The Happier End of Aretha's Story

Ross is a sucker for animals. I know it might be hard to believe today, but Ross didn't have any pets growing up. This meant great suffering for him if he was going to date me: the poor guy suffered through three long years of my pet madness before he had an opportunity to have a pet of his own. I missed my pets at home desperately during my college years. And I thought nothing of crossing a busy DC street just to meet a stranger's dog. This was probably a bit odd to a guy who didn't have even one lousy goldfish growing up. It would take a pretty special animal to change Ross. This is the story of how Aretha came into our lives.

Almost exactly fifteen years ago, Ross was about to turn 21. We were living in Northern Virginia and still going to George Washington University. We weren't yet married, but were living together (shhhh!). We had recently moved from downtown Washington, DC - away from a stuffy high-rise building and a crazy landlady who would not allow pets.

Around this same time, Mom came out for a visit. We hatched a secret plan: find a kitten for Ross' 21st birthday gift. We schemed as to how we could find a cat in early March, which is no easy feat.

I called every animal shelter in the Virginia/Maryland/DC area. No luck. It didn't help that we didn't have a car, so anywhere we decided to do needed to be accesssible via short taxi ride, the subway, or bus. I found a list of cat breeders and called them, but $500 for a purebred cat was not what I had in mind. Mom and I visited many pet shops. Mom and I finally found a pet store twenty minutes away in Reston, Virginia that claimed to have a "catten," a five-month old cat. We didn't have a car, so we called a taxi. I explained the mission to the driver to make sure he was ok with having a "catten" in the car should we find one.

Once we arrived at the store, we saw a gangly little orange tabby cat. She was walking back and forth in her glass cage, smiling. She was gorgeous! We asked if we could hold her. She was a little nervous - so I couldn't blame her for trying to climb out of my arms and perch on my shoulders like a parrot. Mom and I decided this cat was perfect for Ross. She was so soft, beautiful, and sweet. She had been adopted before, but the owner discovered after bringing the cat home that she was allergic. What luck for us!

To get Aretha home, we had to put her in a white cardboard box given to us by the pet store. The taxi driver was willing to have a cat in his car, but not willing to have claws shredding his vinyl seats. The box had a handle and holes on the side to give air to the pet.

Aretha did not like being in the box. While we stood in line to pay for her, Aretha decided to start growling and hissing. This caused the box to shake back and forth. Other shoppers stared. I really hoped the growling and hissing was temporary. I had some doubts about whether this cat really was sweet and nice as I stood in line with a boxed up cat who was acting possessed. We left the store and took a cab ride home - with the box still shaking and occasionally growling. I tried to say some soothing things to her, but she was still quite scared.

When Mom and I arrived home, I carried the box inside. Ross was on the phone, chatting with his brother-in-law. I'll never forget the look of pure joy on his face when he saw what we had brought home. This was no ordinary box, after all. The side of the box proclaimed "I'm On My Way Home!" on the side. But best of all, the box had stopped shaking. A curious little pink nose was poking through one of the box holes to sniff.

I don't know if Aretha could see Ross. I truly believe, though, that she knew already that Ross was going to be her pet. I think Aretha must have been pretty mad at me. After all, I had locked her up in a box, left her in the dark, then taken her for a car ride.

Ross happily hung up the phone to examine this box more closely and find out what was inside. We opened the box and stood back so Aretha wouldn't be afraid. She poked her head up. Then she sat up and slowly hopped out of the box.

She was long and gangly, like a little weasel, with soft velvety ears, sandy-colored toes, and a long red raccoon tail. Her tummy was cream-colored with orange spots. Aretha also had an 'M' shape in her tabby stripes right over the center of her forehead. She was a true tabby. In the years to come, we would often joke about what the 'M' on her forehead really meant. Mischievious? Miraculous? Later she would become the alpha cat and run our household of three other cats, one dog, and two humans, so perhaps the 'M' might have meant 'Management.'

Ross' eyes were so full of joy and wonder. He was smiling like the sun at this little orange striped cat... who now was slowly sneaking around her new home, sniffing everything.

