Good-bye Marlene

We recently had to have our cat Marlene put to sleep.

She was old and had been battling several different illnesses, not the least of which was diabetes, for longer than we've had her.

Only a few months after I had gotten home from Dallas Rehabilitation Institute Melissa and I went to Operation Kindness, a no-kill shelter here in Dallas, just to have a look.

We were led to a room small room with a cement floor, at least half a dozen liter boxes, walls lined with floor to ceiling carpeted cat perches, the distinct smell of cat urine and more cats than could be counted.

I don't remember how I first saw her. I do remember that nothing really attracted me to her...at first. Most of the cats were either terrified of you, or didn't see you at all. Marlene, laying on one of the many cat perches, just watched us. She wore a torn up, braided yarn collar that had carved a permanent part in the fur around her neck. When I reached down and petted the unkempt, matted fur she came alive.

She's one of our special cases, the volunteer said. She just showed up on the front porch one day. Too sick to run away, she just laid in the box and cried.

As I picked her up and she began purring loudly, then made herself at home in my arms.

We didn't even look at any more cats. The Operation Kindness Vet took us aside and gave us a brief medical history. He told us she had been pretty sick, but they had nursed her back to health and she was doing pretty well. She had had some kind of a gum infection, so they had removed about a half the teeth from the top of her mouth. His best guess was that she was two years old. Give of take six months.

We paid the fee, put her in the cardboard cat carrier they gave us and headed for the car.

She threw up twice on the way home. She never could ride in a car without getting sick out of at least one end.

We went straight to our vet who said her blood work came back a little suspicious and to keep her away from our other cat, Matiste, until he got some tests back in a day or two.

We took her in our little apartment and let her out of the box. I don't think she had never been on carpet that wasn't on some kind of perch. It was like taking a kid to Disney World, because she started purring loudly and kneading as she walked. I don't remember how long she did that knead walk thing, but it was several days. We took her collar off and were sad to find the part in her matted hair was not going away. She was plump. She was sickly. She was a mess. But we loved her.

Our other cat was strong and one big muscle. Holding Marlene was like holding a big water balloon. She would just ooze right through your fingers. The vet called and told us the tests came back fine and that it looked like she only had asthma so she would probably cough and wheeze from time to time...which she did. After a couple of weeks we noticed that her collar part was gone and that her coat looked really pretty. Like she was taking care of it again.

That was about 13 years ago. Marlene was 15 or 16. That's over 100 in cat years. Her health has slowly been going downhill for several years and we had been giving her pills for her blood sugar for about three years and were looking at having to go to daily insulin shots. This morning she was acting very strange and couldn't seem to snap out of it. The vet had told us she could have a kind of diabetic episode and that we should take her in if she does.

It didn't take long for him to determine that all he could do is prolong the inevitable, and through tears Melissa and I made the decision.

Between the three of us, we have had a lot of tears.

We said good-bye to a good friend.

I hope somewhere she's finally able to catch a mouse.