I give you Exhibit A:

Join me on Tuesday, January 17th for free wine, brownies, and a reading from my new novel Love Saves The Day (yes, it’s about a cat! )  Info below:

RSVP here!

http://tinyurl.com/7tld297

And a paw-sitively happy New Year!  

Today Laurence and I are going up to Fort Tryon Park to scatter Scarlett’s ashes.  Those of you familiar with Manhattan geography may know it as the spot far uptown that is also home to The Cloisters.  It’s a beautiful spot–maybe the most beautiful in Manhattan, at least in my opinion–and also where we scattered Vashti’s ashes last year.  Laurence and I like the idea of them being together again, and think it’s the right place for our two beautiful girls.

Thank you again to all of those who have taken the time to reach out to us and share our grief.  I can’t begin to tell you how much strength your strength has given us.

Scarlett will live in our hearts forever, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be “done” mourning her.  But after today I will return to blogging and writing about Homer, Prudence (the “made-up” cat–based so much on Scarlett!–who is the star of my next book), and the wonderful stories I hear daily from all of you. 

This morning Laurence and I made the incredibly difficult decision to bring Scarlett to the vet and put her to sleep.  The cancer moved into her lungs over the past few days, making it very difficult for her to breathe.  I stayed with her the whole time, and she went peacefully.  She was sixteen-and-a-half years old.

I was twenty-three when I adopted Scarlett as a five-week-old kitten.  She was the first pet I adopted into my home, the first serious responsibility I took on as an adult.  I am forty now.  A lot of things–a lot of life–happens between the ages of twenty-three and forty.  She and I were together for a long, long time, and now it’s impossible for me to imagine my life without her in it.

I wrote an entire book about the lessons I’ve learned from Homer, but I learned things from Scarlett too.  Scarlett was the first cat I adopted, the first cat I ever lived with.  I was used to dogs when Scarlett became a part of my home and my life.  I didn’t know what to make at first of this tiny bundle of fur who was happy to play and “roughhouse” with me, but who initially wanted very little in the way of affection.  For the first three years of our life together, I used to joke that we were more like roommates than “mom” and “fur-kid.”  She wanted to go her own way, and I let her.  I never tried to force her to cuddle or submit to pettings when it was clear she didn’t want to.  She let me know, in her own non-demonstrative way, that insofar as she preferred anybody, she preferred me.  That was enough.  And even though I’d never before had the experience of living with such a “distant” pet, I loved her as fiercely as I’ve ever loved anyone.

I learned from Scarlett how to love someone on their own terms–how to love them for what they are, not what I’d expected or thought they should be.  I learned the importance of giving someone you love the space they need in which to be themselves.  And when, three years after I’d adopted her, Scarlett crawled into bed with me one day, purring like crazy and demanding all the cuddling she’d spent so much time rejecting, I was thrilled without questioning too much.  I figured that it had taken that long to finally earn Scarlett’s complete trust.  I also learned from Scarlett that sometimes the love and trust you have to wait for are the love and trust most worth having.

Scarlett never became a “people cat.”  She would become quite irritable if anyone other than me tried to touch her, and she remained that way until the very end, when Laurence helped me take such good care of her, and the two of them finally became friends.  But she loved me and I loved her all the way through–every single day–and, more than that, we understood each other.  There’s something to be said for having the exclusive love of a creature as fiercely independent as Scarlett was.

Scarlett was always such a dignified little lady, and it was very hard to see her struggling so much at the end.  I’m having a hard time coming to terms with her loss, but I’m grateful that she doesn’t have to struggle anymore.

Go with God, my Scarlettsita bonita.  My beautiful little Scarlett.  You will always be loved, and you will always be missed.

I always say that the greatest thing about writing Homer’s Odyssey is having gotten to meet so many of the utterly amazing humans who love animals.  Thank you–from the bottom of my heart–to all those who’ve taken the time to comment, email, send cards and letters, and generally offer their moral support.  A great deal of your practical advice and suggestions have been useful, but the most useful thing of all is knowing how many sympathetic ears I have right now.  As we all know, not everybody in your life–even people who genuinely care about you–really “get” how difficult a pet’s illness can be for you.  This is true even when you’ve written a bestselling memoir about your pets. 

To those of you who asked, we do have Scarlett in a soft cone.  Initially the vet sent her home with one of the hard plastic ones, but I swapped that out within a couple of days.  The soft cone is certainly more “livable,” although Miss Scarlett still doesn’t care for it very much.

Many thanks to all those who advised us to try medical-grade honey on Scarlett’s wound.  I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself, because I have so many freakish and random skin problems and have actually learned over the years that things like honey, table sugar, and egg yolks (not necessarily all used together) have done me a world of good where prescription treatments have failed to make a difference.  We are now salving Scarlett’s wound with MediHoney twice a day.  Nothing is going to heal it, not really, but our main goal at this point is to slow its progress and buy Scarlett as much time as we can.  I think the honey may be working, although it’s hard to tell yet.

