Forever Chasing the Sun
Osiris returns to the underworld
Cats do not plan their lives; they live them as they come. Humans cannot help making their lives into a story. But since they cannot know how their life will end, life disrupts the story they try to tell of it. So they end up living as cats do, by chance. — John Gray, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life
I hear the cry before the door opens.
The vet assistant walks in a moment later, Osiris cradled in his arms. He places the frail cat on a children’s blanket spread across the sterile table. At just over five pounds, well below half his peak weight, Osiris is but a whisper of his former self.
Osiris began the long journey to renal failure nearly a decade ago. A prolific water drinker and urinator, he fended off its ravages year after year, his 22nd on the horizon. Of the many peaks he’s ascended, however, this landmark will remain elusive.
Moments before the catheter is jabbed into his right forearm, he sprawls in his carrier, resting his small head—he always had a small head, though as the fat shed and his ribs and spine became apparent in recent months, his head looks larger than ever—on the cushioning. His eyes, nose, and mouth are caked in brown puss; his body reeks of ammonia; his fur matted from the toxins leaking out of every orifice given that his kidneys have now, finally, failed.
His back legs stopped working properly two months ago. For the last two weeks he’s pulled himself around on his front legs, incredibly landing some jumps onto the couch or bed, tragically missing others. It was the missed jump that resulted in a bloody nose that necessitated the veterinary visit a week before today, the day that will be his last on earth.
His front legs started going three days ago. This morning, Callan and I stood helplessly in the kitchen as Osiris exhausted his energy dragging his limp body in a circle, seeking water, rejecting the last food we were able to offer, resting for a moment in the sliver of sunlight breaking through the window before trying to walk again, and again failing.
The tears started a week ago.
And now, the flood. As the assistant places Osiris on the table, the meek feline spots his carrier on the floor and makes a break for it. All four limbs somehow operate as I use my body as a shield to cover him, wrapping my arms around him and, as gently as possibly, place weight down so he won’t fall off the table. His cries grow louder as he seeks the only shelter available to him in a moment of complete distress—not myself or my wife, the two animals he’s slept between for the last seven-and-a-half years, but the black carrier that he believes will return him home.
The apartment in Los Angeles will not be his destination, however. It’s the dark underworld that is his birthright by name, only he doesn’t yet know that. Or maybe he does, which is how a dying animal musters up such strength for a final plea. At best, he has a week left in him to pass “naturally.”
Natural, sure, though there’s nothing heroic about death. All the poetry in the world cannot mask the torture of watching someone you love—choose your animal, human or otherwise—break down to the point where the body destroys itself.
I take it back. Osiris knows where he’s heading. And he dies the way he lived: stubbornly. And for that, I will always love him.
The image of pinning him down will remain in my mind until I join him in the place neither of us will remember, until my candle too is snuffed out in what I hope will be a more peaceful passing—knowing the reality of such a hope is never a given.
But my mind is only half here on the table as I pray for the vet to pull out the damn needle already and get this over with. The other half is in Manhattan.
August, 2000. A shelter on the Upper East Side. I’d recently moved from an apartment with three cats. Now, Shakyamuni is alone. At the time, I didn’t really consider cats enjoy solitude, since he got along with his former roommates. I’m there to adopt a new friend for him.
The process is long, the paperwork is long, and after filling all of it out I realize I don’t have proof of Sake’s neutering. Not sure how I’ll get it on a Sunday considering a friend’s mom performed the surgery as a favor. I don’t even remember the name of the clinic, only the city: Wayne, NJ. I inform the shelter. They look up clinics in Wayne and make a random phone call. Amazingly, they get in touch with her even though the clinic is closed; she just happened to stop by to get some paperwork done. She confirms that Sake is indeed neutered. The shelter rep tells me all of this in one narrative arc.
Case closed.
Or not. No Hollywood ending, at least not in this building. She tells me that even though the veterinarian verified that Sake is indeed neutered, without physical paperwork she cannot allow me to adopt the kitten I’d chosen. Millions upon millions of shelter animals are killed every year and here I am facing the ridiculous constraints of bureaucracy.
I leave, deflated. Two hours of anticipation result in crushing defeat. I walk into a hummus spot and order lunch. My phone rings as I’m staring out onto Second Ave. I flip it open—this is 2000, remember—and hear a shop clerk from an East Village t-shirt store tell me they have a cat for adoption. I had randomly stopped in three months before when noticing a window sign stating that they rescue animals. At the time, all they had was a snake. I’d forgotten about signing up for the wait list.
I assure him that I will take whatever cat is there. I scarf down the rest of my falafel wrap and run to the 6 train. I don’t even have a carrier, but this is New York City—I find a pet store within two blocks of Astor Place. I pay $20 for a carrier and run over to the shop.
And then I meet Osiris.
Seven apartments, three states, two coasts, hundreds of stories. But that’s the one imprinted in my mind as I wrap my body over his waiting for the vet to slide the sedative into the catheter. My wife is on the other side wrapping a towel over him in an attempt of offering warmth to ease the process. Whatever last bout of strength Osiris mustered is done. His body falls limp onto a thick blanket dotted with trees and whatever tears have fallen onto his matted fur over the last 30 seconds.
I step back, outside of myself, watching as if an observer to a process I intuitively understand yet might never comprehend. The vet asks to switch positions as she prepares to inject pentobarbital. I sidestep her and kiss Osiris’s head one final time. The liquid slides in. I gently pet his head until the stethoscope finds his chest.
“He’s gone.”
She asks if we want a few minutes alone. I reject the notion—life ends with the heartbeat. I’ve said my goodbye; now it’s time to really leave. She whisks him out, wrapped in blanket so I can see him no more. I crumble into myself as Callan wraps her body around mine, as I had just done to Osiris.
Maybe, in another story in another time, Osiris’s sister will sneak into the funeral pyre and reconstruct him from the ashes, breathe life into him one last time before he truly disperses into the atmosphere. Like all the stories I’ve collected over 22 years, I’ll keep that hope with me until my ashes join the pyre as well.
Our dog does the exact same thing…probably could use him as a sundial!
That is one lucky and well-loved cat. The pharaohs adored their cats too.