Last Journey

I felt sick when I made the appointment for Mishka to be euthanised yesterday. I rang the local vets to check who would come out and do it for me but their mileage prices were so high that I had to face the fact that we would have to go to the clinic. Vet Services who did the original operation on Mish said that a vet would come to the car to save him the stress of going into the building with all its smells and unpleasant memories.

Every thing I did with Mish I mentally reminded myself that it would be for the last time “This is his last walk outside, this is his last meal, this is the last night”. After a broken night I got up early and fed everyone before I came inside to finish chores. As I was making my bed I kept feeling someone watching and would turn to see Mish lying in the dining room looking at me. Finally I knelt beside him and brushed his coat so he’d look his best for his final journey. I picked him up and cuddled him with his head resting on my shoulder. As he looked into the little hallway by the back door his ears went up and down repeatedly as if something was there but of course there was nothing.

As we sat there a song came on the radio- The Beatles “Golden Slumbers”. The lines “Golden Slumbers guide you to your rest” followed by “Hush little baby don’t you cry/And I will sing you a lullaby” started me off and when the song ended with “And in the end/The love you take/Is equal to the love/You make” that about finished me off.

Finally, just after 9am my friend Rose arrived to take us to the clinic. We put the cat basket and sheepskin Mish had commandeered after his operation on the back seat of the car while I sat illegally with him on my knee in the front. A very long fraught journey into Waipukurau later we arrived a few minutes late for my appointment. Rose went inside and came back with a form I had to sign giving my permission for the procedure. She then opened the hatchback and I settled Mishka into the basket while we waited for the vet to come out. Unfortunately he was running late so it was nearly 10am by the time he appeared by which time we were cold and Mishka stressed.

The nurse told me she had helped the original vet with the cancer operation in August and they’d been sure they’d removed all the cells and it wouldn’t reoccur. She couldn’t get over how aggressively the tumours had re grown. I told them Mishka’s left leg was very sore so they shaved his right one instead but couldn’t get a vein. However when they tried the same with his left leg Mish snapped at the vet so they went back to the right. As the injection went in I began to sob, resting my head on top of Mish’s as his eyes began to close and he went to sleep. Unfortunately for him my face was the last thing he saw in this world.

We drove home with him curled up in the little bed and managed to finish digging the grave I had begun yesterday without crying. When Rose took him out of the car and I touched him he was still warm and looked as if he was just sleeping. I laid him in the grave and put a sprig of jasmine on top of him and at that point we both lost it so I ended up helping filling in the grave with my eyes shut.

After Rose left I wandered around outside for an hour as I couldn’t bear to go into the house. When I finally became too cold the sense of loss was huge but the black and white cats came and sat beside me until I lay down and went to sleep.

So bye Mishka. King of the Egg Eaters. Cat Humper. Total Guts. Best Friend.