Yuki

[fractalwolf]

Last week, we had a cat.

We've just recently moved to a new house, and while it was getting fixed up I visited and there was this cat sitting on the porch as if waiting to be let in. As soon as the door opened, he was through it like a shot. He was a real sweetheart, too, happy to get scritches and, while slightly less happy to get picked up, he wasn't violently opposed to the idea. He had a beautiful chirpy purr. I unfortunately had to put him back outside since a lot of the house didn't even have proper floors at that point, but when I left he was still sitting on the front steps, patiently waiting. I'd have taken him with me except we were living in a no-pets hotel, plus I didn't have anything to put him in and transporting a loose cat in your car is a Bad Idea.

We figured that his was his house - likely the previous humans had passed, and the poor thing had been abandoned. We hoped to see him again when we were finally able to move in, but it wasn't for another couple of weeks, just before the second big cold snap. As soon as we saw him we let him in, got a temporary catbox and some cat food, etc. At first he wouldn't take his head out of the food bowl for me to refill it, but once he figured out I wasn't taking it away he was fine with it. He was very smart and caught on quickly.

He certainly seemed to know the layout of the house, and despite being apparently an intact male he never sprayed anywhere. This was already his home, and he didn't need to reclaim it.

He meowed a lot, though. We figured it was a combination of chattiness and calling for his previous humans to come out of hiding. We wouldn't have chosen a cat that was going to meow all through the night, but didn't mind. He was so sweet we were even willing to let him be an indoor/outdoor cat if he insisted, once we got him all his shots. (We've always been staunch believers in indoor-only.) We just wanted him to be safe, warm, and happy.

Two days after we took him in, the vet was able to come by to give him his shots and take a look at the wound on his shoulder - it looked mostly healed, but had a large hairless area. We figured maybe he'd need some antibiotics to fight off an infection (we also suspected a UTI), but in the long run he'd be fine.

He had FIV (feline AIDS). Cats can live a long time with FIV, but the wound on his shoulder was actually a large abscess. We'd figured he was pretty old, but the vet said he was actually pretty young - the disease had just already taken that much of a toll on him. He had a high fever, and she said he was in a lot of pain, and there was basically no chance of recovery at this point.

And we wanted to keep him, but if he was in that much pain, it would just be selfish. And I believe her when she said he was in pain because despite being extremely lovey, he never once purred in the two days he lived in our house, and he'd purred so easily before. We think maybe he knew he was dying, and that's why he came home, and he was trusting us to make the pain go away. I just wish there'd been a way to do that, without losing him.

But we gave him two days of warmth, and food, and love. Of not having to fight feral cats, or stay warm with everything frozen over. When he went to sleep the last time he was by my side, and getting the sorts of petting he adored.

They asked if I wanted him buried or cremated, but it wasn't even a choice. Buried in some strange, cold graveyard, or cremated so his ashes could come home and stay in the warmth? Not even a choice.