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

[serinde]

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.)

Comments

[briony530.livejournal.com]

Oh, Tori, I'm so sorry. Poor Mage, I'm sure he was very scared, but knowing you and Steve were there must have helped him at the end.

I don't have any favorite memories of him I can think of, but he was a good and handsome boy.

*many hugs*

[elibalin.livejournal.com]

Mage taught me many things:
-Do not wear dark clothing; it will get covered in fur.
-Do not wear light clothing; it will get covered in fur.
-My knees are an acceptable sleeping place
-as are my ankles

I shall miss the need of a lintbrush, as well as the inability to turn over while sleeping due to a large drooling cat.

[caelfinn.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about Mage. He was a sweetie. I remember once at your old house sleeping on the big white couch and he slept between my ankles. I was surprised because he didn't really know me and he could have been up sleeping with Mom and Dad. And he never really bothered my allergies much either :).

[rainbear.livejournal.com]

:( *Big HUGS* You are a good mom--and Mage was a *great* kitty!

I'm sure he is happy, purring and drooling and eating people food to his heart's content, wherever he is now!

*MoarHUGS*

[arkham1010.livejournal.com]

*hug*

My favorate mage memory? Well, the 1st fairlawn house, in the computer lab, he used to jump up into my lap, unaccouned and unexpected, and start peering at the screen, as if to say "what is that that which you are doing, dear sir?"

And then he would pester me until i gave him pets.

Poor guy.

*hug hug*

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

In which I post Steve's mom's favorite memory: Mage's first summer, in our first apartment. We had just done the shopping, and per usual there were plastic bags everywhere. These were fun to pounce on for young cats, so he did; but what was different was getting entangled in them, so that his head was through the handle-loop of the bag.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS RUSTLING SCARY THING CHASING ME He went tearing through the apartment frantically, back and forth, up and down, with the bag billowing out behind him like Superman's cape.

Steve said he'd never in his life seen his mom laugh so hard as at this spectacle.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Bwahahaha!
So not the sharpest tool in the box, but the friendliest?

[otherwise-nyc.livejournal.com]

I don't remember Mage well, but I've had to do this twice myself in the last year and a half, and my thoughts are with you and with his kitty spirit. I'm really sorry you had to go cope with this right now (though there is never a good Right Now, of course). I'm glad you were there with him.

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Nothing too specific, just a nice, cuddly feline friend.

[crypticgirl.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm so sorry.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it Mage who, that first Thanksgiving I was over, pounced on and stole the turkey off my plate?

Certainly I have photos of him adorned with cheese, which should be around here somewhere....

[audiovile.livejournal.com]

Without question, that was Mage.

[spride.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. It's been a horrible year for cats with people.

[audiovile.livejournal.com]

My personal favorite Mage story has to do with that horrible old folding futon cushion we inherited from somewhere, the one collioquially known as the Stinky Cat Thing. It was standing on end-on next to the wall, and Mage had hopped onto it, to better survey his domain and supervise the conduct of the menials. As it was, his weight had overbalanced the futon and it began slowly tipping over. But it overbalanced so slowly that he failed to register that he was tipping, so he basically sat there like a captain going down with his ship as the thing toppled in slow-motion.

Tori has a photo of it, and you can just see the first faint stirrings of consternation, as his brain began to register the fact All Was Not Well, just before he got dumped onto the floor...

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the other benefit of the Stinky Cat Thing: exactly the right height to whap at people's arms as they walk by when they are inconsiderate and do not give scritchies.

Photos: I'm going to upload all I have (in electronic form) to flickr on Sunday prob'ly, in between packing-for-conference hysterics. Linkies to come.

