A year ago (not today, but the 11th) my kitty broke his leg. He was trying to jump up onto the tv, something he’d done many, many times before, but he was having trouble negotiating the narrow top ledge and not hurting himself on the rabbit ears.
I was watching tv at the time, a WWII documentary about the prisoners at the German POW camp that inspired the movie “The Great Escape.” These old guys were visiting the POW camp and reminiscing over there time there. There’s even a plaque there that commemmorates all those who died at the camp. The vets were commenting that yes, all the names of their fallen comrades were on the plaque.
Suddenly, the tv crashes forward, destabilized by Shadow’s weight. He runs out the cat door, no doubt startled by the sound. I’m unsure whether or not he’s hurt, but reckon that if he was ok enough to run out the cat door, he’s probably ok.
A few minutes later, the grim outcome is obvious when Shadow walks through the door, his right rear leg hanging at a crazy angle, limp, and he’s not putting any weight on it. We rush off to the vet emergency room, and his broken leg is confirmed.
The good news is that the bone he broke is commonly broken in cats, and our surgeon assures us that she has performed the surgery many, many times (which is the kind of experience you want from your surgeon. A surgery they can perform in their sleep).
And, though I would have been happier with a broken the tv and not a broken leg on my cat, everything seemed ok.
Well, it was a long six months until our final appointment with the surgeon. In the meantime he had expensive bandage changes (that required sedation every time, because our kitty was a Fighter) and x-rays to see the progression of the healing and then he had an unattached tendon, and on and on. I grew to hate the vet’s office, which I realize now was simply because it was the place where I felt no control, it was poorly run, and I was still so angry that Shadow wasn’t getting better.
Who knows what happened to him. He was close to ten years old, but that’s on the young side for a healthy indoor-outdoor cat. Maybe it was the powerful NSAID she prescribed for him when he was clearly in pain in July.
In my mind, his death is directly connected to the broken leg. In my mind, it was the beginning of the end. Eight months after the leg break, he was dead. The good news is that he had a good two months or so with a perfect leg. Even the surgeon was impressed at how beautifully he had healed.
Last night I went to see Cheri Huber, a Zen teacher who has influenced my own growth in meditation and Zen thought. She talked about how people get upset over average life expectancy, and get angry when they don’t reach it. The only thing we are guaranteed is we’ll live all the way up until the moment we die.
I am still grieving for Shadow, yet I see that I am still in a kind of denial. If only X didn’t happen, then Y wouldn’t have either. Well, it’s something to do, but doesn’t change the outcome: he is in a grave in the backyard.
So I want to gently remind myself to enjoy what I have now, to enjoy my other cat with great joy and love, to remember her quirks and habits, and that nothing is guaranteed. That’s why I want to be 100% present for life, for now, because this is all there is.
