Angus was a great cat. A ginger and white tom with heaps of personality. My husband fell for him and bought him on Valentines Day, 8 years ago. Sadly, he didn’t make it to Valentine’s Day this year.
I took him to the vet before Christmas, 5 weeks ago, thinking he had an abscess in his mouth, only to discover it was no abscess, but a tumor growing inside his jaw. This was after spending $1000 of course, one week before Christmas Day. Ouch.
The surprising thing was, when we first explained to the kids he was very ill and going to die they showed very little empathy. My six year-old asked, “Why are you crying?” I explained I was feeling sad that Angus was ill and going to die, “I want him to die” he said, “then we can get a dog!” I burst into tears, he realised he had upset me and hid behind the couch. I told him to come out and say sorry, (he didn’t really understand why!) and we had a cuddle.
We were soon to embark on our first camping holiday for 3 weeks and we didn’t know if Angus was going to be around when we came back. I organised a lovely lady, (and an ex vet nurse) to feed and check on him daily while we were away. She was so sweet, and sent me daily texts about how he was getting on. He seemed to be doing pretty well, however biscuits were proving too difficult for him to eat. However, he was still managing to eat soft meat and thankfully the tumor seemed to be growing very slowly.
In the meantime, our camping holiday ended up being a total disaster. A storm hit our campsite and completely trashed our tent cutting it short, inevitably resulting in us returning home a week earlier. Angus was so pleased to see us, he there to greet us as we turned the key in the door. He gave all of us smoochy cuddles, happily sat on our laps and enjoyed playing out in the garden with the boys. You wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong!
Reality soon hit though, as after about a week, he wanted to spend less and less time with us, spent more time sleeping and slowly went off his food. The tumor had now started to push out his eyeball in a slightly garish way and when he was asleep it wouldn’t close. He also had a huge lump on his cheek and couldn’t shut his mouth. When he had sadly decided he couldn’t eat anymore I made his last appointment with the vet.
I told the kids I would be taking him to the vet the next day, and he wouldn’t come back. I explained that the vet was going to take away his pain, and he would go to heaven. They realised then that he was going to die and they asked me a few questions. I answered them, and made sure not to say that the vet was actually going to kill him! They were comforted when my husband told them Angus would be living with Poppa. They liked that idea.
On his last morning, Angus came and lay on my chest and I looked deeply into his eyes. He was purring away, and didn’t seem at all bothered by his bulging eye and stream of dribble but he refused to eat his breakfast. Before school, the kids said their last goodbyes and I took him to the vet.
At the appointment, the vet was very kind and explained exactly what effect the drugs would have on him. I put my hands on Angus and stroked him as he slipped away. I was grateful I could be there with him. When I got the kids home my tough guy four-year old said, “Angus isn’t at home he’s gone to heaven, I’m not gonna cry”. I said, “Yes he has, if you feel sad it’s OK to cry if you want to”. “I feel sad” said my six year-old. “Me too” I said.
In private I cried lots of tears that night as Angus had been a part of our family for such a long time. The next day I shed a few tears in front of the kids, but explained why I was upset so not to worry them. It was difficult trying to explain cremation to a four year-old, but luckily he just seemed to accept the facts and showed no real concern when I said his body would return to ashes.
I was surprised as my boys didn’t cry any tears. They were a little bit sad, but only for 24-hours. A couple of days later they had already moved on, telling me to put away Angus’ food as we didn’t need it anymore, and that his scratch post was in their way!