Peach died last night in his 19th year. He appeared to suffer a stroke, and over a period of many hours his system just slowly shut down. We held him and talked to him (and to ourselves) about his passing.
The photo of Jo and Peach is from spring 1993. Peach and his sister Mazie suffered massive kidney failure in 1996. Mazie died, but the vets said Peach might have enough kidney function left to live another six months. At that time Peach was already the only cat ever to be the topic of a sermon at CUCC. (Dave Barber will remember.) And his passing brings to mind a piece I posted on the CUCC web site in February 1996, a theological reflection of sorts on God, cats, and people. It's a reflection on his death which I was anticipating 11+ years ago, so it seems appropriate to resurrect the piece to commemorate his passing.
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Peach and I know each other well. We both like a lot of affection, and we both have a wild streak. Even since he's been sick, I enjoy watching his wildness. Most afternoons we take a walk together in the woods. His failing kidneys make him thirsty, but he doesn't much like to drink clean water from a bowl in the house. On our walks he stops by every rivulet of water or mud puddle and laps a bit. The sound of the wind or the barking of a dog in the distance will catch his attention, and his eyes widen and ears point. He sniffs the air, analyzing scents that I can't imagine. He sits on my lap as I lean against a tree by the creek, and we talk and watch the wind in the trees. The sweetness of the moment is overwhelming.When Mazie (Peach's litter mate) died 3 weeks ago, it brought Jo Ellen to a self-described crisis of faith. "I can't deal with Mazie’s death being a final reality. That she's buried in the ground and that's all there is to her."
"I suspect God has a way of recycling little cats," I respond.
A week to the day after Mazie died, Peach started succumbing rapidly to the same type of kidney failure. The vets at the weekend animal hospital thought we might as well go ahead and euthanize him. His kidneys are basically gone. When we first took him in, and heard the results of the blood chemistry test, Jo Ellen said, "I'm not processing this. It's just too much too soon."
After keeping Peach in the hospital for five days altogether, we brought him home to live out his time, whether it turns out to be a few days or a few months. Whatever the length of time, it's time to say good-bye and to let him teach us what he knows about these things.
"I think I tend to live in the future," I said to Jo one day. "The past is something we can't recapture, but in some ways the future is equally illusive. Peach is teaching me to live in the present."
He's not a complainer. Cats in general hide their pain well. Sometimes we know he's uncomfortable, but he can still purr like a chain saw and he still puts his paws up on my knee to entice me to pick him up. At night he starts out sleeping by the wood stove downstairs, but by 1:00 AM he's usually up on our bed snuggled in the crook of someone's legs or lying on someone's back or chest. (His abdomen was shaved for his kidney ultrasound examination, so he likes to warm his stubble-covered belly against a human body.)
Peach is teaching us to accept grace and to let life happen. We know he's just a cat, and that what we are mourning in part is a loss of ourselves. Peach really is a part of me. For seven years just about every time I've parked the car in the driveway I've opened the door and started calling ritually, "Here, Peach, come on little Peachey." His climbing up on the window air conditioner and pawing the window pane in the kitchen to let us know he wants to come in have been daily routines for years. At night if we're watching TV he appears sitting on top of a garbage can outside the window behind the TV waiting to be let in, his pale yellow form appearing for all the world like a ghost cat image against a blackened sky. These daily images are dear to us. We grieve losing this.
Sometimes I think Peach knows that he's being called to another place. I can sense a look in his eye that says, "You may think that you're my guardian, but I'll know when it's time to go."
He did that once before, when he was little more than a year old. He went off for 14 days and returned as an emaciated form at our door one evening long after we had given up on him. Years later when the minister asked church members to reflect on whether they had ever encountered what seemed to be an angel, Jo recounted the experience of the rattling at the kitchen door, and of opening the door and seeing Peach, long presumed dead, walk into the kitchen as if returning from a long but important journey. Peach then became the only cat to have become the subject of a sermon at CUCC.
I can picture him departing on another and final journey. Just as it's his way to drink from a stream rather than from a bowl, it may be his way to die like a cat rather than like a pet. Cats have a habit of going off to die alone. So I must accept the fact that one day soon he may leave on that journey, and we'll not see him again.
And if he does that, it will be okay. He's always done things his way (as cats are wont to do). He's already taught us much about accepting the grace of life of the moment, and he may have more to teach us about accepting the grace of death. I won't go so far as to say that I believe in eternal life for cats. But I do believe that God recycles.
Lavon Page
February 12, 1996
February 12, 1996