The Guilt and the Failure

Rodney is doing extremely well–like shockingly so, a second vet visit confirming the prednisolone has all but shrunk the tumour and in terms of clinical symptoms, he has none. He’s like a kitten again, picking up where he left off in the summer when he got quieter and started losing weight. We’re still doing palliative care, of course, but he at least we have more than the few weeks I expected and he’s having the time of his life.

Yesterday we said goodbye to Libby, though.

I don’t want to talk about it, but I also don’t want to pretend she didn’t matter, so here we are. It can also serve as a proof of life post as I don’t want to talk to people for a while. (And I beg of you: comments are turned off everywhere, please take that as a sign not to send me rainbow bridges or hugs. And I’m not seeking reassurances but will, in fact, feel compelled to argue if you try–if you don’t live in my home and are not my vet, there is nothing you can say that I will believe.)

This is about a dozen times more complicated than anything else I’ve dealt with. I don’t want to get into rehashing her health problems here or what we’ve been doing for over seven years. It doesn’t matter anymore. She was a happy-ish cat despite everything she went through, patient and trusting, tolerate of all the poking and prodding. She loved napping in the sunshine and playing with Shawn and snuggling beside me and she had her favourite catnip toys.

She wasn’t supposed to be mine–it was temporary until I could get her chronic health issues fixed, and then temporary until someone was willing to take her into a single-cat household. None of that materialized so she we were left with an imperfect solution to a mess of a problem, out of sight and out of mind to everyone except me who lived with her.

She deserved better than she got. She deserved a more dedicated human where she was the sole focus. She deserved to live without discomfort in a healthy body. But she’s not an isolated case; she’s a reminder for me about all the cats I never helped, the kittens I sent to vetted new homes without knowing what became of them, the colony cats and kittens who suffered, the fates I never knew when I had to be the one to say no because we weren’t a shelter and couldn’t take in more. The failure to get more people involved and taking responsibility, to get them to give more of themselves to save more lives. The failure to make any kind of lasting change. The cat problem was made by humans and continues to be worsened by humans, and I spent all those years trying to make things better and instead ended up constantly angry–bursting with rage now if I so much as hear about cats and kittens needing help, that compassionate side of me damaged so much that it’s never repaired itself, just a chasm where I used to feel things.

I didn’t change anything. I didn’t fix anything. I just broke myself.

Shawn got to go to the appointment to say goodbye, in the hopes he understands what happened instead of me leaving with his friend and coming home alone, as has happened previously. He’s also on medication for his anxiety so he doesn’t get sick again from the stress of the loss.

We tried. She was a good cat. I just keep telling her over and over that I’m sorry I didn’t do better. I’m sorry she spent half her time isolated to keep food separate, that she didn’t get to have fun treats, that I constantly gave her pills and needles and baths. I’m sorry I didn’t find her a good home. I’m sorry she had so many days where she didn’t feel good. I’m sorry I didn’t know whether it was the right time to go or if she was ready yet. I’m sorry I can’t honour her by adopting another hot mess of a cat because I’m stretched too thin here and I can’t have more pets.

Sometimes it’s a long life well-lived, sometimes there’s comfort to be found in knowing you did a good thing.

But this is just…emptiness, nothing but grief and the guilt of failure. And having to live with it.

I’m sorry, Libby.