Mackenzie

Mackenzie: In the world November 1994 – January 31, 2009 … and forever in our hearts.

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” - Ernest Hemingway

“No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch.” - Leo Dworken

Yesterday we made the decision to put down our pet cat of 14-plus years, Mackenzie. She had been sick for months, unable to keep food down. She had lost a couple of pounds just since Thanksgiving. She was not well, she was uncomfortable. We could have taken measures to prolong her life, but they would not have been in her best interest, they would have been in service to our selfish refusal to let her go.

Kim and I spent the day yesterday recovering from the agonizing hour-and-a-half at the veterinarian’s office. After discussing her condition with the vet, we made what we felt was the right decision for Mackenzie. After we told the staff, someone came and taped two paper towels over the window in the door to the small room where we sat with Mackenzie. The vet administered a strong sedative while she lay in her cage, curled in a corner on her favorite green blanket. A while later, the vet moved Mackenzie and the blanket onto a metal table and lay her on her side. At about 12:20 p.m., the vet injected into a vein in Mackenzie’s back leg a pink fluid that was essentially an overdose of anesthesia. She monitored the cat’s heart rate with a stethoscope, and at 12:27 pronounced that Mackenzie had passed.

The one eye we could see was still open, but all the mischievousness and curiosity we’d loved and at times feared had faded. That was it. Fourteen years slipped out of our grasp.

I think “numb” pretty well describes how we spent the day. Today I have been more reflective. I am empty, drained of energy and also fluids from crying. This post is part of my grieving.

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.” - Jean Cocteau

People who read this who have also lost loved ones–people, I mean–might say “it was just a cat.” And she was. But since November of 1994, not a day has passed when Mackenzie wasn’t a part of our lives.

There are so many stories – little moments of joy that are now bittersweet, that in fact make me cry as I sit here thinking about them. For 14 years and some change, Mackenzie filled our lives with little foam balls, and tail chasing, and her hoarse meow, and purring warmth, and sleeping in the laundry basket, and sun naps, and drinking out of dripping faucets, and jumping into any empty box or crawling into any empty bag, and rolling in catnip, and sleeping in a lump under the covers, and wandering around with whatever mischief she’d been into stuck to her whiskers or her nose, and warm weather flopping, and obsessive burying and re-burying of poop in the cat box. She slept in our suitcases before trips and welcomed us home by ignoring us as long as she could. She shed black hair all over everything and ruined two pieces of furniture and a rug with her clawing.

The hard thing for me, I think, is letting go of the constant notion of her. Wherever I was, or we were, Mackenzie was home, waiting. Although she rejected the overtures of strangers, she was above judging me or Kim. She held no grudges. She took pleasure in the simple things, and if one of us had a warm lap or a free hand for petting any earlier slights would be forgiven. In that respect, she shared our better human qualities. I could come upon her ripping up the back of the couch and I’d yell at her and chase her off. Fifteen minutes later she would be on my lap, purring searching my face with half-open eyes and making me feel grateful she had forgiven me my scolding. What was the couch, anyway? Just a thing. But here in my lap was love and life.

We would put something small and shiny on a table and somehow from the floor Mackenzie would know it. Presently she would be on the next highest object near the table—a chair for instance—or on her back legs and this furry black paw would creep over the edge of the table, searching for whatever it was she knew was there. If one of us didn’t stop her, or move the thing, it would soon be on the floor getting batted around and chased until ultimately coming to rest in some inaccessible place, under a radiator or the couch.

We’d give her foam golf balls to play with. Upon receiving one, she could spend the better part of an hour chasing it around. From another room we could hear her growling and then she’d come around the corner with the ball in her mouth, and it would look like a yellow or pink or blue or green clown nose on this giant black cat. After a while, the ball would also end up under a couch or in some forgotten corner. Just as often they ended up in her food bowl, for safe keeping. Once when Kim was living in New York and Mackenzie and I were still in Oak Park, Kim unpacked in New York and found one of the balls in her shoe. A little going away present from the cat.

