DEV>Winding Down...

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In the last couple of weeks of my winter-stay in St. Augustine, Florida, my soon-to-be eight-year-old black cat "Hunter" started to become noticeably skinny and listless. A vet visit revealed that he had developed chronic renal failure... Unfortunately, in cats, there's not really a lot that can be done, and, at best, all you can do is try and stave off the inevitable, and try and give them more time.

The question both I (and the vet) were faced by was whether or not he could handle the trip home. Unfortunately, early assessments that were cautiously optimistic turned out to not have been the case, as during the first day of northward travel, Hunter started going downhill quickly, and by the time I reached Charleston WV, it was clear that he was suffering, and I had to make that horribly difficult decision.

This piece was written about three days before I left Florida to head north, when I was in a head-space of cautious optimism that I could at least get Hunter home -- that maybe he still had a few weeks or months left, yet at the same time, there was both the undeniable sense of dread and sadness as the mind worked through various worst-case scenarios.

For obvious reasons, I was not able to revisit this piece for a number of days after Hunter passed, as parts of it suddenly were far too bitter for me to bear. While I'm not yet "over" it (that's going to take quite a long time, I think), I believe that I am at least objective enough now that I can choose to remember that even though our time together seems to have been cruelly short, I can at least say that Hunter was, by far, the best male cat I have ever been owned by.

In the end, Hunter may not have been with me for a long time, but it was undeniably a good time. He really did feel more like a Familiar Spirit than a mere housecat.

The only other small, personal reference I have made in this piece is a nod to the fact that my Maternal Great Grandfather died in Seminole County, FL during a winter vacation in 1922. Hence, my snowbird cred goes back four generations now...

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