ruby

warning: this chronicles the last day of a pretty good cat (no matter what i've said elsewhere)

they say, ruby you're like a dream
not always what you seem
and though my heart may break when i awake
let it be so, i only know
ruby, it's you

they say, ruby you're like a song
you just don't know right from wrong
and in your eyes i see heartaches for me
right from the start, who stole my heart?
ruby, it's you

-ray charles

ruby was a replacement cat. a replacement for a replacement. and although she was the most beautiful kitten i'd ever seen, it was always clear she didn't intend to get close to us. she might tolerate us but it was unlikely she'd ever love us. so we spent the last nine years moving in and out of her life- putting food where she could eat it, cleaning the poop she left in return, sitting on the couch for an occasional visit from a chirping pile of fur who might accept a bit of gentle ear scratching before turning sharp claws on anything and everything in her path.

she is the focus of an earlier entry, "ruby- angel of near-death", i believe. she has always been peculiar. so when we didn't see her much tuesday or wednesday, we didn't worry. and when i sat on the couch wednesday night and and put my hand flat on a pile of steaming barf, the obvious culprit was guthrie. he looked terrified. he looked suspicious. so we watched him. he skulked around all night while max and jim slept. ruby, in absolutely normal ruby fashion, was nowhere to be seen. like every other day. like all days. so we worried over guthrie.

but this morning i heard her crying. not normal ruby behavior. the sweetie found her in a closet. she wouldn't move. not normal ruby behavior. he put her on a blanket on the floor and the other animals came up one by one to nose her and she did not destroy any of them. so we took her to the vet. she cried. she screamed. her chirping purr turned into the rattle under the dashboard of an old car. she couldn't walk. her kidneys had done something awful to her a few years ago, begun the process of shutting down but rather suddenly, after countless pokings, proddings, internal photos and scans showed nothing, they went right back to work. and so we waited for this again. for her kidneys to regain their senses. for her to recover by sheer force of will and the desire to go back out in the world and rip things apart.

instead she breathed in rattles and cried. a discussion with the vet suggested her kidneys had shut themselves down for good. she was cold. they put us in a room and brought her in wrapped in a purple towel. royal. they left us with her. the sweetie noticed her neatly trimmed claws and we smiled at her attempts to take over even without kidneys. she had needed to be subdued even at her last. we spent an hour petting her, talking to her. she had never, in all her nine years, let us do something like this. she had never been still. i told her lies. she couldn't understand them so i suppose they were more for me to hear. it's okay. everything will be just fine. ruby and i have never had the affectionate relationship i share with the other three animals so it felt strange to be able to put my face so close to her. i whispered. in my head i wanted to yell, "this is what you get for being such a standoffish jerk! we had no way to know anything was wrong and this is your fault you mean, selfish cat!" but what i said was it's okay, baby. close your eyes and rest. and i meant that, too.

it is a strange thing to be with an animal when it stops being. at least the few times i've been a part of such goings on. it is surprising how much the world does not seem to change, how much the animal is not dramatic. perhaps because we imagine our own goings as the sorts of affairs you'd see on stage, we are shocked by the quietness of it, by how much they seem not to notice us standing there crying and not knowing what to do. they do not need us there but we think they do so we stay, limp, red-eyed, to bear witness to the last thing.

and when everything stopped our vet, a very kind woman, wrapped ruby up in her royal purple towel like a small baby. she was gentle, careful. for us. to help us, i thought, because ruby was gone. but when she picked ruby up to leave, she did something odd. the towel fell a bit into ruby's face and she moved it away. i'm not sure why that was important but i'm glad she knew it was.