When the veterinarian haltingly emerged from the back room, a stricken look on her face, I knew parenting improvisation would be coming.
It was just before Christmas, three years ago. One of our cats had recently been put down and the kids, at the time just 5 and 3 respectively, were confused as to why the pet carrier had returned empty.
“But what does it mean to die, Mommy?”
We had two cats. Though their dad and I had already been separated for more than a year by this particular Christmas, both cats still lived with him while the kids spent the majority of time with me. I thought it was a fair deal. The cats were a feature at daddy’s house and, while I sometimes missed my furry friends, I was relieved to be with one less burden of responsibility.
When one of the cats became ill, their dad had been away for work and the moment of intervention came and went. Before long, the poor thing just couldn’t be saved. Sadly, the other cat also seemed to have lost weight and we mutually decided to take him in for a check up.
We walked into the vet’s in a festive mood. We weren’t often together as a four-person unit anymore, but on this drive we’d all been singing carols in the car and the kids were laughing and merry. The remaining cat was agitated to be out of the house, but with lots of cuddling and cooing, the kids and I managed to haul him out of the carrier and surround him with our familiar smells and touch during his check-up. The doctor was extremely professional and gentle. There was no cause for alarm.
A routine blood test in the back room later, however, and out she came with that blanched look of horror.
“He became so nervous that he spontaneously went into cardiac arrest,” she said. “We tried to save him but we couldn’t.”
He just… died. A heart attack. Only a week after the other cat had perished. Surreal.
“Where’s Husky?” my oldest asked, looking at me with her chocolate eyes wide with worry. “Well,” I said slowly, as their dad stormed out of the veterinarian office in a fury, “Seems he wanted to be with ‘Little One.’”
“But where’s ‘Little One’ after she died?” she asked again, still stumped. This is when I knew I had to shift gears—and fast. I turned to the vet and asked to see the cat. Out he came in a blanket. His eyes were still open, his body still slightly warm. He was already stiffening up: the perfect moment for a lesson on death.
The morbidity of our situation is almost funny, in that black humor kind of way, though that took me awhile to see. There I was, alone, with my two little people, both of them up on stools to look at the dead cat while I leaned over the examination table saying gravely: “This [pause]is death.” I explained that he had gone, got them to look in his vacant eyes to prove it, and told them no one really knows where the spirit goes, etc. I even let them touch him. They were fascinated. Not afraid or sad, just accepting of death as just another fact life delivers.
“Seems to me he died of a broken heart,” I said, to no one in particular.
Because, after all, lots of things die natural deaths. Love, marriages, cats. Yet, songs can still be sung in cars and Christmas can still feel festive with or without loved ones nearby, and plus or minus one (or two) with fur.
Nevertheless, I think we’ll stay pet-free for a few years yet.
This article appeared in the beijingkids October 2019 Family Foodies issue
