Tommy:
12-year-old MN Domestic Shorthair, brown tabby

After hearing the triage call through the speaker system, I waited in the doctors’ area for the nurse to return from the exam room. She gave me a brief synopsis of Tommy’s situation before I ventured in. Her somber words were a pale harbinger of what I would witness in that room.

When I opened the door, the sour smell of decay instantly turned my stomach. On the examination table, splayed in a makeshift bed of soiled terrycloth in an old Coors Light cardboard box, lay an obese cat—conscious, vocal, paraplegic. His hind limbs were cold and dead. Worse, he was lucid—acutely aware of his pain, and at least to me, pleading for deliverance.

Two women accompanied him. The first had pulled up a chair to the table where she crouched over him, whispering to him and stroking his head as I entered. Her puffy, wet eyes and broken speech betrayed that she was crying. The other was seated against the wall, legs crossed, rocking her ankle back and forth. As I began to introduce myself, the second asked how long this would take. I told her we could take as much time as they needed. That didn’t make her happy, as evidenced by her deep sigh and quickened rocking. I asked them to tell me more about Tommy.

I learned that they were sisters, and Tommy was their mother’s cat. Their mother suffered from Alzheimer’s and was no longer able to care for herself, let alone her only companion. The sisters had long since lost her in mind, and knew they would not long have her in body or spirit either. With a rare flicker of recognition, she would ask for Tommy. This circumstance might have made Tommy’s plight more understandable—if not wholly forgivable.

As I listened, the walls of another small, dark compartment began materializing in the recesses of my mind. Selfishly, I thought I’d already witnessed enough suffering that day. And I was exhausted.

Janice, the older sister, felt guilty for not spending more time with her mother during her illness and had wanted to make up for it by taking good care of Tommy. Unfortunately, that opportunity had passed. He had clearly been allowed to linger in his condition for some time. His underbelly and inner thighs were ulcerated with urine scald. His coat was a plate of matted armor. His rectum wasn’t visible—caked, dried stool had formed a plug that rendered defecation all but impossible. His deep-set eyes were empty. He was the definition of suffering.

As domesticators of pets, we owe them a debt. We mean well. Still, we place an invisible cord around their necks, tethering them to us for life. We strip away their freedom to wander, to follow instinct, to slink off into the forest and die under a bush, or to become prey. Tommy never had that choice.

I walked the women through the process of humane euthanasia. Janice wanted to stay with Tommy the entire time so he wouldn’t feel abandoned, left with strangers. She wanted more time—she couldn’t get enough. In her mind, she would somehow be hastening her mother’s passing if she let Tommy go, even though she knew it was a kindness.

I begged her to allow me to give Tommy medication for the pain, to give her those few extra minutes. Somehow, having him conscious made her feel like he was still there—more present than if he were sleeping. It took every fiber of self-control I possessed to hide the frustration forming a tight lump in my throat. Only when my clinical description of his condition became graphic did she relent. Tommy was given an injection that ushered him into a deep, painless sleep. Now she could take her time. I left the room to give it to her.

Several minutes later, I checked on them. Janice’s sister was ready to proceed, but Janice wasn’t there yet. She was leaning over Tommy, her forehead pressed to his, soaking him with her tears.

“Janice, you promised me we’d make it to the sale at TJ Maxx. You know it’s the only reason I came.”

My throat tightened. In that moment, she seemed impervious to the suffering unfolding inches from her face. I wanted to believe she couldn’t see it, or couldn’t understand it—but I was sure she did. And I judged her. I judged them both.

I pictured them crossing the street after this was over—Janice lingering outside the fitting room, waiting patiently for her sister to toss aside the shabby curtain and reveal her next bargain.

That image lodged itself somewhere, sharp and deep. The sadness I felt—not just for Tommy—was suffocating. He had endured for so long: at the hands of one woman insistent on barreling forward, and another, paralyzed by grief into inertia.  I left the room again, not able to stomach the dueling forces.

Eventually, Janice let me proceed with Tommy’s final injection. Letting him go was a mercy. After I confirmed his passing, the sisters left the room and walked across the street to the shopping plaza. As I lingered, stroking Tommy’s forehead and finally allowing the tears I’d been holding back to spill over, I found myself wondering how long Tommy would remain with them—how long they would grieve, or whether grief would be deferred, folded away for later. I wondered if Tommy would stay with them, as I knew he would with me.

Years have passed since I met Tommy, and I have thought often of the women who brought him to me. With time, I’ve come to see how begrudgingly I doled out my empathy that day, how unfairly I judged them, and how deeply that judgment was rooted in my own exhaustion and pain. As someone who has never had to care for the deteriorating shell of a once vibrant loved one, I could never understand the full weight of their burden. I wonder how gracefully I would endure such a crucible—with equanimity, or avoidance, denial, anger.  Or perhaps constant movement. 

It is my responsibility to understand and consider sentient souls like Tommy, and to guide their companions in understanding them—their instincts and fancies, their quirks and anxieties.  Their pain.  Many times, I’ve doubted my ability to uphold the mantle.

I can forgive Janice for holding on.

A small part of me accompanies every soul I conduct through the valley of death. I wonder when there will be nothing left for Charon’s obol.

Forgiving her sister will come, but has proven more trying.

Even now, I remember Tommy vividly—his cries, his ruined body, that unmistakable stench of decay.   He remains the clearest reminder of the responsibility I hold to every sentient life entrusted to my care. It is a weight that, at times, I still question my ability to bear. 

– Samantha LaClair