Suki

My father died when I was 3 1/2.  They gave me a puppy I named "Waggles".
    Waggles was everything to me.  When I was ten, she was run over, died.  That pain remains 68 years later.
     Tragedies came, went, came again to the family.  A suicide, kidnapping, brain tumors, my alcoholic mad wife in an institution.
    In the end there remained only my son and I, and our cat, Suki.
    Suki lived on and on.  Lived past the age cats live.  And then another five years.  Then another six years.
    "She'll live forever," my son said.  "Just like you, Dad."
    She began to die when 22 years old, over 100 in human years.  Suki still sat on our laps, but sometimes could no longer crawl onto the sofa.  She became part blind, part deaf. 
    "Do you want to go now?" my son asked her.  He was willing to let her die at the vet's, but hoped she would signify "no".
    I knew what to do for Suki.  But my son was more important.
    We held her on our laps.  She purred almost imperceptibly.  Sometimes we lowered our face to hers, to her nearly blind eyes, said soft things to her.  "Suki.  Suki."
    On the last day my son asked his kitty again, "Suki?  Do you want to go?"
    This time she did.  My son lifted his sad eyes to mine.  "She's ready, Dad."
    "You stay here in the car," my son said outside the vet's office, as though feeling my anguish from so long ago when my dog died.
    A half-hour later he returned, eyes red, the empty blanket cradled in his arms.
    "Yes," he said.
    My son kept Suki's bed, heater, the blankets, the water bowl and food bowl, exactly where they were for many years.
            We never got another pet.  He never again drove on that street by the vet's office.  My son and I share a bond now forever.  The life and death of our kitty, Suki.


Read more: http://grantflint.pnn.com/articles/show/10587-suki#ixzz1Z1OZEkDx