We finally had to kill our cat

We finally had to kill our cat. And it really shouldn’t have meant so much to me.

I thought I could do it myself, which is what my dad did with our old dog, Dutchess. Dutchess couldn’t really walk anymore and the humane thing to do was put her down. It was the only time I saw my father weep.

Our cat, Floyd, was still spry but not well and she was destroying the house.

And it shouldn’t matter to me this much. It was just a cat. She didn’t protect us or the house.

But I taught her to meow when she wanted to be petted when she was a kitten. We didn’t even have kids when we first got the cat.

And I remember when we first took our cats outside to show them the dangers of the outside world.

I remember getting the cat out of a tree when she was stuck.

We moved to a new house to have a child and we were worried that the cats would be disoriented. But they easily adjusted.

I remember Floyd jumping into the crib of our newborn baby and being shocked when she learned that the little, moving, squirming thing in blankets was a mini-version of my wife and myself; shocked, she jumped out and looked at us as if to say: “Do you know that thing is here?”

Our daughter chased the cats when she was young but then, as she got older, started to pet the cats and bond with them.

My dad spent the night in our new house once before he passed. He slept in the guest room and the cats went in and bugged him.

As I walked downstairs this morning, after the cat had been put down, I realized that I’m not going to see Floyd anymore. And then it hit me. She marked our life as a companion but she also marked the passage of time. She was a non-verbal observer of our lives for 21 years. She never asked for much but she was someone who saw every significant happening of our life. She helped mark the passage of time.

So Floyd, wherever cats go, ‘be well’. And thank you.

As always, please listen to the full audio clip for complete context.