I really have no clue why I'm typing this.. after Wally's death I've had absolutely no incentive to do anything.
I feel as if I owe him something.
I don't know why.
Wally was my mother and I's cat, and he was more human than some people I've seen. I cannot believe he's gone, since he held the two of us together..
Heh, I remember one time, he hurt his arm. He was laying in the hallway and he lifted his arm up and showed my mother, as if he knew by showing her she would understand. It was so lifelike I could not comprehend it at the time.
A week ago, or, the beginning of march, he started to change. Last october he had his teeth out - everybody back then told us to put him to sleep as an act as kindness. We didn't, he had his teeth out, and as a result, he had from october to march. If we had, we would of basically killed him and removed 5 months of his life.
A week ago.. he stopped sleeping with my mother. He stopped jumping on her bed, he stopped acting like Wally. Instead of sleeping on his chair in the living room, he just sat beside it, sitting there.
Eventually it became worse. He would sit in the same place for almost entire days, not doing anything. He would barely drink any water, which was weird because in feburary he drank quite alot of water.
We knew he had kidney failure, but we thought it was something else. Back when we had his teeth out, we could tell because he kept trying to push something out of his mouth with his tongue and paw.
I'm still surprised we did it.
March the 9th was the hardest day of my life. We got the cats(Willy, and Wally) from this couple who were going overseas, in 1994. I was 8. Willy was hit by a car, and he died on the 12th of january, 2001. I was 14 then. Now I'm 19 and Wally's gone.. my only real friend, is gone. The house feels so empty now.
12 years with Wally, and 7 years with Willy. I feel as if a quarter of my heart is missing now.
Currently, my mother is sitting over there, crying, waiting for Wally to wake up. He's sitting on a box on the living room floor, but we all know he isn't going to wake up. I still can't believe we did this.
I knew something was wrong when he stopped eating. Eventually, in the past 3 days, it seemed as if he had trouble drinking as well. His tongue wouldn't come out all of the way to lap up the water, and he barely had any food within the past week.
We took him to the vet a few days ago, and we put him on a drip. Back then, he was really dehydrated. His eyes had sunken in, he just didn't look like the Wally we knew. After he was hydrated he looked better, but I knew that it wasn't natural to take a pet to the vet, every single day, to put them on a drip. It isn't natural.
Neither is getting him put down, and that's where we both regret doing so.
A few days ago, he very slowly went to the front door. This was in the middle of the day when he went outside. You must know, Wally never liked traffic. He never liked cars, the noise, and he was outright scared of them. But a few days ago, he went down to the gutter and started drinking the gutter water. A couple of days later he did the same thing yet again, but it hadn't been raining. He was just sitting there, in the gutter. We both believe that this was his way of telling us he wanted to end his life.
I don't think putting an animal down is right at all. I still find it cruel, considering had we of not done it, he still would be with us. Of course, he would just be sitting there, staring at the floor all day, and almost never moving, but he still had life. He didn't even get a say in the matter.
Speaking of that, when we took him to get put down.. I explained everything to him. Yesterday aws the 9th, and we took him in the box he's laying in right now. What makes it really sad is that he just looked like a normal cat. His eyes were bad and they looked like they had a film strip over them, but he was standing up, looking around, wondering what was going on.
In the waiting room, he let out a very tiny meow. When the vet picked him out of the box, he meowed once more. I still don't know whether or not he was trying to tell us something.
A few days ago, we put Wally on a long lasting antibiotic. This was on the 8th at 3 pm. He was put down at 2 pm the next day. We didn't even let the antibiotic work properly. I can't help but wonder whether had we not of put him down, whether he would of gotten better.
He was born in 1988. We picked him up in 94, but the previous owners said he was hit by a car when he was younger. Like the survivor Wally is, he survived. I think that's why Wally was so scared and afraid of cars. Until a few days ago..
I remember, each week we'd come home with shopping. I made a point of going with my mother to the supermarket so I could get these yummy minipizzas which were really nice. Then we'd come home.
Then we would see Wally. The entire house consists of him. When you live with your mother and your cat, family is respected thoroughly. I always had to tell my mother where he was(left or right of the car) so that she could drive in.
Then we would start unpacking from the boot. Wally would help.. he would run into the house, check the kitchen, run outside, meow at us, as if he was trying to help unpack the shopping. Obviously he didn't "help" but it gave us a sense that he was trying.
He would sit outside while my mother mowed the lawn. Then when she changed sides, so would he.
I already miss the way he did stuff. I'm not sure, but my mother is taking this real hard. After he was put down, I was sad, but I'm horrified that I haven't grieved for my loved one. I don't think it's "hit", but if it has, I still feel like a horrible person.
A few hours after he was put down, my mother started digging a grave for him. He's going to be buried today up the backyard, next to Willy.
I miss the way he would push my door open with his poor, to tell me that he wanted to go outside or wanted something to eat.
He sat on the washing machine sometimes too. Everywhere you look in this house, it's a constant reminder of Wally.
When he couldn't make it to his dirt box in the toilet, he would use the shower. How intelligent is that? We didn't even teach him. In his final days though, he didn't have the energy to use his dirt box. He just peed whereever he was sitting sometimes. I say sometimes because most of the time he'd still, in these final days, he would still make the effort to move, meow, and try to let us know.
I regret not spending enough time with him. I remember somewhere in 2000-2002 when I didn't have a computer, and I used my mothers, she decided to stick it in my room. The house is full of junk so there wasn't really anywhere to put it. We put the computer in the top left corner of the room, and the bed was opposite it. At the end of the computer desk, in front of the cupbord, we made him a little bed. It was a box much like the one he was in now, except it had a sheepskin rug inside of it, it was nice and soft.