He didn't know it yet, but she would own him for the next 15 years. Only 20% of orange tabbies are female, so we already knew she was somewhat rare - but it was only once we knew her personality that we really understood just how unique she really was. She watched over Ross, worried like a little mother when he left the house, and waited at the door for him to come home. At night, she would often hop up on the bed just to lie next to him, or to look at him with devotion.

Goodbye, Aretha

For those of you who might be wondering where I was and what I was during January, the answer is: I was going to the vet. Frequently. When Ross, Aretha, and I were not going to see the vet at his office, we were speaking with the vet on the phone. When we were not speaking with the vet on the phone, we stopped by the vet's office to pick up this medicine or that type of special food. And when we were doing none of those things, we worried.

Aretha had long had what we call "allergies." When the weather would change, or any other time Ross and I were sniffling and sneezing, Aretha would get something that looked like a few days' of eye drainage. We called it her "goopy eye." For Aretha's entire life, this goopy eye would always clear up on its own.

This time, it didn't. The drainage kept going. It looked like the affected eye was getting... bigger. Our vet, Dr. Johnson, confirmed this was true. Aretha had glaucoma, and there was also pressure coming from behind her eye. He was able to bring down the painful pressure inside her eye. This made Aretha more comfortable, but it was soon clear that something was making our dear girl blind in one eye and nearly so in the other.

After a month of treatment with steroids, antibiotics, eye drops, x-rays, tests, and a procedure to alleviate the pressure behind her eye, we were finally able to do a biopsy. We waited for the results. We hoped, hoped, hoped that it was just a raging infection. Perhaps we simply had not selected the right antibiotic yet. A small, still voice inside us insisted it was something else.

The biopsy results came back. It was definitely something else. It was cancer, a very aggressive type, for which the treatment was harsh and the likelihood of survival tiny. For the most beautiful of all striped orange tabbies, for the sweetest of souls, we knew this sort of treatment was not the answer.

We asked our vet to come to our home in two days' time to help us say goodbye. We explained to Aretha, and all of our other pets, exactly what would happen. We did the best we could. We knew when those two days were over, the doorbell would ring - and we would have to say goodbye.

Aretha did as much as she could to make things easy for us during those two days, those two terrible and wonderful days when we lived with the doomsday clock. She allowed us to spoil her rotten. She was patient when I used an inkpad to take her paw print one last time. She purred when I carried her around and cried so much that her little head was wet with tears. She was gorgeous in all of the pictures we took. She did her best to eat the fresh baked salmon that I made and that Ross cut into the tinest of bites for her. She didn't mind too much when we followed her every step so that we didn't miss a minute of her last hours.

She even stood nearby, winking, when I folded blankets on top of our dining room table to make one last cozy bed for her and put my baby blanket on top. I knew the purpose of that cozy bed, the one in the room with the bright light the vet had requested. Did she? I don't know.

She sat in the warmest places in the house and swished her tail. She listened while we told her the joyful story of how we adopted her fifteen years earlier, a story she had listened to hundreds of times before that evening. I read the goodbye cards and emails she had received from friends and family. She let me sing to her all of the comforting lullabies and songs in my repertoire. All of these things she did with grace and dignity.

When the doorbell rang and the door opened to reveal the kindest vet I know, I wrapped her up in my baby blanket. It was time to bring Aretha to the cozy bed of blankets on top of the dining room table. She acted as though this was the most natural and normal thing in the world. She didn't try to run away. I was the fearful one. I wanted to cover her and run away, to protect her from my own weakness.

Our kind vet knew this would be hard for us. He made sure that Ross and I both would able to hold, pet, and kiss Aretha when the moment came. We thought this would make Aretha less afraid, but in the end, it made us less afraid. I'm sure Aretha already knew this. We said a few carefully chosen Jewish blessings for her. We told her how loved she was, and how there was nothing to fear. Aretha took one deep breath and exhaled, as though she had just finished the best meal - and she knew a nap in the coziest of beds was next.

And then she was gone.