Normally what would happen, though, is that the balls would disappear for a while and Mackenzie would forget about them, having turned her attention to a new catnip bag, or the never-ending obsession with the tip of her tail. One of us would vacuum and find a dusty, saliva-stained ball. We’d toss it out in the middle of the room or down the hall. If Mackenzie was awake, she’d pounce on it immediately and begin playing with it as if she’d never seen it before. If she was asleep, the ball would sit wherever it came to rest until several hours later when she would find it. Then, suddenly, there would be the scrambling scratching of cat claws on the wood floors as attacked the ball anew.

“There are few things in life more heartwarming than to be welcomed by a cat.” - Tay Hohoff

Mackenzie offered three sorts of welcome: The stretching, yawning, “your return has interrupted my nap” greeting; the alert, sitting by the door, head slightly cocked with an “I wasn’t doing anything, honest, and I especially was NOT just on the table” look; and the pacing, meowing, “It’s about freakin’ time you got back, my food bowl is empty” greeting.

On occasion, and especially in the winter, Mackenzie couldn’t be bothered to leave whatever warm spot she had discovered to offer a greeting at all. But that was rare.

For such a small animal, Mackenzie was massive. Early on – following the advice of some veterinarian or another – we insisted on feeding Mackenzie only twice a day. She would get a cup of kibble in the morning and another cup in the evening. This was probably because, although when she was a kitten she was unusually small and actually kind of sickly, she developed a big bone structure – long and tall – and she seemed determined to spend her adolescent years acquiring a girth to match. Our feeding schedule was designed to hold her weight gain in check. She wore us down, though, by waking us every morning at six or so. This was not such a big deal on weekdays but on Saturdays and Sundays the grind of meowing, attacking our feet in bed, incessantly batting these sleigh bells we had hanging from a closet doorknob and other obnoxious behavior eventually got to be too much. To preserve our own sanity we began keeping food in the bowl all the time. Predictably she gained weight. She grew to about 15 pounds, but no more. I used to joke that she had reached critical mass and was quite happy there.

Mackenzie was a strangely loyal cat. Some cats let anyone pet them, but Mackenzie was positively stand-offish, even with close friends and family. When we had guests she would often disappear for hours, occasionally making an appearance to grab a couple of bites of food or use the litter box, but she wouldn’t hang around looking for attention. Then, when everyone had left she would reappear.

She could be very persuasive. Mackenzie was especially likely to seek one of our laps if we were working at the computer or reading at a table. She insisted on positioning herself in the lap, exactly between us and whatever we were doing. If we tried to ignore her, she had this impossibly cute habit of gently touching us with one paw until we looked at her. Once she locked our gaze with that slightly cocked head, we had no choice but accommodate her.

These are my memories of Mackenzie. Was she “just a cat?” Sure. But she was a pet, and a part of my life for a long time. As I review the past 14-odd years, she was always there, in the background and sometimes front and center. These are the things I want to remember, not the last months when she was sick, or yesterday as she lay there on her blanket on the veterinarian’s table and we stroked her as the life slipped out of her and her once bright green eyes faded.

Prolonging her life would have only served us. She was decidedly uncomfortable, and occasionally in obvious pain. It was her time. Mackenzie’s unnatural calmness as we waited for the vet to come into the room indicated to me and to Kim that she understood on some level what was happening, and that she accepted it. The pain of yesterday’s loss, which persists today, will be difficult to leave behind. Images like the ones I’ve included in this post help – Mackenzie in happier, healthier times.

Is it possible to be filled with emptiness? The concept itself is backwards. But today a beloved pet is gone, and I feel like the part of my life that she occupied has been sucked out. I have lost other friends and loved ones, and other pets, so I know that eventually this aching emptiness created by Mackenzie’s physical absence will be filled with the memories. But that process is agonizing.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and simply be sad for a while. Goodbye, Mackenzie. We love you and we miss you.