monkey!

October 1, 2007

Rest in peace little guy

Yesterday, my cat Charlie died. He was only 3 months old.

I spent the night at my girlfriends house as I was driving her to work in the morning, and I had come home after running some errands. Bear, my room mates cat is meowing and being very attentive, moreso then usual though. I grab the bag of treats and begin looking for Charlie. He doesn’t come out.

I begin looking, and looking, checked every crevise and room in my apartment. Nothing. Finally, I do what I dreaded the most, checking outside. Note that we live on the 19th story floor, and the cats were free to go on the balcony as we were told it’s not an issue. You can tell by now what I found in the garden of our apartment building. Charlie, laying there, shaking, but still alive.

I was pretty shaken at this point, I couldn’t believe he had fell, how and why? He’d been out on the balcony every day since we got him with no issue, it wasn’t a windy night at all.

I run back upstairs and get Richard to help me grab a box. We put Charlie in the box with a blanket and begin looking for an animal hospital.

We spent about 30 minutes driving to random places, all of them closed before finally reaching an emergency clinic. The entire time I just looked at him, petted him, watched as he would meow, try to move around, it was so hard to see him like this.

We got him to the clinic, and the doctor said from preliminary diagnosis it looked pretty bad. He had some internal bleeding and definitely a broken leg on his back. She told me I could pay $150 to take an x-ray, or to just let him go

I took the x-ray, fuck, he survived this long I might as well give him a chance. We waited for about 15 minutes, longest time of my life. Ugh.

The doctor entered the room and put the x-ray up on the board. As soon as I saw the photo, I knew it was over. Charlie had a broken back, which meant no chance of recovery. The doctor said “He has a broken back, I’m sorry. I will give him enuthasia now”. She walked out and told me she’d bring Charlie out for one last time.

She brought him out, all cuddled up. His eyes were glazed over and he was in obvious pain. I petted him one last time, looked into his eyes and just said “Charlie, Charlie”. He always looked at me before when I called his name, but never if I said anything else. His eyes looked right into mine, and it was such a sappy, movie moment but godamnit if it didn’t make me melt inside.

Yesterday was the first time I had cried in many years, Charlie was the best pet I had, for the little time I did, and I will never forget the little guy, he fought until the end, never giving up.