As I trekked the Northeast Extension in Pennsylvania last Saturday, on my way to visit my daughter at school, one overwhelming question weighed on me more and more as the mile markers ticked off. How do I tell her that her cat, Cutie Pie—a beloved member of the family, her pet and constant companion since we adopted him for her seventh birthday—was riddled with cancer and would likely die soon?
Cats should not suffer from cancer, nor should any other animal (humans included). Cancer had taken up permanent residency in my psyche as of late. It had been a week since returning from The Jillian Fund Gala. Two months ago, my best friend, Pat, had passed away from it following a year-long struggle. Prior to that, he had been in remission from Hodgkin’s for 15 years. Fifteen! What the hell?
A pet is something different altogether. It is something we choose to love, as opposed to being bound by blood or marriage. Cutie Pie had never left the house, yet this insidious bastard of a disease had weaseled its way inside and touched something at the very heart of my family. It was fast-moving; Cutie had been examined back in December, so in a matter of two-plus months, it had infiltrated his liver, gall bladder, spleen, pancreas and, I assume, his lungs.
How quickly did this happen? On a Sunday, we noticed Cutie Pie’s appetite had diminished and assumed he had a dental issue, since he tilted his head while eating. We scheduled a checkup the next day, a Monday. The following Monday, he was gone.
We have a digital picture frame in our dining room that rotates photos. Every three or four pics, there’s Cutie Pie, wearing a hat, or watching my daughter open Christmas presents, or laying on her bed as she played video games. For now, it’s turned off. I’m tired of crying and being reminded.
During the ride to her college, all I could think about was how Cutie Pie had been her constant companion through grade school and high school. Whenever she came home from college for a visit, she would immediately seek out her beloved buddy, who never ceased to quickly scamper into her arms. More than half of the images on my phone are of Cutie; she would often ask how he was doing, and I would send her a pic or two. Whenever we did a FaceTime with my daughter, we’d always bring him into the video to say hello.
When we finally arrived at her school, my daughter rushed over to hug me and had a huge smile on her face. It didn’t last.
“We needed to talk,” I droned.
She seemed somewhat dazed, but the first words out of her mouth were “Is it my cat?”
As I was recounting the events of the past week, her face flooded with tears by the time I mentioned Monday’s checkup. When I think back over the worst things I had ever done or said in my life, nothing was nearly as cruel and devastating as when I told her that Cutie Pie had cancer. I’d broken her heart, utterly and irreparably. This was the greatest love in her life, and it felt like it was crunching under the weight of my foot.
My daughter immediately said she wanted to come home, but I told her Cutie Pie was in the car. She spent the next six hours bathing him in love, letting him explore her dorm room, taking him around to visit her neighbors. For his part, Cutie Pie was his normal, peppy self—feisty, trying to get into nooks and crannies under her bed, sniffing anything and everything, and generally enjoying the attention. We had allowed the vet to give Cutie a steroid shot, to see if it could stall the cancer’s spread and restore his appetite. If that worked, a chemo pill was another option we could try in a week or so. Little did we know that we didn’t have a week.
We brought everyone home. Cutie Pie loved the ride, thoughtfully gazing out the window as my daughter held him tight. We stayed up until the wee hours of Sunday morning, holding and playing with him, despite being physically and emotionally exhausted. His normal self had returned. Just maybe, we prayed…
No.
When we woke up later Sunday morning, it gradually became apparent that the rebound was temporary. While we were still searching for positive signs, Cutie Pie was sliding away from us as each hour passed. By the time we took our daughter back to school that evening, he had become withdrawn and was hiding from us, not wanting any attention.
Everything unraveled the following day, this past Monday morning. I found him on the floor, fighting to breathe. This was happening all so fast. I wanted to get him to the vet to be euthanized and not suffer, but there was no time. As I held him at the kitchen table, I sang “You Are My Sunshine.” Shortly after, Cutie Pie gasped his final breath and died in my arms.
For nearly 15 years, the cat I called “my sweet little boy” had given us nothing but love. Never could I imagine the emptiness in my heart that his passing would create. It had seemed improbable. In one week, Cutie Pie transformed from a mischievous, tail-chasing, zoomies-manic cat—filled with energy and life—to an hourglass emptying at an alarming rate.
My kids raced through the stages of grief, with my daughter quickly reaching acceptance. My son responded with anger (this blog is my manifestation). He’s 25 years old and finishing his final class to obtain a master’s degree in IT, but he’s an atypical techie who doesn’t hide his emotions. Like many Gen Zers, he questions things that my generation (X) either takes for granted or accepts as an unchangeable reality. He wants to make the world a better place and hates politics because of its divisive nature, believing their time would be better spent improving the quality of life for all.
In a particularly exasperated moment, he wondered aloud, “Why doesn’t the government treat cancer as a national emergency?” He had lost his grandmother, my mother-in-law, to the disease a few years back. In addition to my best friend, several neighborhood friends had succumbed to cancer in the past six months. If it’s impacting virtually everyone’s life, he posed, why not prioritize finding a cure? Using a phrase popularized by his generation, I replied, “You’re not wrong.”
Instead of lamenting the lack of concerted attention to the disease, I pointed out there are organizations that are working tirelessly to solve the cancer riddle, among them City of Hope (formerly Cancer Treatment Centers of America). Within an hour, he had made a $250 donation. It may not alleviate the pain of loss, but it satisfied his need to act immediately. (You can donate here.)
As for my daughter, the ride back to school after we buried Cutie Pie was tearful and solemn. If graduating college would not signify the end of her childhood, his loss certainly drove home that reality. She spent the two hours browsing through her phone in search of Cutie pics. She’d laugh occasionally at the antics in his videos, and tilted her head in adoration at images that showed his soft side. It was smiles followed by tears, and tears followed by smiles.
As we pulled up to her dorm, it occurred to me that one day is not nearly enough time to say goodbye to the greatest friend a little girl ever could’ve ever asked for, her forever love. Cancer had torn Cutie Pie from her arms, and I could only watch helplessly. I could feel my own heart disintegrate as she offered one last thought before exiting the car.
“Hopefully, he comes to me in my dreams.”
