This morning, as I was getting my daughter ready for her daycare, my mother came in, very anxious, saying something about a cat and the stairs and ants. I figured our indoors cat had made some kind of mess during the night. But on my way out to take my daughter to the car, I found some animal’s runny poop on the walkway, and I figured this was what had bothered my mom.
But after my wife had left with my daughter, I went up the other pathway on our front garden, and found the remains of a cat’s head, with a busy line of ants converging on the head. Looking more carefully, it was the face of a brown and gray tabby cat, with the face itself mostly unscarred, but nothing of the ears or head behind the facial plate.
I went to the back supply shed, got a flat shovel and rake and a brown paper shopping bag, and cleaned up both messes. Since tomorrow is trash day on this block, my mother had already put out the trash bins, and I folded up the shopping bag and then put it into the black trash bin.
I had a momentary scare that the deceased cat was our cat, since it was a brown and gray tabby, but I went inside, washed my hands thoroughly, and found our cat in her upstairs room waiting for her morning meal and brushing.
I thought about how a cat’s remains had gotten fifteen yards into our walkway past a locked gate, and figured coyotes must have chased the cat under the gate, and made a meal of the unfortunate cat and left the unappetizing facial piece.
As we live just down from a large hilly urban park, I see coyotes sauntering along the street during the evening from time to time, but never as much as this summer. I considered putting up a poster in case the cat’s owner was frantically searching for the cat, but it seemed a morbid thing to post for anyone walking by to read. I also considered taking a photo in case I ended up writing about it for this blog, but by that time the remains were already in the trash bin.
It made me think about how a cat might want to die, and if our other cat who ended up at the pound this summer might have had a preferable death by being euthanized. But cats are at heart still wild, and maybe a cat would prefer a death fighting for his life to a quiet death in old age.
About a month ago, there was a provocative article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about the current state of the hospice movement in this country and people’s often contradictory search for a “good death,” when modern medicine can keep the chronically ill alive when they are likely to die of one disease or another.
Maybe five years ago early one morning I found another cat in front of our gate. The cat was mortally wounded, and ants were busily crawling over the body. It pained me to see the cat being eaten alive by ants, but when I tried to move the cat (what I would do next, I didn’t know), it summoning all its energy, the cat snarled at me. I think the cat had accepted its death, and did not mind the physical pain of the ants.
Perhaps the cat’s death holds some meaning for humans, who fear death so much and will do anything to prevent the inevitable.
About two years ago, my father discovered he had highly advanced cancer. The doctors told him the disease was terminal, and gave him two months to a year to live. My father then went to a specialist who promised him my father would beat the cancer. At first, he seemed to be doing fine while undergoing treatment, but declined quickly at about six months and passed away about nine months after the diagnosis.
I remember him telling me after his health had declined how much he suffered and how severe the pain was. My father was not the type of person to complain, so I could imagine the degree of his pain.
But at the end, he seemed very peaceful as he slipped away. At the end he seemed at peace with his life and what had happened. I like to think of it as a good death, and I can only hope that when my turn comes, I can achieve a similar peace.
