Goodbye to a Good Friend

During Thanksgiving weekend 1991, my sister Andrea gave me an early Christmas present, a black, 8 month old kitten with white down his nose and white on his paws. The summer before we had put our 13 year old cat to sleep after he got into antifreeze and his kidneys shut down and my 7 month old grey tiger-striped kitty had disappeared. My sister had rescued yet another cat as this one had been dumped in a ditch. This new feline acquired the name "Ajax" from a Shakespearean play I was reading for English literature at the time. Perhaps ironically, Ajax wasn't the black character in the play "Othello". Ajax came to live with me in my first ever apartment and got to know my friends, roommates, boyfriend, and pet fish at that time. Three years later he travelled from Marc's apartment to our old apartment when I moved without him into a no cats apartment. He somehow survived travelling the main street of Wolfville during this search. His collar tag helped someone nearby to get in touch with me. After exploring my new apartment he was okay with residing elsewhere. Ajax stayed with me while I graduated three times from university (I went back and got my honors when I didn't get into the Bachelor of Education program right away).

Ajax and I moved back home to mum and dad's when I graduated for the last time in 1994. He was with me through the break up of my boyfriend of five years. He also gave me comfort as I struggled to get a teaching job and substitute taught for seven years. Three years later, in late 1997, he moved with me into an apartment in a 100 year old home. He gave me love and companionship as I lived for the first time, alone and single, for three years. He would greet me at the door no matter the hour, he would snuggle with me and keep me warm at night, and he comforted me when I was sick or feeling very much alone. In 2000, he moved in with mum and dad again while I stayed in a cat-free apartment before getting married in 2001. He lived with me again after I married. We lived at that location for just over a year before moving again into my first home (that I choose) and a week before the birth of my first child, Taylor. Ajax kept me company through all those late night nursings and frustrations of a new mother with an infant that isn't nursing well. He was also with me while my step-daughter lived with us for 11 months in 2003. Ajax lived with us in Lucasville through Taylor's birth and growth until I was pregnant with my second child, Mackenzie.

I am allergic to cats. A discovery I learned after I already had Ajax for awhile. I was advised to give him away as I was highly allergic to cats and that he could still live for quite a while. Warren is also asthmatic. To top things off, I wasn't to be near kitty litter while I was pregnant and Warren - mister anti-cats - wasn't going through another nine months of kitty litter duty. I tried to find Ajax a new home and in the end mum and dad adopted him. Three years later or during this past year he developed hyper-thyroid and lost his hearing. He went down hill health wise rapidly. Apparently Dad wasn't ready to let him go and Mum continued to pay for his medicine at $80 a month until this past week. Ajax stopped eating last weekend and had a visible growth on his leg that he kept chewing at. Monday 22 December 2008 at 4:40pm, I took the girls with me to meet mum at the vet. We all went in the exam room to pet him and say, "goodbye." Then mum stayed with him for the needle and we returned shortly afterwards to say, "goodbye" again. I fell apart when I wasn't expecting to but Ajax had been my comfort and friend for years. I also won't be getting another cat to ease the transition. Mackenzie said it was scary but now she won't be asking constantly where is Ajax as she did when Maddy died past spring. Taylor said it was sad and had a lot of questions going to the vet and since then, mainly around how sad am I and how sad she is. I found comfort when Taylor reflected the words I had spoken to her earlier as I tried to explain why we were putting Ajax to sleep or killing him, letting him die, "his medicine wasn't helping any more, so he won't hurt any more." She also added her own thoughts, "and now he's in heaven with Jesus." I would also like to add that she also asked me why we don't do that for people, let them die when their medicine isn't working any more and they are in pain. Good question, don't you think?