[audiovile.livejournal.com]

I keep changing my mind about what's actually my favorite Mage story. The way he used to play fetch with the Nerf glider is way up there. But at the moment I think it would be this one: Julie laying in the big white chair, Mage flopped on her feet on the ottoman. Mage, even though he was mostly a long skinny string-bean of a kitty, tended to have a chunky belly because he ate like a pig. He was laying across Julie's bare feet, and she started to wiggle her toes, which made his belly fat start to ripple like a big furry flying carpet. This obviously annoyed the crap out of him but Mage was the biggest attention whore ever, and hey - even really annoying attention is still attention. So there he was with his belly fat going wobble wobble wobble, and looking as cranky as I'd ever seen him (I dubbed that look "Chunky & Aggrieved") - but totally refusing to do anything about it, because he had the attention of at least three people. Oh my god it was funny....

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

My favorites:
* The Shark Game when we would make the bed, and he'd get tucked under the top sheet and start slithering around with his ears slicked back like some kind of weird sea serpent.
* The Overly Familiar Familiar, when during a D&D game he jumped up on the chair behind the guy playing the party mage, put his paws on his shoulder, and peered over to look at what was going on at the table.
* Mr. Nose. Whenever we ate at the table, or even might be eating at the table, his way of extending his already-long body up as far as he could without actually triggering the Bad Kitty response; so all you would see is a little pink nose up in the crook of the target's arm.
* Egg Shen. (http://a450.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/113/s_1d89fab1823512b6a23bb747a859a809.gif) Mage would, particularly when happy, screw up his face so that one eye was open and one half-shut, just like said character from Big Trouble in Little China.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

But my ACTUAL favorite was when he would sit on the ledge of the waterbed's headboard with his tail hanging down, and we would tug at his tail, and he'd get reeeeeeally annoyed and start whapping at the offender, and twitch his tail over a few inches or whatever, but never actually move it out of reach because, hey, attention!

(Also the variation where he'd sit on a computer chair, I'd lie on the floor underneath it, and do the same thing.)

[audiovile.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Overly Familiar Familiar was actually the strongest competetor against the Collapsing Futon story. That, and the way he did lap-surfing at the big Call of Cthulhu game, where people were packed in so tight that he could circumnavigate the table entirely by walking across people's laps... I think he'd achieved Attention Whore Kitty Nirvana.

And I don't have a cutesy name for the event, but the time he played fetch the foam rubber fall with me at the old apartment for so long that he collapsed puffing like a bellows and pretty much unable to rise. But when I sat down, figuring that the game was over, he started bawling like I was taking away his tuna - he didn't want the game to end, ever. Which was Mage, in a nutshell.

[auntiemisha.livejournal.com]

Oh golly I think I was the source of the Stinky Cat Thing -- but it was just a regular old futon at the time.

I remember dressing up as a cat for Halloween once and (accidentally) scaring one of your cats but I don't recall which one it was. I remember hearing that Ranger and Mage advanced in power in comparable ways in D&D -- Mage started off weaker but passed Ranger in power the more levels they went up.

[shechameleon.livejournal.com]

OK, it's not Mage-specific, but the Thanksgiving I came down, when Mage and Ranger had just gotten back from being emasculated...the two of them were a sight to behold.

[shechameleon.livejournal.com]

The A-man says his favorite Mage-ory is of Mage snuggling on his feet while he played "the superhero game".

[nedlnthred.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite was when the three of us were tucked into bed (and had stopped talking about intersections in Brooklyn), and he'd settle across my crotch and do the puff puff thing. He always settled just within scritchies reach so I could rub behind his ears as I fell asleep. It completed the sense of being so absolutely, thoroughly loved that the room couldn't quite contain it all feeling that characterized that time.

His stoicism after the first few days of tube feeding always touched me. Like it was happening to someone else. Who knows, maybe he didn't really feel it so it may have seemed like it was. He was a nice regular guy sort of kitty.

[dagnycat522.livejournal.com]

Woe :-(

So sorry to hear about your cat, but I'm glad you were able to be there.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

I used to find his light and shadow chasing funny. More than once I would spot, from the corner of my eye, Mage dashing backwards and forwards. When I realised he was chasing my shadow (against a wall, box, furniture, whatever) it was easy to get him worked into a frenzy :-) Probably the most exercise he got!

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

At least since he gave over on fetching as being too much like work, yeah :)