Correction - letting go is the hardest part

So, this post isn't about Baby Fox. It is about one of the other Foxes Three - the Foxes' three wonderful animals. Those of you who know me know how much I love animals. I think they are a lot like little children -- true innocents who don't know spite and vengeance and hate and all the worst things in people. I've been a vegetarian for eighteen years because I think those animal lives have inherent value and aren't here for my consumption (since I am privileged enough to live in a society where that is not essential to my survival and one life must be chosen over another). Those of you who really know me also know how much I love a petite tabby cat named Kerouac, after my favorite writer.

I adopted Kerouac during a very tough time in my life. I really needed to pour all my love and care into something and feel responsible for it to keep me grounded and focused on life. If I had something relying on me, I could hold everything together. So when my good friend Page emailed me on September 17, 1999 and said that four kittens had just been born in her backyard, I knew I needed one. When I met the kittens six weeks later, I knew I wanted the runt of the litter who was a male tabby. I have a soft spot for tabbies from my childhood cat Nermal, and I prefer boy animals because I think they are more loving. I named him Kerouac. My other dear friends the Gobbles were adopting the two girls from the litter, and since I didn't want to leave one kitten alone, I took Kerouac's brother also and named him Owen after the book I was reading at the time -- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (it's a great book -- you should really check it out if you haven't).

So I took Owen and Kerouac to my college apartment in Knoxville, and I loved the heck out of them. It wasn't hard to do because they were such great boys. They romped and played together constantly. If I was standing, they would climb up my jeans with their tiny claws to my hands for me to pet them or climb into my lap if I was sitting. After college, they moved with me to Nashville for law school. It was a better apartment with a Juliet balcony, and they spent lots of time looking at birds. They also spent lots of time sitting on pages of books wondering why I was highlighting cases instead of giving them my undivided attention. When we moved to Atlanta, the cats hit the jackpot. We lived in a small condo for two years, but then moved into a much larger house with fun things like stairs! The cats loved to jump off them and quickly took over the entire house, though they spent most of their time in our bedroom on our bed.

I love both cats, but Kerouac was always especially dear to me. He was shy around new people and clung to me a lot more than Owen. He was also incredibly smart. When I petted him and stopped, he would reach out and touch my hand as I drew it away to get me to continue. This evolved into him walking up to me when I laid in bed every night and taking his paw and tapping my hand twice (why twice, I don't know) to get me to pet him. Of course, it worked every time. How could I resist? He could get me to pet him for a good 30 minutes by continuing to tap my hand every time I stopped. What happened if I hid my hands under the covers? He would take his paw and tap my mouth twice. I have no idea where he learned this, but it is a great example of what a sweet, gentle soul he was. If there are angels among us, I spent 11 years with one. He was also the softest creatures I have ever known. His fur was softer than a rabbit. He always slept beside me and would often hold my hand with his paw. Once I got pregnant, he always slept with some part of him draped over my stomach, usually an arm, sometimes his whole body. I was really excited about the baby getting to meet him and taking pictures of the two of them together. He would have been an amazing big brother.

Kerouac started acting a little different on Friday. He wasn't as personable as usual -- he really just slept. I didn't think a lot about it because he didn't seem upset. On Saturday, when I got out of bed and went into the bathroom to get ready, he didn't eat like he usually does (both our cats like for you to watch them eat for some reason). He spent a lot of the day laying under the coffee table, which was unusual, and he hadn't slept in bed with us. We got a can of tuna from the grocery store because it's his favorite, and he wouldn't touch it. He also wasn't purring. On Sunday, he wouldn't eat again and spent a lot of time under the coffee table. I picked him up and brought him to the bed to watch tv with me. He was pretty listless until he climbed on my stomach and wrapped a paw around my belly while watching the Golden Globes (as seen to the left, in the last photo we took of him). I thought this was a good sign, but had decided to take him to the vet on Monday. Then, as soon as the Globes were over, he got off the bed, walked into our shower, laid down and started panting. At this point, we took him to the emergency vet.

The vet said his red blood cell count was dangerously low and he was dehydrated. She ran lots of tests and started him on fluids and antibiotics. His red blood cell count didn't go down the next morning, which was a hopeful sign. We visited him at the vet, and he started purring when we petted him, and he wrapped his arms around Fox's arm and rested his head there. We stayed with him for about an hour. It was a great visit, and we felt like he was on the mend. I am so thankful for that time we had where he seemed like his old self. We did get test results back that evening (last night) that told us that his anemia was nonregenerative, which meant that his body was not making more red blood cells. This was causing him to be listless and not interested in food. Last night, we authorized a blood transfusion to get his red blood cell count up. It worked! We woke up this morning to news that his numbers were good, and we could take him home at noon. It wasn't a cure, but it should give him more time and make him comfortable.

Unfortunately, we got a call about 10:30 saying that he was having a lot of trouble breathing and had to be put in an oxygen tent. At 1:30, the vet called and told us if we wanted to spend time with him before he passed, we needed to get there as soon as possible. The vet had taken some x-rays, and it appeared he had cancer in his lungs, and they were filling with fluid. We went to him, and it was bad. He couldn't breathe and was crying. The vet said he had a few hours left, and he was clearly struggling. We spent about 20 minutes trying to comfort him, saw the pain he was in, and asked for the vet to put him down.

I have never had an animal put down before. It was so fast. One minute he was panting and hurt, the next he was calm, then we felt his heart and breathing stop. He was still so warm and soft -- it was really hard for me to realize that he was gone. It was almost like we had cured him. He felt so alive still and wasn't suffering. I held him and felt his weight -- that same weight that I felt curled up against me so often and had long been such a source of comfort for me. His eyes were open and peaceful and looked at me just the same as they had when I would tell him my secrets and how much I loved him. When we put him in the cardboard casket, he was in the same curled up position he often slept in, and he looked so beautiful. All of this made it so much harder to accept that he's gone. I'm still not sure I have.

Fox buried him in the backyard in the shade of our tall cypress trees. I want to try to find something positive out of something so devastating. That one thing is how wonderful Fox has been through the whole thing. He is so sad but also so supportive of my grief. I love him more than ever. Which is good because an hour and a half after Kerouac passed away, I went in for a doctor appointment. The midwife is concerned about the level of amniotic fluid around the baby and is admitting me to the hospital in the morning to see if we can get labor going. It's hard to imagine going from such grief to delivering a baby with little time in between. I need to get my act together because I don't want Baby Fox born with inherited sadness. I know having Fox with me through this will make it all okay.

So I leave you with a quote from my sweet kitty's namesake:

"I wish I was free// Of that slaving meat wheel // And safe in heaven, dead."

I know you are safe now, sweet boy, and I hope to see you again some day.

Kerouac Moore Fox (September 17, 1999 - January 18, 2011)