My cat died. · 9:31pm Feb 25th, 2016
My cat died.
And damn, she was old. Like, probably the oldest cat I've ever known, and I grew up in a neighborhood where cats wandered the streets between the children attending the local day care, which I was a part of at some point. The average life span of a house cat is 15 years. My neighbor's cat, one in golden fur, lived to be 21. My cat, Sarah, was 26 when she died. Of course, she spent those last 3 years in the basement, huddled up in her fluffy cat bed that my loving mother bought for her, along with the heater and blanket for her kitty warmth. She would sleep, eat, and sometimes get up to wander around the cold concrete floor of the basement, screeching up meows that sounded like bloodied screams up the basement steps when she wanted attention, the sounds so horrendous just because she was deaf, and couldn't hear herself anymore.
She wasn't a friendly cat by any means. She wouldn't curl on your toes, or nuzzles the bottom of your legs, or hop up onto the couch so she could sit on your lap for attention. From what I can remember from my childhood, she wandered the house, staring out of the two-story window on hot summer days, laying in the sunlight blissfully. When we let her outside, she wouldn't go too far, and would always return an hour or two later, pawing and meowing at the entrance for one of her three owners to let her inside again. Of course, it was a scare when I spotted her returning from the other end of the street after water polo practice, limping, a horrendous gouge on her back. Her leg healed, but the slab of flesh that was remaining evidence of her wound stayed on her body until my mother finally decided to cut it off. She reported seeing Sarah "no longer hurting anymore".
She always had that kitty frown upon her face, the frown that every cat has, even the most happiest of ones. When she did demand attention and when we scratched her between the ears, the purring could be heard for miles, the little motor in her throat reverberating throughout her body. Twenty minutes later, I would find my fingers cramped, cat hair stuck to my fingertips, and an uncontrollable urge to sneeze repeatedly, because I couldn't say no to that damn cute cat. She was never one for petting, and you could get the most sound out of her with scratching. And although she never really showed her love to us, everyone in my family showed love for her.
She was an absolutely beautiful cat. Everyone and their mother on the internet think that cats are the cutest things, right up there with the likes of dogs, birds, and any other cute animal that you can own in your household. But that doesn't mean that all cats look cute, and that all cats are adorable. But Sarah, excuse my skewed point of view, was an adorable cat. She was a beautiful, black-coated cat with waves of brown and white all over her body, and her face was small and lovable, with big green eyes that had those black slits as pupils, looking up with you with a sense of distaste and annoyance. My mother told me she was half Persian, half Himalayan, but she was a symbol of beauty in felines everywhere, and she only knew because she had gotten a year or two before I was born.
I've known Sarah my entire life. She was 25, older than I am today. It was stupid; my mother got her as a kitten and they made certain to keep the cat away from me when I was born in fear that she's smother me to death, smother the new baby of the household, because suddenly she wasn't the one being babied anymore. I've watched her all my life, at first curiously at this new lifeform, then with love as I accepted her waking up to see her as an everyday occurrence, then with forgetful abandon as I considered her to be quite annoying during my pre-teens as I tried to game on the couch with her meowing at me for attention, even though she never loved back.
And then, I mostly forgot about her. She stayed in the basement, and I continued on with my life. She was found dead on the pavement floor, her legs strewn out, her chest no longer moving, her body cold and hard. Despite the lack of love I had for that cat up to that point, I still couldn't keep myself from crying a bit. It's one thing to care for a pet, but it's another for it to die after knowing it since the earliest day you can remember. I'm not even sure what to do with her, now. I can't bury her; the ground outside is frozen over with the touch of winter, and is illegal anyways, even though that might not stop me from doing it. I could put her in a garbage bag and toss her with the weekly trash, but that would be of bad taste.
Whatever the case will be, I will find out eventually.
Rest in peace, you damn cat.
Sorry to hear about the loss. Even if they weren't that affectionate, they were still your pet.
I am sorry.
Use a pickax (borrow 1 if necessary), and you can dig a grave in frozen Earth.
You have my sympathies my friend. It's a shame her life ended in the basement but at least she felt love in her life. She's in a better place now, hope u can find a way to memorialize her.