In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray exhorts the groundhog to not drive angry. It’s good advice. One should probably also not post a blog post late in the evening when one is half into a bottle of wine, but here we are.

Props to my decision to partake in paralegal training. It included keyboarding back in the day, and now I type like I breathe. Slightly worse than I do it sober, but I blame that on the alcohol. But imagine how much worse things would be if I was inebriated, and training-impaired.

I had my cat Lizzie euthanized today. She has been struggling with arthritis for a few years now. I gave her medicine every day, but it had been getting worse. She limped on all four legs. She hurt. And she’d gotten a little mean with it at times despite the pain control. Things had taken a turn for the worse of late – she’d become quite aggressive, and not in a charming way.

An aggressive cat that’s attacking you is a rather terrifying thing. She’s come out me a couple of times now, requiring me to retreat behind a door until she calms. She attacked a visitor – she slashed their leg repeatedly and with intent. Luckily they were wearing jeans.

I spoke to the vet about the increased aggression. He gave me instructions on an increased dose of the pain control so I could bring her in, but it she shook it off as soon as I approached with the carrier, and a rather miserable twenty minutes for both of us ensued, with one of us ending up bitten and bloody.

If it was a dog, we wouldn’t even question. We write off harmful behaviours in cats more than we should, especially when they start to scare us. For “we,” read “me,” perhaps. But what is clear in the abstract is harder in the personal, and I loved my Lizzie. My pretty girl.

She wasn’t the warmest and cuddliest of cats – much of that is nature – she was a feral cat. But she like to be me-adjacent, and she’d chirp along as I played piano, and she liked to sleep on my bed at night. But that last thing stopped a few weeks back. She started keeping very much to herself even as her water consumption increased and her food consumption tapered off. The kidney problems she’d also been struggling with were amping up.

I hate knowing things.

I procrastinated on doing what I should for longer than I should’ve to the detriment of all. If only cats weren’t so stoic.

I took her in after this morning’s attack, and I spoke to the vet, and we agreed. It was time. She growled and lunged at everyone even sedated with the gabapentin, so they took her to the back to sedate her more, so I could hold prior to the final injections. I hate that she was so distressed leading up to the sedation.

They brought her to me all bundled up. I sat with her for about ten minutes before I called them in for those last shots. She was calm in my arms, and peaceful. I told her she was a good girl, and a pretty girl, and that I loved her. I stroked her over and over, and I was reminded again of why I’d never wear fur.

I forgot to call my son. I regret that, but the level of communication and consultation changes once people move out. You don’t think to include them in the day-to-day anymore. Besides, my brain is a little bit fractured of late. Maybe 2025 will be my year?

As I sat with her, holding her wrapped up in a pink blanket I’d brought, I realized how long it had been since she’d been really relaxed. The pain of the arthritis had been every-present for some time, even in sleep. Which was some comfort when it comes to this kind of decision. She was in distress.

The gave her the final shots as I held her in my arms. I’ve always held my pets as they’ve left this world. I consider it part of the responsibility of ownership. You don’t let them leave alone with strangers.

The staff at the vet clinic were great. Her ashes will be returned to me, like those of my last cat, for scattering, though the where is a bit of a mystery – she was an indoor cat, and the outside scared her on the few occasions she managed to make it by obstructing legs and hit the front yard.

Did she ever growl on those few occasions she achieved front yard freedom. She took the vastness of the sky very personally.

Lizzie was a very independent cat, living life and bestowing affection on her terms, but she consented to hang with me for thirteen years, and I loved her, and I will miss her quite desperately now that she’s gone.

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