A couple of weeks ago, just before we disappeared off on vacation, Eury crashed. Before you start imagining car wrecks and the like, let me explain that Eury was our oldest cat. He was 18 years and 4 months old, which, for a cat, is way up there in terms of age. And by crashed I mean that, finally, all of his ailments – and let me tell you this cat had them all, pretty much – caught up with him and there was nothing more we could do.
Eury was one of the original two kittens we bought on July 4, 1996, Orpheus being the other one. Eury was white with tabby spots, and for better or worse he became known as White Cat. He was named Eurydice for one simple reason: we were told he was female when we got him, and what better names to give these two new kittens than Orpheus and Eurydice, the tragic couple from the Greek myths (well, OK, I was writing a software product called Orpheus at the time, so that provided the first name). After their first visit to the vets we learned the awful truth – Eury was male – but it was way too late to change the name. We acquired Aristaeus a couple of months later and these three cats were the original Greek Cats that I used to mention in my theatre bios. Orphy died just after his twelfth birthday, and Ari at 17 and a half in January this year.
Eury was the archetypal survivor. He suffered from some long list of medical conditions over the years: he had a bladder stone (operated on and removed, then had to have special dry food after that to try and avoid another one forming); he suffered a bit from hyperthyroidism (half a methimazole tablet per day); renal failure (until recently he had to have subcutaneous solution each day); he got an abscess on one of his canines (tooth removed, leaving him with a bit of a lop-sided smile); and finally this year, we had to rush him to the feline cardiologist in Denver because of having fluid on the lungs and a heart murmur because one of the valves was not closing properly any more (resulting in a veritable cocktail of five different medications, in various combinations, twice a day). The latter culminated in one of the more interesting check-ups I’ve been party to: Eury had to have an ultrasound, conductive jelly and all. In the end, the fluid on the lungs returned big time – think of it as cat pneumonia – and I found him collapsed on the floor in his own vomit late that afternoon. Despite me rushing him to the emergency vet, it became obvious that there was nothing that could be done: he was having severe difficultly breathing (it broke my heart to hear the watery rattle in his throat) and had to be put in an oxygen chamber. His temperature had dropped precipitously to 7 or 8 degrees lower than normal and they’d wrapped him in warmed towels. We had to make the awful decision to have him put to sleep; there was nothing that could be done. He died at around 9:30pm on 26 August.
What was he like? Well, let’s put it like this: he was Boss Cat, no doubt about it. He ruled the Bucknall cat household. He was a big brother to all of the cats and kittens we had then and have had since, protecting them and washing them and sleeping wrapped up with them but not taking any kind of crap from anybody. That was really obvious when we rescued Zephyrus in March this year. Zephy is, er, rambunctious, shall we say, and Eury was not about to have his domain messed up by this upstart. Many’s the morning we’d be woken up by a hissing screeching fight as Eury, the poorly 18-year-old, was asserting his power over Zephy, the lithe 2-year-old. We even had to institute the “time-out” cat carrier in the living room to try and impose some kind of peace when a fight broke out, sometimes Eury would be placed in there, sometimes Zephy. A lot of the pictures we have of Eury then include the others and indeed the lock screen on my phone is a photo of Eury, Musy, Hermes, and Percy all asleep together on the sofa.
Eury was a bit of a Mama’s boy, not as much as Ari was, but he would definitely love to sleep on her and not on me. In his early days he would treadle her hair with his delicate front paws, purring; we imagine because he was possibly weaned too early and D’s hair reminded him of his kittenhood and palpating for the milk. And what a purr he had, the loudest, and the same went for his miaow. In his later years, he would come and sleep in my office here at home while I worked. I’d even set up a heating pad underneath his wool pad so that he would be nice and toasty in the winter months. He was a resolute lover of catnip leaves, which we grew in a pot on the deck, and like Ari, he enjoyed human food: chicken, tuna, prosciutto. He loved kitchen paper rolls: if we were forgetful enough to leave one lying around where he could get at it, he would gleefully tear it to shreds. Of all our cats, he and Orphy were the most gregarious: if we had people round for dinner or a party, he’d be the first to come down and say hi to everyone. After which he’d plonk himself down somewhere and people-watch.
But there was a dark side to him: following his bladder stone and the concomitant operation, every now and then he would just pee on things. Not marking his territory as such, he’d just decide to pee on something and that was that. We soon learned not to leave anything on the floor, especially in our bedroom. The closet door was kept closed. One day, he even peed on the bedroom Roomba; into the trash it went. Let’s say I got very familiar with using our Bissell carpet cleaner. The funniest event, at least in hindsight, was only a couple of months before he died: there we were outside enjoying dinner on the deck but when we came in the whole house smelled of burning. A mild panic set in and I dashed round the house looking for something on fire. Nothing. Since all the windows were open – it was a very warm evening – I just assumed that one of our neighbors had had their grill on and something had caught and the smoke had entered the house on the breeze. Except … we’d been outside and hadn’t smelled anything. I went round the house again and found it. Eury had peed on a power strip in the bedroom, it had fused, and the sparking had burned a hole in the carpet underneath. Out came the carpet cleaner again, but this time it was time to replace the carpet completely.
Since we’ve come back from our vacation, we’ve been missing our white cat dreadfully. Since we got him and Orphy just before I bought this house and we moved in, he’s been part of our lives together as a couple, all 18 years. He’s always been here, first at the top of the stairs from the garage to welcome us when we returned from anywhere, but now he’s gone and there’s a hole that can never be filled.
Bye, Eury-cat, we love you and miss you.
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2 Responses
#1 David Guest said...
13-Sep-14 5:16 AMOne of the most touching, beautiful pieces you have ever written. After reading it, I miss Eury-cat...
#2 DG said...
15-Sep-14 12:43 PMJust went to show that you are indeed human
farewell Eury-cat
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