2021
i saw you this morning
maura @ 12:47 pm
This was a hard week, in large part because yesterday we had to say goodbye to one of our sweet 13.5 year old cats. Gummy had been diagnosed with diabetes last summer, just one small ingredient in the general garbagefire stew that was 2020. We’d gamely learned how to do the twice-daily insulin injections and for a while he seemed fine. The needles are small enough that he didn’t mind the shots much, and we fell into a rhythm with it all, even finding a cat sitter with injection experience for the times we had to travel. But a few weeks ago he started declining, and by yesterday we knew it was time. The vet was very considerate and compassionate, but wow it’s still hard.
Gummy was always the more prickly and grumpy of our two littermate cats, and admittedly later in life he was sort of an asshole. He didn’t really like anyone other than my spouse and me, though he’d kind of grudgingly accept pets from the kid. But even the kid got on his nerves recently, apparently, since he peed on the kid’s bed once over the summer. (At 11pm on a weeknight, sigh.)
But Gummy was such a sweetie to us. He didn’t like to sit on laps or be held, but he was very into chin scritches and pets, preferring us to sit on the floor next to him while he walked around us. He’d come sit next to me on the floor while I meditated, and if you were sitting in a chair or on the sofa he’d reach up and touch you with a gentle paw if he wanted you to come down to the floor to give him pets. He was kind of a dog cat — he always ran to the door when I came home from work, just to check in and say hi. He also liked climbing up onto places he shouldn’t be (see my desk above), and drinking water sneakily from our water glasses (eww).
It’s a weird vibe now, with just one cat. Gummy and Caramel weren’t really close later in life, as they got older they mostly stayed away from each other with only the occasional grooming or tussling. But it’s sad to suddenly only have one cat instead of two. RIP Gummy, our kind of a jerk but also so sweet and loyal kittie, I miss you.
