Cole the Killer

As the week Begins

Monday has come after a long weekend. Long does not mean an extra day of holiday.  No long means that ti was draining, time spent with pain and arduous efforts.  

Coltrane our black cat, loving furry beast that would let you rub his belly on a moment’s notice, had some wasting disorder.  By the end he was maybe a 1/3 or maybe a 1/4 of his weight.  He would drink water and eat little treats but he would not eat food.  He was slow and lethargic and while we could not ask him if he was in pain his eyes had lost their luster.  

I have dealt with pets in a variety of ways as they have come to the ends of there lives.  When I was a boy we would take them out to the farm, shoot them and bury them.  Life does not work like that anymore.  We had to take the cat for euthanasia.  The trip was 16 minutes long but it seemed much longer.  We left the radio off.  Cole barely mewed the whole trip.  He didn’t fight as we took him out and handed him over to the vet tech.  We petted him, told him we loved him and left in tears.

Pain is part of the price for the joys of life.  I will always remember fondly Cole’s propensity as a mouser.  He was ferocious and quite cruel.  But he was proud of his kills.  On several occasions I would come downstairs in the morning to find that Cole had laid out several dead mice on my person artifacts such as a wallet left by my chair or a solitary rodent on top of my shoe.  And there was the one on my pillow, yeah cuddly little killer he was.  

We picked him up from the shelter and saved him from a very early demise.  We returned him to the shelter and to his final rest.  Cole was a smuggler when a snuggle was needed.  He never nipped and he was soft and beautiful.  Maybe in the big farm in the sky he is running wild chasing mice and settling in by the fire at night.  Damn cat, I will miss you.