Linus has been gone one week now. I’ll tell you how I decided to let him go –

I’d never given much thought to how he’d die. I figured they’d leave me in a few years, around 18. This was the number I had in my head. I told myself that I’d live here, in Asheville, until they passed because I didn’t want to put them through yet another move. Once they were gone, I’d move to Dingle or Porto or Bainbridge Island. I still might, who knows.

After spending the weekend in the hospital, on Monday afternoon he was well enough to come home. The specialist gave me antibiotics, we scheduled a follow-up, and I was to monitor him. As we waited for his discharge paperwork, he headbutted me, purred, licked my forehead. I suspect now it was the gabapentin working because as soon we got home and I opened the carrier, he went right back to hiding under the bed. But unlike a few days before, he didn’t come out for treats, he didn’t come when I called, he wouldn’t crawl to my hand for neck scritches. I watched him obsessively and barely slept, calling him throughout the night hoping desperately he’d crawl into the nook in my neck.

Before I went to bed I took a picture of his food bowl to see if he’d eaten any in the morning. When I woke, he was still under the bed but a few minutes later got to the litterbox and had diarrhea, couldn’t make it all the way so it sort of dribbled outside and on him. I called the vet right away. It was an enormous feat to get him out from under the bed (think lifting the mattress above me); I put him in his carrier and took him back to the hospital, knowing there’d be a long wait.

On the way there he threw up and it had some blood in it. He couldn’t hold his bowels and urinated in the carrier, things he’d never done before – not even when we flew, all the hours we’ve driven, never. If you’ve ever met Linus you know how soft he was, how good he smelled so for him to be sitting in his own diarrhea was heartbreaking to witness. At some point, they came to get him and cleaned him up a bit. I chatted with the tech then continued to wait with him. I pet him and told him how much I love him. Finally, we went to a room where we met with the ER vet.

Since November of last year Linus had been dealing with a number of issues. He got some meds, changed foods, started atopica and seemed to be doing well. Then in March I noticed dramatic weight loss and he was slammed with a litany of issues – pancreatitis, kidney infection, liquid in the abdomen, mass on his kidney, heart disease, and more.

Since then we’d done every diagnostic test possible short of a biopsy on the nodule on his liver. At 14 and with heart disease, I wasn’t going to open him up for that. To find what? That it’s cancer and then? Remove it, chemo? Remove a kidney and hope the other would sustain him? Hoping he wouldn’t go into kidney failure. He’d never even been under anesthesia. And following a major surgery he’d be miserable during recovery and being medicated. I couldn’t do that to him.

I could have left him there with an IV and see how he progressed, maybe he’d improve. They could have inserted a feeding tube, maybe he’d improve. Maybe, maybe, maybe. There were no definitive solutions because there was no obvious reason for what was causing him to be so unwell. There was nothing to keep him alive that wouldn’t have been selfish of me to do.

Because I know Linus. I know how unhappy and scared he’d been going back and forth to the vet, how he’d cower from me and hide. How long it took him to bounce back from each visit. How much he hated taking meds.

When I presented the option of euthanasia, she said it’s something we could consider but she wanted to check with his specialist first. I waited and waited, trying to understand the weight of what I’d decided, something I hadn’t seriously considered until that morning. All our family pets passed at home, I’ve never had to make the decision.

I had the okituary ready because from deciding to let him go to last breath it was a couple of hours. Writing it gave me something to do while I waited for them to bring him back to me. It was a small room, the same one I’d visited him a few days before.

They were so gentle with him. He was wrapped up and I held him like a baby. I kissed between his eyes and top of his head. I kissed his little black toe beans. I stroked his whiskers and gave him a good chin rub. When it was time, the doctor came back and explained what would happen. I looked in his eyes the entire time, he was gone quickly. A little breath welcomed a long sleep.

I held him a bit longer and cried. On a random Tuesday in July I said goodbye to my soul cat. I know I did the right thing by him but never thought I’d have to make it so soon and so suddenly.

I miss him terribly.