My Darrin (which means Dear One in some language)
After a month or so of taking her to the vet for what first appeared to be some infection on her head that wouldn’t heal, we were told today that she had an aggressive tumor and would only have a couple of months to live. I felt my legs go weak when my husband called to deliver the news.
Early on, I had Googled her symptoms and saw nasal cancer as one of several possibilities. When the vet said they’d often seen animals have a hard time fighting infection because some foreign body like a claw or something that had to be removed, I told myself to stop thinking the worst.
Today she was going in to either have surgery to remove the claw or some salve put on the nose, which had just started oozing on Christmas. I thought the oozing meant the infection was going to start pouring out and that she was on the mend – my Christmas miracle.
I guess I was wrong. I’m wrong about so many things and have loved and lost so often the last several years that I’m just numb. Just last night I held my Darrin like a baby. She looked at me with her big green eyes and seemed to love being encased in the Irish wool afghan. I never even saw her off this morning. I was expecting to be holding her again tonight. You just never know when you are going to lose someone dear to you. Sometimes you see it coming, but some time it hits you like a bludgeon between the eyes. I got a lot of my wailing out of the way on the drive home from work. I cried again when I saw her red snowflake fleece throw that lately she liked to tunnel under with her tail hanging out.
“Where’s Darrin?!” we’d say, playing along with the game. “What’s under this afghan?” We’d squeeze the bump and it wiggled.
We’re going to be asking where Darrin is a lot the next few weeks, even though I know she’s in Heaven with her brother, Hobbes.
I am sorry for your loss.
Thank you, Dave. The only consolation is she got a lot of loving during her short life. She was the center of the household. Everything revolved around her and she knew it. When I feel sad that she’s not weaving in between my legs begging for something, I can always remember that she’s in my heart.
I’m so sorry, Donna. I lost my Syd to a lingering illness last year and it was the worst.
Thank you, Jeff. I remember when Syd was sick and how Alice was beside herself with grief. You probably were too, but she Facebooked about it more. I don’t know how long my cat was really suffering from this. She had a lot of congestion that we were trying only partly successfully to treat with antibiotics. I do recall for years we thought she had seasonal allergies. That may well have been the case. She seemed fairly normal (for her) at the end. So that’s what was such the shocker. I’ve never seen a braver cat in the face of a chronic disease. She had a ton of charm.