My cat kenni died on Friday 20 January. It was a fateful day - Donald Trump was sworn in as POTUS and a man using his car as a lethal weapon plowed into a busy street in Melbourne killing 5 people, a 6th dying a week later in hospital. kenni, lying on the front porch just after 1 pm took one last visible breath as I sat beside her, stroking her lightly into this passing away. My partner Melinda sat beside me reading a Tibetan prayer:
'As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion'
Padmasambhava, Tibetan Book of the Dead
kenni and I had been together for 18 years, the longest relationship in my life. She was born in East St Kilda in a tiny shed. The runt of the litter, her brothers and sisters had been claimed the day before I turned up to take the only one left. It was a tough separation, she was too young to be whisked away from her mother but the elderly owners of the shed wanted to have all the kittens gone having tripped over one the year before, necessitating a hip replacement.
She sat in the palm of my hand, a tiny tortoiseshell. 'Naughty torti's' are infamous with vets for being short fused and cantankerous. Certainly, she was both and she lived up to her reputation. The vet clinic had a warning on their computer system for new vets and nurses who hadn't seen her before: 'WARNING, TURNS QUICKLY'. (kenni and I had a lot in common.)
She was a law unto herself, she never wore a collar and she wasn’t microchipped. I never wanted to domesticate her or turn her into a pampered pet. She could come and go as she pleased, a window or a cat door always open for her.
She taught me a lot: I learned to read her, especially when she was about to launch a vicious attack using her teeth and claws to extract quite substantial amounts of blood. But as the years passed she mellowed, spending a lot more time on my bed, following me around the house and eventually, beyond all belief, she'd sleep on me at night.
I'd started reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying last year, and in retrospect it was prescient. As a practicing Buddhist I had always wondered how I would approach her death and the precept I hold not to kill. When I took her to the vets for the last time I knew before the blood tests came back confirming chronic kidney failure, that she was dying.
I spoke to her vet about the options given my wish not to euthanise, and while I didn't want to put her down, I didn't want her in pain either. She was prescribed morphine which I administered once a day, and twice in the last 24 hours. In the last week she parked herself in the front garden during the day, soaking up the sun, zonked out on meds, safe in her home. It was heartbreaking watching her deterioration but she was home, and each night she slept on me for longer, finally nestling under my chin.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying taught me what I already knew innately about death - that it is terrifying unless you face it, and, not to let your own grief overwhelm the dying. Do all you can to make them peaceful, so, no wringing of hands or wailing in the streets. I remember a monk several years ago advising us that death is not the time for those of us with troubled and unresolved relationships, especially with close family, to set the record straight.
Whether you are a Buddhist or not this is sound advice.
I miss you, my friend.
