2020 hasn’t been a great year for anyone but when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.  Yesterday we lost a dear little friend, our Clarence.

 

Clarence pushed his way into my life when we were both in dire need of a good friend.  We remained friends for the rest of his life.  My sons are 18 and 19 and they barely remember a time when Clarence wasn’t a part of our family.

 

Like most cats he was, politically, somewhere on the right side of AOC, but not by a lot.  Even so, if he were given the opportunity, I’m sure he’d have shredded the likes of Nancy Pelosi or Ilhan Omar.  He still found his niche in a Conservative home.  When there was puddy-tat work to be done he was always ready, willing, and much more than able.  When you live in a house that’s over 100 years old the services of a good mouser are always welcome.  Clarence never ate his kills or presented them to me in bed.  He would wait for a convenient time and lay them at my feet.  Then we’d go to the bathroom together, and he’d participate in the burial at sea... front feet on the toilet seat and his head moving in a circular motion that was synced to the mouse’s departure to the sewer system.  Then we’d crack a can of tuna and he would accept payment for a job well done.

On one occasion a bat somehow got into our home.  I had a neighbor visiting at the time and she was busy freaking out, but I had the presence of mind to call Clarence.  He always came when he was called.  He sat in the middle of the kitchen floor and watched the bat fly back and forth, again and again.  The neighbor derided him and commented that he was “stupid” and “retarded.”  Before long he began rocking back and forth while he watched the bat.  I knew a little bit about how cats operate, and I told the neighbor that he was doing the necessary trigonometry in his head.  Then she laughed at him and ridiculed him by calling him “autistic.”

 

It helps one appreciate this display of feline skill if one realizes the bat, in its travels back and forth, was just skimming the ceiling and my ceilings are just under nine feet tall.  When Clarence’s internal navigational and targeting computers reached their solutions he gave a mighty leap.  Somehow, I can still see this in my mind, in slow motion.  When he reached that point where his thrust became equal with the gravitational force, that brief moment when you’re neither rising nor falling, when you’re hanging motionless in the air, the bat flew within his reach and one mighty swing with that right hand and the bat bounced off the wall and fell to the floor.  I don’t know if it was dead or unconscious, but I scooped it up in a dish towel and took it outside and tossed it into the trash can.

When I came back into the house Clarence was glaring at my neighbor.  She said he’d been doing it long enough and hard enough that she was beginning to feel intimidated.  I said to Clarence, “Dude, I know she’s stupid and you know she’s stupid but now she knows she’s stupid, too.”  He was satisfied with that and jumped up into a chair and waited for me to open a can of tuna.  That’s when he informed me the going piece-work rate for bats was considerably higher than for mice.  Little Leftist that he was, he still believed in a good day’s work for a good day’s pay... with added emphasis on a good day’s pay.

 

I have sixteen years’ worth of stories like this.  We didn’t simply lose a cat yesterday, we lost an integral, contributing member of our family... one we all loved very much.

 

 

 

Off an on throughout his life Clarence has suffered from pollen allergies.  This spring he began having ten to fifteen second coughing fits once every other day or so.  His vet gave him steroids and they seemed to help for awhile but about two weeks ago the coughing episodes increased to one and sometimes two per day.  This time the steroids helped less than before.  This week the coughing fits increased to several per day and they were more intense. 

Yesterday, the vet asked permission to use their new x-ray machine that she said would give her a better look at his heart and lungs.  Charley told her to go ahead and a few minutes later she came back into the room and the tears streaming down her face told the story.  She told Charley that Clarence had advanced lung cancer.  His prognosis was bad, but she said he could be comfortable and in no pain for weeks or even months.  She did warn him that if Clarence’s breathing became labored that he was in pain... and appropriate measures should be taken.

 

Clarence did very well the rest of the day until, literally, five minutes after the vet’s office closed, his condition degraded rapidly.  I immediately phoned the emergency vet’s office and by the time the proper arrangements had been made Clarence was in obvious distress.  Charley had him in his carrier by then and he suggested I stay home... that I sit this one out.  I knew why he said that, and I’d been saying my goodbyes all afternoon. 

Charley called from the highway and said that, as usual, as soon as they got on the highway Clarence calmed right down and seemed to be comfortable.  He called again from the parking lot of the vet’s office and this time his tears gave it away.   Just as he pulled in Clarence had trouble breathing and Charley opened his carrier and Clarence calmed right down and looked up at him and he had the impression that Clarence was saying, “Tell everyone I love them, but I have to go now.”  He folded his little arms, placed his head on them... and died.

 

He will be sorely missed for a very long time.