And this is where I have to take a moment to thank my husband, Laurence, who continues to amaze me every day with the depths of his compassion and understanding.  As you know, Scarlett wasn’t exactly easy on Laurence when we all first moved in together.  She went after him with claws and hisses on a more or less constant basis for months, and even when that finally subsided (for the most part, although never completely), Scarlett never did much more than tolerate Laurence.

And yet…it’s Laurence who now runs out at all hours of the day and night to replace Scarlett’s favorite cat treats when we’ve run out.  (I’m talking 2:00am runs to the 24-hour drugstore 10 blocks away.)  He checks on her continuously throughout the day, bringing her little treats and tidbits of food so she won’t have to disturb herself to get them.  Now that Scarlett’s wound is too big for me to treat on my own, it’s Laurence who cleans and dresses it while I hold Scarlett down.  I know exactly how disturbing it is to look into that wound and clean it out.  Having her wound treated may be the worst part of Scarlett’s day, but I can’t imagine it’s exactly a highlight for Laurence either.  Yet he never complains or demurs or offers anything other than a cheerful, “Let’s do it!” when I tell him it’s time.  I notice him swallowing hard a few times when he’s in there poking around with the gauze pads, but he’s always careful to do the job thoroughly with a smile on his face–for my sake.

It goes without saying that Scarlett can sleep wherever she wants these days, and it’s Laurence as often as it is me who helps Scarlett onto the bed now that she can’t jump on her own.  When I wake up in the morning, I find the two of them sleeping comfortably side by side.  “I’ve never respected an animal this much,” Laurence told me this morning.  “She’s a tough old girl.”  Indeed she is.  It astonishes us daily just how tough a stubborn little kitty like Scarlett can be when she has a mind to.

And it’s Laurence who, every single day when I agonize over the whole situation, listens to me talk, holds me when I cry, and tells me, “Any decision you make will be the right decision.  But for right now she’s not hurting, and it makes the two of you happy to be together.  Enjoy that as long as you can.”

As those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while know, Scarlett was diagnosed with a squamous cell sarcoma on her right hip about a year ago.  Nine months ago they told me she only had about six months left.  That she’s still with us is something I’m grateful for, and not entirely surprised by–Scarlett’s always been a tough old broad, after all. 

Things have taken a steep decline in the past few weeks, however.  Scarlett’s tumor has grown so big that it’s outgrown its blood supply and has begun to die.  This sounds like it should be a good thing (the tumor is dying! hooray!), except that it’s not.  It’s really, really not.  Those of you who have been through this with your own cats know what I’m talking about.  For those of you lucky enough not to have been through this, I’ll spare you the details beyond saying that what Scarlett essentially has now is a large, infected wound that keeps growing.  I mean it literally when I say that I’ve never in my life seen anything this horrible outside of a horror movie.  The horror movie analogy is apt, actually, because that’s what it’s begun to feel like: I’m watching a monster devour my baby girl.

She doesn’t deserve this.  A ridiculous thought, I know, because these things happen and who does deserve it?   Nobody.  And yet: She doesn’t deserve this.  So why?  Why?

As the wound grows bigger, I keep wrestling with the question: Is it time?  At what point do I say that enough is enough, that I can’t let Scarlett endure this for one more day?  And yet…she eats.  She wakes me every morning with a loud demand for her breakfast.  She spends the rest of the day making equally loud demands for her favorite cat treats.  She purrs.  She cuddles.  Actually, she can’t get enough of cuddling.  Scarlett has always been affectionate with me (if no one else), but now she wants to be with me all the time.  This has begun to disconcert Homer, whose opinion has always been that my lap exists for his sole use, and no one else’s. 

Even with everything we went through with Vashti when her kidneys were failing, nothing I’ve ever had to do has been harder than the three times a day when I have to look directly into this wound so I can clean it out with gauze pads and a hexadene flush.  We’ve gone through several different antibiotics, none of which have made any difference.  Anti-inflammatories have also done nothing.

Every time I clean out the wound, I cry afterward.  I think to myself, How can she stand this?  How can she not be in agony? But she doesn’t act like a cat in agony.  She acts like…herself.  Then I tell myself that as long as she can stand it, I can stand it too.  The only thing that really seems to bother her is the cone we now make her wear so she can’t chew at the wound.  From time to time she levels a look at me that seems to say, You know how dignified I’ve always been.  How can you subject me to this kind of indignity?!!? Scarlett is so good at conveying indignation that, occasionally, she cons me into taking the cone off her for a few minutes.

Thank god for Laurence (who, believe it or not, Scarlett has FINALLY made friends with!), and thank god for Homer.  Watching him scamper around after catnip toys and his squeaky mouse–just like he always has–is a big part of what’s keeping me sane.  Or, at least, as close to sane as I’ve ever been! 

Laurence and I are leaving for Paris tonight to celebrate my 40th birthday.  I think Homer wants to come too!

Au revoir!

MINE!!!!!