At the start of Bitey's sudden illness when emotions were raw and the future cloudy, I thought about what I would say to the "Just Put Him Down" crowd. I was actually afraid of them, because I thought, if they said that to me, I would break down in tears. And since I figured a lot of people in my "tough crowd" office were of this variety I told very few people about Bitey's illness.
But word started to leak out, and I did encounter several people of the "Just Be Done With It" persuasion. And some of them were at my work. Except they weren't who I thought they'd be.
For the most part they were pet owners. Loving pet owners who, just like me, had experienced the pain of sudden illness in a beloved cat or dog. But their philosophy was clear, and unrelenting. You don't spend that kind of money on a pet. You don't try to extend the life of a pet past a certain point. Or to paraphrase something a wonderful man with ten children said to me...."White people have pets, other people have children..." (Only he has the rights to the exact quote, but you can take a guess).
And frankly, I don't disagree with any of the people who put limits on what they are willing to spend on pets. If you have any number of children (one, three, ten) it seems silly to spend more than the minimum on a pet. I often joke that my future children are really going to enjoy community college...such is the weight of the debt on my shoulders.
But there's another side to that joke...I don't have children now, nor do I expect to in the next, say, three years. What I have is a great boyfriend and a once in a generation cat. A cat whose life span has closely mirrored that our my relationship with my boyfriend.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, I became a full time part of my boyfriend's life the same way Bitey became part of our--suddenly. When Bitey made his scared little sounds outside my window, the boyfriend and I were just finding our way. The guy, the girl and the cat all grew closer, together.
While I can't give Bitey all the credit for our eventual success, he certainly became a common focus, something, someone we both loved in a way that didn't need to be expressed in words. When you love a cat or dog you don't need to worry about defensive posturing, work through the snit of the day, or dilute the message in an attempt not to freak the other party out. It's a simple, pure almost overwhelming feeling. And if you find that feeling once, it's a lot easier to find it again for the more complicated people in your life.
So saying goodbye to Bitey is more than letting a beloved pet go. It's the boyfriend and I saying goodbye to the first part of our lives together...and going it alone.
Of course we'll always have the Red Sox...
