The Pain of Impending Loss
by
John J. Dunphy
(Originally published in the 10/12/19 edition of The Telegraph of Alton, IL)
I feel rather guilty writing this column. My first priority should be holding Bewitched, one of my book shop’s two live-in cats. I just got word from my vet’s office that her kidneys are now functioning at only 25 percent capacity. At age 24 or so, Bewitched has cheated death for a long time. But her cheating days are rapidly drawing to a close.
I wrote “24 or so” because I have no way of knowing her exact age. My ex-wife and I found her as a stray wandering around the parking lot of Maher’s Auto and Truck Service on Belle Street in Alton in 1998. It was night and we were dropping off one of our vehicles to be worked on. This young adult black long-hair with the sweetest face came up to us and made our acquaintance. It was love at first sight, even on a dark parking lot where we really couldn’t see her that well.
She rode home with us in our other vehicle. My ex named her Bewitched, after the TV series she had enjoyed as a kid. The vet told us that Bewitched had already been spade, so she must have had a home at one time.
Bewitched blended in well with all the other dogs and cats that dwelled with us. When my marriage broke up in 2004, Bewitched came to live with me here at my book shop as part of a package deal. Yes, package deal. Bewitched arrived at The Second Reading in the company of two other cats, Mr. Otts and Cocoa Bean, that I got in the matrimonial split- up. To make matters even more interesting, the book shop already had a live-in feline: Briskette, a black short-hair we found in the alley next to our building in 2002.
I, of course, was ecstatic. For eight hours a day I was in the company of these four wonderful creatures. The entire book shop was just filled with love.
Bewitched gained a reputation as a furry photobomber. When Cheryl Eichar Jett had a book signing at the shop in 2009, Bewitched pounced on the table and chose to remain there even when a photographer from The Telegraph showed up. The published photo features Cheryl talking to a customer about her book while Bewitched looks straight into the camera. A year later, a Telegraph photographer snapped me seated on the floor in the fire-log pose of yoga and holding a copy of my just-published book “From Christmas to Twelfth Night in Southern Illinois.” Bewitched was right beside me and gazing into the camera.
Cocoa Bean died shortly after coming to live with me. Mr. Otts died in 2007 and Briskette in 2015. I had adopted Blue Sky, a long-hair tuxedo cat with a stub rather than a tail, shortly after Mr. Otts’ death, so the book shop was now just a two-cat establishment. Bewitched had become an old lady. While her fur no longer had the brilliant sheen of days past, she retained that same sweet kitten-like face that she’d possessed since we found her at Maher’s.
Her normal adult weight had always been around nine pounds. Her annual check-ups revealed a steady loss of weight and I was advised to put her on a Science Diet cat food formulated for cats with failing kidneys that I could buy only at the vet’s office. It’s terribly expensive, but Bewitched is worth it. This special food has kept her alive.
Now, however, the end is in sight. Soon, I’ll never again see her asleep on her pillow inside a large, open desk drawer that she long ago staked out as her own. I’ll never again be able to rub her little head and tell her how much I love her. She’s dying and a huge part of my heart will die with her.
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John J. Dunphy’s books include Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois and Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials: The Investigative Work of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945–1947. He is the Godfrey Fifteenth Precinct Democratic Committeeperson and serves as recording secretary for the Godfrey Democrats.