None More Black

Steve just phoned; he is taking Mage up to the animal hospital emergency room. He fed him some salmon last night (which worked) but he woke up to find it was puked up on the carpet, and Mage was at the bottom of the stairs trying feebly to crawl behind the shoe rack there. (And had his head stuck, and was mewing piteously.) I am fairly clear on what that means in animal-speak. I'm expecting another call in an hour or so.

Did I mention that today would have been our 10th wedding anniversary?

The Passing of the Kitty; or, Mage has Ascended.

I did indeed get a call (if not quite the expected one), which was Steve, in considerable distress, asking me to please come to the house at once without delay. This of course I did, and after the usual hour-and-a-half of transit on tenterhooks, got home. The vet on call at the animal hospital determined that Mage's current and pressing issue wasn't an abdominal thing, lord knows what that might have been, but at least now he was showing clear signs of final stages of a brain tumor or other neurological disorder. He'd actually gone blind sometime in the last 24 hours, and wasn't able to walk without wobbling, and couldn't hold up his head. Tests could be done to prove this, but the vet said that in truth there was nothing to be done, whatever they found. So they made Mage comfortable, got some liquids (and I think some calming drugs) in him, and when I got to the house we drove up to the hospital to say goodbye.

I will say this for Oradell: they may cost the earth, but they have a really nice facility. They have special small, comfortable rooms where you can sit privately with your pet and make your adieux. So we did that (and the doctor was amazingly kind, even as vets go--I've never met a mean vet), and bawled a lot, and then I held Mr. Mage as the doc put the quietus into his IV. It was as quiet and peaceful and kindly as such a thing can be, and beforehand I didn't think I would be up to any of it, but I can state now that I feel much the better for having been there with my kitty to the end.

Then we cried some more in the car, then drove back to the house and had tea and gave Ranger some salmon and cried some more; and now I am printing out my STUF for the conference, since I sprinted out of work trailing all kinds of loose ends.

Mage is in the Land of Eternal Cheese, where no one takes away your people food and then laughs at you for being Chunky & Aggrieved. He is drooling on everyone there and making little huff-puff noises instead of purring, because everyone is scritching him and no one is paying any attention to any other cats at all.

(All the habitués of chez nous, in its various incarnations, are encouraged to post Favorite Mage Moments in comments here. I'd like it a lot.)