Life has a specific gravity

Life has a gravity specific to it. Life floats. Life lifts itself up. Life moves. Life swims. Life flies. Life is. And life dies.

I ended my cat's life on Friday June 24 by 'humane euthanasia.' The veterinarian administered it through a catheter that she placed in Tigger's front paw. When the vet brought her back in to the room she had her wrapped partially in a blanket. My cat was wide-eyed and scared but clearly too weak to fight much let alone cry out.

"Pet her. Make sure she doesn't fall." The vet requested of me.

I pet her head, and my cat was back into her routine, but staring at the door from which the veterinarian had exited. In a few minutes she came back and asked if I was ready.

"This will be quick." She warned me.

I was ready.

The doctor placed the needle to the catheter port and pushed the plunger down. In concert with her motion my cat went from being propped up by her two front paws to a slow recline and resting her head on her front paws. Contrary to being 'put to sleep' her eyes never closed. I watched her take a few shallow breaths and her paw twitch slightly. The vet left and returned in a few minutes. I just stared at my dead or dying cat quietly. Her pupils eventually dilated, and a slight accumulation of tears appeared in her right eye, the side nearest me not resting upon her paws.

My cat was barely able to get around in the week prior. She could no longer jump into my bed. I had made her a halfway bench to get onto the table and then to her food, water, and favorite sleeping spot on the couch. Between that and coming to my lap, she was a sinew of routine protruding her bones through her wan frame. She had quit eating entirely two days prior. I didn't want to see her continue her slow decent. That shot. Euthanasia was a fast track to her end. Before I took her she kept wanting to go outside. I watched her leave the porch, walk down to the sidewalk, and then lay down on the walk. She layed there for a few moments before getting up and coming back to the porch. She was restless, looking for something, a door, a passage, comfort. That shot gave her passage. Her body went limp. She passed. Her gravity became that of her body's mass. The animus that moved her had left. The Tigger I had known for 19 years was gone.