My last cat

Dexter didn’t accept his end peacefully. Bon vivant, renowned cat food critic, Official Greeter, he struggled to hang on to the 14 years of life he adored.

Animals live blissfully unaware of their mortality. The most difficult part in helping an animal across the “rainbow bridge” is relieving the fright they have of a reality they have never known. They are losing the one constant in their lives. You.

Dexter’s departure left me with Freddy, my 9 year-old Tuxedo, a comedian and sock-stealer. I considered him to be my last cat.

What stood in the path of adopting another companion was awareness of my own mortality — the discomfort I’d feel having a beloved pet say goodbye and then depart into the unknown.

Closing in on the 3/4-century mark, I didn’t want a cat that would become an hourglass measuring my days.

It’s not that I wouldn’t be tempted to adopt. I take great joy in weekly visits to Safe Haven, a cage-less, non-euthanizing cat shelter, where I brush and fuss over 20 to 30 cats.

As months passed, I offered myself rationalizations about why each resident was unsuitable for me to adopt. Kittens were obviously out. Mature cats offered an uncomfortable race to the finish and they brought another goodbye even closer. I weighed what effect my sudden disappearance might have on each of them.

Then, lightening struck!

The shelter received a litter of five kittens that almost had been lost to respiratory ailments. They were the “candy bar kits” — Snickers, Hershey, Reeses, Twixie and Kit Kat — all unique and highly socialized.

Love put my ponderings aside. I fell for Hershey, a strikingly beautiful kit named for her uncommon cocoa color. However, I soon discovered that I was too late into the game. Adopted.

Paying a last visit to Hershey, I relaxed into enjoying the frolickings of the litter, now firmly resolved that Freddy was, indeed, my last cat.

I noticed Kit Kat moving resolutely toward me. He jumped onto my lap, strode up my chest and pressed his very damp snout onto the tip of my nose. Then he did it again!

“What about me?”

I had just been adopted — and taught some lessons. Love can come from anywhere, it can happen unexpectedly, it is a life-changing emotion and it can be contained — and passed on — in the vessel of a pet.

The evidence always had been in front of me. I had groomed cats with grim backgrounds — given up, broken, abandoned, abused, ignored — all who were flourishing in new homes.

“Kit Kat” became “Harold” and within hours he was unhappily tucked away in a quiet room. Twelve hours later, Harold and Freddy were cautious friends — like orcas, two Tuxes bonding on sight. Two days later, they were sharing a bed.

Will Harold know a new owner? Possibly. Will he be a delight? Certainly! However, from now forward, “my last cat” will only refer to a place in a long line.

Greg Madsen is a Sequim resident.