For Spirit

Today I had to do one of the hardest things I have ever done. I took our oldest cat to be euthanized. Spirit had cancer; we had known since the middle of June that this day was coming. But starting over the weekend, he was not eating anymore, and he was having trouble jumping onto the couch and bed. So it was time. He didn't even scratch me when I put him in the carrier.

Becky and I got Spirit off of a farm in the middle of North Carolina on January 8, 1995, the day Becky turned 22 years old. He was nine weeks old, having been born on November 4, 1994. Becky and I drove out to this farm after she had talked to the lady who had advertised the kittens in the newspaper. There were two boys - Spirit and Tawny, they came with their names - and thank goodness we liked Spirit better. Didn't Johnny Cash sing that life was hard for a cat named Tawny?

January 8, 1995 was the first week that Becky and I lived together, and we were in a little apartment in Chapel Hill. Spirit slept in Becky's lap the whole ride home, just a tiny thing. He immediately became our chaperone, sleeping between us. He especially liked stretching out lengthwise between us, so that Becky would have her six inches on one side, and I would have my six inches on the other, and he would be shoving us both or meow if either of us threatened to roll towards the middle. I cannot count the number of times my arms got scratched for having the audacity to want to snuggle with my wife, nor the number of times I finally tossed him off the bed and into the wall so that we could have sex. And he would jump back onto the end of the bed and wait for us to separate, so that he could reclaim his rightful position between us.

I didn't think he would live very long in those days. When he was three months old, he strangled himself on his flea collar, catching his lower jaw in it. He cut the sides of his mouth badly as he tried to free himself, and he had been caught long enough when I made it home from work that he wasn't struggling anymore. That same weekend, he hanged himself from the cord holding the blinds. Our apartment was half a story below ground, and so the windows were all about four or five feet up. And so we left a little roll of carpet by the window in the living room so that the cats could climb onto the window. But they just jumped down. But this time Spirit's back paws got stuck in the cord to the blinds, and he hissed and screamed while he slapped into the wall several times. And he was thrashing his claws at everything, so there was no way for Becky or me to get to him without getting cut up.

But lived he did, for another decade and more. He had his flaws, to be sure. He ate too much whenever the bowl was filled, causing himself to vomit. We had to feed the cats on a cookie tray to make him walk around some and slow down. And it is not as if the cat ever missed a meal. And after an unfortunate flooding incident in our house in 1997 in Tallahassee, he never was litter trained as well as one would hope.

But he was always a family member. He loved and was loved, and he will be missed. I hope your soul has already found Becky's, my good buddy, and I hope she has made amends for taking that pork chop bone from you when you were a kitten, not to mention for cutting your balls off. Rest in peace, Spirit.

Spirit Gofoth November 4, 1994 - August 22, 2005.