I remember kicking that box, and he jumped out, cried, and never used it again. I won't forgive myself for that. It was uncalled for, and I should of had more respect.
When we first got them, I remember saying a few days earlier that I wanted a ginger cat. Willy, essentially, was my cat. Wally was my mother's cat, and it's really hard to cope with.
I'm going to miss the mornings where I would wake up and go into my mother's room, and I would see my mother on her side. Wally would be curled up in front of her chest, or the times he would bellyflop next to her. Or the times he would get under her sheets to keep warm.
I'm going to miss the way he wanted to get on my computer's desk. He would smooch my harddrive.. and I ended up always getting a towel and wiping it because it would be covered in drool. He smooged everything, you know. He would make my speakers fall over, he would smooch boxes and corners, everything.
He had 3 beds, but that never really stopped him from finding new ones. He had one in the living room, on the chair directly in front of the tv. He had another one in front of the window in my mother's room. Probably the highest, as it was on chester drawers. He had to make quite a jump(roughly 5 feet) in order to reach it. Eventually he would only make 4 feet or so and climb the rest. His final bed was my mother's.
I remember finding him in some weird places, though. Under my mother's bed, for example. Sleeping on the packed boxes in my mother's room which we still haven't opened, sleeping at the corner of my mother's bed. Sleeping beside my mother's bed between the lamp and her bed. He would sleep anywhere where he felt safe.
I spent so much fucking time on this computer when I could of been with Wally. My priorities are all messed up.. but there's nothing I can do about it now.
I had my hand on his hip, and his back. My mother had his hand on Wally's chest, and head. His body went limp and my mother didn't let go of his head. They shaved off a small section of his arm and put him down. If it was the right thing to do, why do we feel so bad?
More importantly, why am I a horrible person? After he died, I have hardly cried. I'm not as sad as what I was when he was alive, and that's really messed up. I remember back in 2002, I was a big magic: the gathering player, and I was an op in an efnet channel called #apprentice. The channel was huge, and it must of had over 200 people. I remember talking about Wally there, and there's a couple of people from there that still call me up, and ask me "how's Wally doing"? But no, he's not doing anything, he's sitting in a box, and I don't know where he is.
I'm pretty sure I can say that I'm afraid of not death itself, but what happens afterwards. There's all these questions such as "what dimension do the dead live in?" and "is there a heaven and hell?" or "is earth hell, and when you die, you're in heaven?" or "is the afterlife identical to this one but only consists of dead people?" which I won't know until I'm passed on myself.
It sounds selfish, and it is, but had we not of put him down, everything would be the same. Minus the fact that Wally would be sitting there miserable, looking at the floor, wondering what's going on, but he still would have life and he still would of been with us.
I'm in the worst position myself, being 19. My mother's 53, my aunt is 55, my grandad is 80, and my cousin is 25. Basically, my cousin doesn't want anything to do with me. My grandad has the view of "once you die, that's it, you're dead, and it's over" which really scares me, but the point is everybody is older than I am. If people in my family are going to die due to say, age, then I'm going to watch everyone die around me. It just isn't fair.
We'll probably bury him later today, but finding a time is just as hard as finding a time to put him down. It feels like... it feels like placing a time on putting him to sleep is exactly like sentencing somebody to death. Wally was definitely a somebody.
I must also confess that I prayed to god constantly. I would say things such as "God, please give Wally my strength." quite often. I'm not going to amount to much in my life, and now that Wally is gone I have absolutely no incentive to make something of myself, but I really felt that giving Wally my strength via god would keep him alive longer. I thought it would help because Wally was old, and he needed it more.
Yet another thing I will miss about Wally was when he was curled up in a ball. If you scratched his stomach properly, he would flip upside down and open up like a little flower. If you scratched/tickled a certain spot at the end of his tail, where his tailbone is, he would start licking thin air. See, he couldn't reach that part with his tongue. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't reach it. What was really beautiful was that he would stare in a specific direction, and start licking at absolutely nothing.
I know it sounds odd, but Wally had the illusion that he was licking the spot near his tailbone, even though he really wasn't. If you stuck your finger out while scratching that area, he would start licking your finger. He would even gnaw on your finger sometimes. If he stopped licking my finger, I would stop scratching that area. Sometimes he would start licking my finger again, and I would start scratching that area with my other hand, yet again. Total illusion, but he liked it.
In the final days, he didn't respond to scratching that spot anymore.
It's the small things like that which made me love Wally so much. It's depressing because I only remember a couple of things about my grandma, yet I was 10 when she died(1996). Basically what I'm trying to say is that, once you end up experiencing the loss of someone, the finer details as mentioned above, gradually begin to fade.
That's what I'm scared of the most. Somebody dies, people are sad, you don't forget them, but the finer details of what made them special end up becoming faded. I think that's what they mean by "faded memories."
Alas, if the antibiotics didn't make any improvement we still would of had to put him down. Everybody thought it would be for the best. Even the vet said that they don't usually leave cats with kidney failure.
My mother feels as if she killed Wally. She drove him over there, and while we did tell him he was going to be put down, and we said everything we could before he was, she still feels as if she killed him. She had to sign something minutes before it happened, and what she feels, was signing his life away.
But if we did the right thing, why does it hurt so bad?
Pictures taken of Wally between October 2005 and January 2006.
This is a tribute in loving memory of Wally Heather.
I pray that you will rest in peace and when our time has passed, we will be together again.
We will never forget you.
1988-2006
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Shiny McShine