D'Arcy Developments

Well, it finally happened. Despite her great improvement the week after the first visit to the vet, Nippy went downhill again. So on Wednesday it became obvious that we needed to go back to the vet. I explained to D'Arcy that there probably wasn't anything that Mary-Anne (the vet) could do for Nippy now, and that she was going to die soon. I went on to talk about the injection that the vet could give her to help her to die more quickly and easily, rather than the slow and painful version she was currently experiencing. D'Arcy was not happy with this as an idea. He's generally very frightened and worried about death, so to him. something that might make you die faster, is a bad thing. Now in some ways, that is an attitude that I can understand, and I know I have to support him - aren't all 5 year olds afraid of death and dying? that doesn't change the fact though, that we had a terminally ill cat with end stage renal failure. She had stopped eating and was having great difficulty drinking, could get around a bit ("look mum, she can still ski herself") and walk a few steps.

So by Wednesday afternoon I couldn't really take it any more. I pretty much knew what was going to happen. We took her to the vet, who said "it's time. there's really nothing more we can do for her". We cried D'Arcy and I, and went out into the waiting room (I wanted to stay, but D'Arcy did not) and then they brought her back out, wrapped in a towel in her carrying box.

We brought her home and buried her in the garden, in a nice place, dappled sun. We cried as we dug her grave, and cried as we put her in. We noticed how strange her body felt, now that she wasn't in it anymore. We talked about what a great cat she was, what we love about her, what we missed, and we stroked her fur a lot. He made a lovely cross out of sticks from our big chinese elm, and put it on her grave.

Immediately afterwards, D'Arcy wanted to dig her up and see how she was going, but I reminded him that she would be all covered in dirt. "We could brush it off" was his solution. Then he wanted to swing on his rope, and after that he wanted to dig her up again.

We went through this a few tims in the next few days, with the interest gradually waning until yesterday we didn't go out to see her at all, and when his dad came to pick him up and asked "Do you want to show me where you buried Nippy?" the answer was an uninterested "Nah".

The amusing post script to all of this (because with a 5 year old there is always one) is that on Friday when we went to K-Mart D'Arcy said to the check-out chick "My cat died". She made sympathetic noises, upon which he said "Yes, the vet killed her".