Monty’s Final Farewell
Sun. evening, Dec. 18, 2016
You were the most loving, most purring, most responsive of cats, perhaps because of your blindness. But I never tired of seeing you “see” when I picked you up and cradled you, and as I walked, you would put your head back and seem to follow along, all the while purring loudly. I think that you could see distant shapes all right because you would react to a tree branch movement or a bird flying.
I know that from the time Beth rescued you about the age of three from a nearby cattery, your 12 years with us were wonderful. I hope for you, too! I would watch you going for long walks at our previous home at 242 Main Road South, Paraparaumu; you’d pick your way down the drive about 50 metres, stopping and sniffing the air to get directions, turning left at the cottage and coming back up on the lawn, negotiating all kinds of obstacles such as tree trunks, bushes and steps.
You went walkabout soon after we moved to Panorama Drive. You were gone for a month, and certainly had no food and your thyroid pills; we kept up the search for you and were rewarded with a chance finding. You’d think perhaps the grief experienced then would have been good practice for this real thing; I have to admit it was a greater grief before, not knowing where or how you were was hellish. You came back to us, a young lad by chance seeing you at the river bank after seeing your “Lost” photograph on a fence. You purred with us for almost three more years.
In the last week of your life, after about three months trying to fix your congested snuffles, you were not well, unable to eat or drink for about four days; I think that we did everything possible to help you, but the steroid medication didn’t do the trick, nor the paste nor other tablets, although you got some relief. I would also like to believe that the vet did her best, that she was well advised by her experience, and her decision to end your life was because you were in such pain. I must say though that if it had been me, just me, I would have persisted with trying to help you; but that’s selfish, probably wouldn’t have been the best thing for you, locked up inside, feeling pain, walking round in circles, yowling almost uncontrollably, unable to see, a condition which surely must have made your suffering all the more intense. I like to think that if you could have spoken you would have asked for an end to your pain, an assisted death.
I am so glad that yesterday morning just a couple of hours before the anaesthesia you had time on the lawn in the sun, walking around, resting; it would have been nice if you could have smelt the grass and the mint there, which you so loved stretching out on so many times, but I doubt if it was possible, your sense of smell having deserted you quite a few days.
Now you’re gone and we miss the searching for you, not the big month-long search but all the little searches for nearly three years after you were found We were more than a bit paranoid that you’d go walkabout again. So now you really have gone, your last breath taken easily and simply, relaxing into the end of your life; no more not seeing, no more bumping into things, no more wondering where you are, and you are now free of pain.
Stretching out on the grass a few hours before the end.
Monty’s blindness didn’t stop him going places.
