As long as I’ve known Jim, I also knew his cat Max. Max was a vocal orange cat who wasn’t keen on strangers, but once he warmed up to you he was a literal heat-seeking feline. With warm laps as the target.
When Jim and I moved in together, my cat Thunder did not get along well with his cats Sophie and Max. Though, I think it was more of a problem between Thunder and Sophie – Max just really wanted to be friends with anyone. He had an odd relationship with the dogs – seeking their companionship and warmth, but not really upset when chased off or getting smacked in the face with a tail. The dogs in turn did some occasional aggressive smelling, but mostly ignored him.
Despite our best efforts the cats did not ever get along and we lost Thunder not long after. A couple years later, the grand dame Sophie also said her goodbye and it was just Max.
He was as good of a cat as he could be – factoring in that all cats are kinda jerks most off the time.
We put covers on the nice furniture and when that wasn’t enough, spiky pads to keep him from leaving orange hair everywhere. And if we forgot, we would find him napping where he wasn’t supposed to be.
No cat could have enjoyed our living room more, though, with the sunshine filled windows and covered radiators. For a cat who loved to nap in warm spaces, this was heaven.
He would frequently get in the way on the stairs while we would be carrying a dog up or down. And expected a treat any time the dogs got attention.
Otherwise, he was just a cat – less like a pet and more like a freeloading room-mate.
Though, to be fair, he did kill a couple of mice in the house and left the remains for us to find. I guess that counts as working.
Around this time last year – when we were having trouble with Talbot and his mobility – a door got left open and unattended for just a little too long. Max slipped out and escaped from the lap (literally) of luxury.
And he was gone.
As soon as we realized, we searched the yard and the neighborhood. In any previous escape attempt we would find him nearby. But not this time.
We alerted the neighbors and everyone kept watch. We followed up on any possible sighting and each day I would walk the neighborhood after work – shaking a treat can and calling his name.
A full 25 days after he escaped, the next door neighbors had a sighting. I hurried home from the office and to their yard – can of treats in hand and heart full of hope.
Then, a familiar meow.
He cautiously crawled out from under the neighbor’s shed and I gently wrapped him a towel and took him home.
Max had lost a lot of weight and we quarantined him in the basement with water, wet food and his litter box – all near the furnace that we soon needed to use. He was warm and safe and home.
We got him to the vet a few days later, where I introduced him to the staff there as “Maxwell Copenhagen Lake the First, but you can call him Max”
Other than weight loss, he was in surprisingly good shape. No injuries, no parasites, just hungry. I bought him a collar and had an engraved nametag made for it. Since I had brought him home, I felt a new obligation to keep him safe.
I started a routine of wet food to help get his weight up over the dry kibble. Morning before I went to work, lunch time with the dogs, dinner when I got home, then night time before bed. He would never eat all of it no matter the size of the portion, but I dutifully kept his dish refreshed to get him back to his regular weight.
And then, other than the new food schedule, he was back to his old self. Even to the point of looking out the door when the dogs were let out – as though he considered going back out into the cold.
Not the brightest of cats, but maybe he nursed a secret wanderlust.
My weekends of sleeping in were now a thing of the past – Max would come into the room and meow when it was time for breakfast. If I ignored him, he would settle in – blocking the door – and wait for me to get my lazy ass out of bed.
Later, when Talbot got sick, it got harder to fit in all my chores at lunchtime. The barking dogs and yawling cat made it more stressful.
And when we lost Talbot, I took on more responsibilities with Max and Chloe while Jim tried to recover.
As summer ended and fall began, I noticed that Max wasn’t eating as much. Even when I lowered the portions, he still was leaving most of the food. He didn’t seem to have a behavior change and didn’t turn down treats, but it was concerning. He slowly stopped eating and I thought he might be eating the dry food we still had out, but that seemed untouched too.
Then, over a few quick days, he stopped eating and drinking altogether and started hiding in the basement. For a sociable cat, this was a worrying sign.
He stayed in the basement all day last Saturday, but we brought him up so one of our friends could stop over and see him. The two had been close and Max seemed glad to sit on his lap – but the usual tail movement was absent. When our friend left, we took Max up to the bedroom for the night, but he slipped out in the darkness to go back to the basement.
Max didn’t leave the basement on Sunday and when we checked on him he wouldn’t move and would just let out a pitiful cry. He couldn’t get in and out of the litterbox well or use it and his paws were crusted with litter.
We were losing him and he was suffering.
Sunday night, around 9 pm, we decided it was time to say goodbye.
Jim wrapped him in a towel and we took him to the animal hospital. Jim was already grieving the cat in his arms and I took over and calmly explained to the receptionist that this was our elderly cat Max and he had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and it was time to say goodbye. I answered all the questions, we paid the fees, and were taken back to a room.
Jim held Max in his arms and gently petted him. A tech took Max back for a quick exam and the doctor came in and told us how things would go – and agreed it was time to let him go.
They brought Max back to us with an IV in his leg and gave us some time to say goodbye. Then the doctor came back and gave him the injection and he fell asleep and then passed away in Jim’s arms.
We made arrangements to have Max cremated and left the hospital, both feeling hollow.
It was late when we got home, but we stayed up a while and talked about Max. Over the next few days I realized I was missing the annoyances. No more tripping over him on the stairs, no more before-the-alarm wake-up calls, and no more random yawls that scared the dogs and me.
There was a quiet absence.
I took an evening in the middle of the week to clean up the basement and spare Jim from having to do it. I washed out the food and water dishes, dumped the litter box, and swept things up. I cleaned his collar and put away his toys.
And then we waited for him to come home.
The cremation service brought us his remains today. There was a bag with clippings of his fur, a pawprint cast in plaster, pamphlets on grieving a pet loss, and a tiny bag of his remains.
Jim and I sat on the couch and talked about the relics, for lack of a better term, and told each other stories and memories of Max.
We’ve now lost Thunder, Sophie, Talbot and Max. I don’t know what we should do with these remains in their decorative boxes.
And we worry about our old girl Chloe and her new little friend Fenwick.
Grief is familiar in our home as we continue to mourn our lost animal friends.
But we do our best and keep out hearts open.
Goodbye, Max. You too did did your best and we miss you.