Not ready

Here it is, 2am in the morning, and I have cold sweats and shakes, yet I’m fairly certain I’m not sick. Last night I noticed that Chunk, our cat, hasn’t eaten for a couple days… maybe more. He’ll eat tuna, but not dry food. And, it is obvious things aren’t right with him – he’s skinny and not quite himself. We, unfortunately, are used to these signs.

Chunk is our oldest pet… we got him about the same time we got Rosa, from the humane society in Roseville, MN. We went there and had picked out one cat to adopt when Amanda spied some kittens and picked out this gray and white one. She couldn’t put it down and we decided he had to come home with us, also.

His name was originally Theo. But, as he grew, he quickly filled out, realy filled out, and we often remarked on his “chunkiness.” Well, that seemed to stick and he became Chunky or Chunk for eternity.

About 8 or so years ago we learned, through a blood test, that he had kidney issues… maybe he’d start having kidney failure or maybe he just has small, grape-size kidneys. I always thought he’d be the first to go. But, over the last several months we’ve had to say goodbye to his buddies Rosa and Cody… he’s stayed strong… until now, it seems.

When he was young Amanda would often come to bed after a shower with wet hair. He loved that and would paw at it and try and bite it. Over time, though, sleeping on her head was his favorite spot. She would talk about how he was “out of control” last night with taking over her pillow. But, she couldn’t resist his soft paws on her neck.

Once, in one of our road trips up the highway, he got his bell rung pretty good. We were driving the big old Ford fullsize van up. We had stopped at Liard hot springs for a dip. Amanda had the side doors open and, as she was finishing up, slammed it shut. It would have closed nicely, except Chunk’s head was in the way. She shreeked (I mean, she had slammed it). Chunk fell over, his eyes floating in his head. I picked him up expecting to see brain matter falling out; but, his head was intact. I put him back down where he wobbled a bit and then fell over again. We held him for a while – he looked really dizzy – until he got his bearings. He turned out to be just fine, but always seemed a little sweeter to us after that incident.

I woke up tonight and pet Chunk. It was clear his energy level is down and immediately I knew I wasn’t going right back to sleep. I am not ready for another pet to die, not yet. I’m not sure I ever would be, it just seems to be happening on too regular an occurence these past 10 months.