When we talk about putting a pet down it is a nice way of saying we are going to kill someone we know and love.

A beloved pet is going to be killed, in the nicest way possible. Drugs to put him in a deep unconscious relaxation and then an injection that stops his heart.

Put to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream?

I always weep, even when the cat is skeletal sick and truly has no life left in her. I cry when the cat is almost in agreement with death. She is in pain, her heart hurts. She can’t lift her head. I still weep at the good bye. And my part in it.

But now I have made plans to put my old Isaac cat to sleep when his head is still in the game. He has appetite, he can purr and show love.

He had some sort of clot or stroke that has left him paralyzed and he crawls from his beds of blankets to the water bowl and then to what would be a cat box but is now a plastic sheet with towels laid on top.

He crawls with his strong front legs, his strong claws, along the floor. He knows he has to go pee, and he will try to make it to the towel. But he doesn’t always make it.

He is always thirsty, his eyes are clouding. The vet offered many expensive tests so that we could diagnose and treat this increasing paralysis. But we do not have endless money for investigations and he hates vets and hospitals.

The last blood test we did told me exactly nothing. All I found out, 200 dollars later, was that he was healthy but paralyzed. A muscle biopsy for Isaac was not in our future.

I have carried him to my bed, I have helped him outside, I have bathed him many times and I have fed him all his favorite treats. For many weeks I have been tending his slow decline.

I lie down on the floor by his bed every night and kiss him and cuddle him. The smell of urine is so deeply entrenched in my nose that I cannot even tell anymore if I am imagining it or it if is everywhere.

Our house stinks. I wash the floors with Mr. Clean repeatedly. I wash towels constantly. I bathe the poor boy, who I now call Stinky. I kiss him on his head.

I tell him this is no fair, I tell him he did not deserve this. I tell him how strong he is and how stoic.

He never complains, I see no self pity. He just wants to live, lie by the fire, eat food and make it to the towel to pee.

He would love to go outside and walk around the garden, He would love to make it to summer so that he could lie in the grass and wait for the rustle of a mouse or mole.

He would love to be able to jump to the window, or my bed. He would love to wake me in the morning and ask for breakfast.

He would love to purr and kneed on my bathrobe, the favorite one, and accidentally poke me with his long claws and then I would take his paw in my fingers and squeeze it in warning.

Don’t hurt me, even by accident, just because you love me so much.

But now my big old boy, you are getting small and bony. And I have not seen your eyes look happy in some time. Where is the warm yellow blink, the crescent eye of a happy cat, the mouth turned up in a smile.

You did smile last week when we set you fresh and bathed on a blanket on the couch by the fire. You forgot your paralysis for a while and felt like a cat.

But mostly your eyes are staring, round, and fearful. And they only warm and blink if I lie right beside you.

I know you see me as your mama, as so many of you cats do, the ones I took on as babies. And I know you want me to look after you. You trust me. That makes it so much harder.

Am I killing you for my own convenience? I don’t want to. I must believe, I must believe, deep in my heart, that I am saving you from the slow continued decline.

The hardest love is this love, the love of letting you go. Let me believe that it is a better place you go to.

I will bundle you up and take you to the vet, And I will pretend we are going just for a check up. For my sake and yours.

And you, the big guy, will be scared. Maybe I will give you a pain killer for the trip. If it helps, I will do it.

And I will cuddle you and hold your white paw, and you will carefully clutch my hand, with the long needles of your claws just lightly pricking my skin. Because you are sweet, and you know not to scratch me.

And I will weep tears down on your silky head, black cap and mask, white nose a bit pink with the cold of the car ride. Your ears will twitch with my falling tears. Sadly I know how this goes.

I don’t cry at first. At first they shave your leg and put a needle in place. Then they leave me to say good bye to you. They turn down the lights, the sweethearts. I just cry. I cry a lot.

With the first drug the tip of your tongue might lie between your teeth, your purring will stop. You are practically dead then. You are deeply drugged but don’t know what is happening in your mind. I hope you are not scared.

Tears flow out of me, a river of tears, as your body goes quiet.

And then the vet comes back in and injects the poison into the intravenous and you are dead. She holds her hand on your heart and says, he is gone.

And I am now holding a dead body. A dead body that I decided would die. It is a terrible responsibility.

I am hoping that I will do right by you. That I am doing the best thing for you. But this time it will be hardest of all.

Dreams and spirits, maybe there is a heaven, let there be a heaven where you can move freely, hunt and leap. Where your spirit will be free. Let there be a heaven.