I found a cat in my mother’s flower garden when I was a child. At the time, we already had two indoor cats and adding another wasn’t really sparking any joy for my mom, but she’s not heartless.
My mom, the cat, and myself ended up together at the vet.
Let’s rewind a bit.
The cat in the garden was mostly black with splotches of white. I remember naming her within minutes of spying her fluffy, full form lying under an awning of green, although I don’t precisely recall the name. “Paws” or something along those lines.
I was delighted of course. I’ve been an animal lover for as long as I can remember (this is where I have to throw in the fact that I’m a vegetarian; it’s a thing vegetarians and vegans—especially vegans—must do. tell people of their dietary choices as often as possible. sorry, I don’t make the rules). Finding stray animals around our small country home in any of the endless days I spent completely outside made me happier than most anything else.
But something was off about Paws.
There was a yellow sort of tint to her. It’s hard to explain and even as I think back on it, the memory pull that’s most immediate is the color of her fur, how big she was, and my delight at finding her. The specifics of anything “wrong” with her are more fuzzy, but I do remember noticing it.
I told my mom about her after I had scratched under her chin—she liked this (the cat, not my mom). I wanted to see firstly if we could keep her (no), and secondly I needed an adult to scope out the “not quite rightness” I had spotted about her.
Again, details are fuzzy, but my mom begrudgingly came out into the garden on the bright, warm day and examined my find.
I could tell by the look on my mom’s face something was wrong. Of course, I’d already gleaned as much but as children we know there are varying levels of wrong and this one was more serious than I had originally presumed.
My mother probably didn’t want to, but being the person she is, she loaded up Paws in a cat carrier, and we drove up the street to the vet at the infamous intersection that I remember being responsible for a lot of car wrecks (there is a full stoplight there now instead of only the caution light that existed at the time).
The memory fuzzes here again—skipping over parking, walking into the vet that always carried that peculiar vet smell, small talk between my mom and the veterinarian who was a woman she had gone to school with, etc. All I recall is sitting in a very small chair inside the exam room, Paws lethargic on the table, Mom beside me, and the vet speaking about euthanizing Paws.
There was likely talk about a possible owner but on our street, we’d know if a cat was missing. There was no collar, no missing posters, etc. All of that information and bits of the adult conversation escapes me.
What I remember with startling clarity is pressing my fingertips to the wall of the exam room in an effort to stop myself from crying. I had this tendency as a child to go inside myself to process any strong emotion, and what I did physically was really mostly unknown to me in the sense that I have no idea why I pressed my fingertips to the wall as I stared at them through blurring tears, I only know that I did it.
Paws had some sort of liver problem and saving her was likely impossible. If we wanted to try, back then we were looking at tens of thousands of dollars (which I vaguely hoped we would fork over while knowing my family did not possess that kind of money).
Paws was going to be put to sleep after the vet tried to make her as comfortable as possible, but her lethargy and jaundice and swollen body was due to a very advance stage of whatever ailment she had (which again, escapes my memory).
At the time, my aspiration was to become a writer secondly and a veterinarian first. The vet knew this, and as I got very quiet and very still and tried to swallow past the lump in my throat while continuing to stare at my fingers on the wall, the vet made a comment about my need to be less sensitive if I wanted to become an animal doctor.
I believe the remark jolted me, internally, and probably made me cry more. At the very least, my face got extremely warm and red.
I remember nearly nothing else of that day. Saying goodbye to Paws, walking away, my mom’s comforting words—again, there is only fuzz.
But it wasn’t the first time I had been called too sensitive and surprise, surprise, it would not be the last. Always, it was said in a negative tone.
As I grew up and this “sensitivity” started to plague me, becoming more of a problem in how I lived in and interacted with the world, I sought out various coping mechanisms to dull the emotional distress I felt over—according to society—small things. These mechanisms included but were not limited to: Drinking, drugs, a hyperfocus on exercise and food, reading as escapism, and, eventually, becoming cold, aloof, and the indifferent person the world had suggested I be all along.
I was not cruel in a bullying sense or anything violent or criminal, but I used to brag I never got my heart broken and I was always, always the heartbreaker.
It was how I coped.
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