the final journey

Tuncer and I are moping. The house is already quieter. Minou died this morning.

It takes discipline to wait for death. Like childbirth, it happens on its own schedule. Death is the one certitude we have in life and, yet, it's the most unpredictable.

Minou stood up death twice. While waiting for death to arrive, I made and broke two appointments for euthanasia. I'd made his third date for later in the week, and wondered whether he'd make it til then.

Ultimately, I'm relieved death arrived by its own time-table; it was important to me that I not rush things and, at the same time, that I not make Minou needlessly suffer.

By Monday afternoon, we knew Minou was going to die. We made him a fire and set his bed in front. He slept there most of the evening, under a towel. Periodically, Axel would approach and tickle his face. Axel seemed to know something was up and he didn't try to lug him around the house or pet him with the spatulas. It was all so perfect and we were hopeful Minou would fall asleep for the last time in front of the fire.

But he outlasted the fire-log and stumbled into the bathroom, where he lay for the last few hours, next to the litter box that he tried to use periodically. He was too weak to stand, so I would gently lay him back down in his bed.

Poor Minou. You can't hope to look your best as you're dying. But for such a regal cat, the bathroom just seemed so wrong.

The last scene in "Dead Man," (Jim Jarmusch) has William Blake (Johnny Depp) propped up in a canoe, having been prepared by "Nobody" (Gary Farmer) for his final journey. It is a haunting image: gaunt, bullet-ridden and ravaged, Blake resembles a skeleton as he floats down river and out of frame. It is also one of the most beautiful renditions of death that I have ever seen. To float away from this world into the other has always struck me as the way to go.

It is what I would have wanted for Minou, but, lacking a small, wooden canoe and a river that flows into the sea, I made a nest in an Amazon box. I tucked Minou into one of my shirts and covered him with one of Axel's baby blankets, and placed some photos, flowers, toys and kibble next to him. I'd imagined him curled up, in a sleeping pose. But it turned out that he was posed more regally, like an egyptian cat in a fresco, which suits him. I thought about taking a photo, but rejected that idea as too morbid. In a way, though, it was beautiful.

cutting class

My former biking buddy, who is now my former running buddy who is trying to get me into mountain biking, and I were running one cold morning around Lake Chabot. This is one of my favorite runs, because even though it's a lake, it still has hills. Unlike some lakes I could mention.

As we ran, I waxed poetic for the nth time about my swim class: it's so much fun! just like gym class! I just show up and am told what to do! My effervescence prompted my buddy to comment that he'd never heard me so happy. (Of course, I beg to differ. Has he never heard me gush about Axel?) He's right, though. I love this class; it is the best thing that happened to me in 2007.

For a long, long time, I have tried to swim first thing in the mornings. It's never worked, either because I simply can't drag myself out of the warm bed to get in the cold water, or because someone emits subsonic guilt waves if I leave bed before the sun comes up. And it's not because I'm not a morning person: I am, beyond any question, a morning person. So for years I've made promises to myself and eked out promises from Mychal to help me get up early and get to the pool. In the past decade, I probably made it four times.

Which was really a pity, because swimming in the morning is like magic for me. I start the day in a fabulous mood and finish it with a not-too-crappy one. What more could I ask for?

So a series of serendipitous events brought my swim class:
1) In a huff, I dropped my Oakland Y membership after another impossible lap workout with people doing head-above-the-water breaststroke and "running" in the fast lane. (Although, in all honesty, is it really running if he's also doing karate kicks?)
2) I couldn't convince myself that I would drive thirty minutes to the Berkeley Y to play Russian roulette with their swim lane speeds.
3) I met a woman, on a group ride one Saturday, who described an incredible swim coach at a pool that just happens to be spitting distance from my house.

Now I wake up three mornings a week at 5:30 in exchange for my endorphin dose. We meet four days a week, so that the one day a week I can't get myself out of bed and into the pool, I'm in a pissy mood. Which brings me to my Chinese New Year's resolution (since I've already broken my Western New Year's resolution): no more ditching class!

the old cat

My old cat is dying. We've known this for a while, as we've watched him become increasingly thin, tired and cranky. Of course, he has always been thin, tired and cranky, so we're really just talking relative degrees here. Lately, though, Minou is skinnier than I have ever seen him, and now complains even when I pick him up, which he has never done before.

So it is time.

It was time about a month ago, the appointment set, a plan made for someone to watch Axel. We even took the last photos. Earlier that week I had watched him have what I thought was a seizure and I fell apart. It turned out he'd just fallen and couldn't get up, but I cried anyway. The day before the appointment I canceled; just not ready.

I thought I would be readier. This too is a relative thing. I've talked about his death for a couple of years now--when he turned seventeen, I thought, surely, it's around the corner. And then eighteen, now nineteen. If he makes it til August, he'll be twenty.

I wasn't even that old when I got Minou. One October evening when I was fifteen, my mother and I drove through a torrential downpour to pick him up in Culpepper. I'd found the family of cat breeders in the classified section in the newspaper--remember those days? The house was crawling with kids, kittens and grown cats, of various siamese hues. I don't remember why I chose Minou out of the bunch.

According to the papers, Minou is purebred and he's got crossed eyes to prove it. My brother noticed this right away, but it took me years to believe him.

Minou has lived in ten different homes with me. He followed me to California (drugged, on a plane). He moved to Oakland with us, wailing the entire trip from Berkeley in the front seat of our tiny Miata. And most recently, the three blocks to our home where he can bask all day on the sun-warmed bricks.

Only he doesn't. He's too tired to go out on even the sunniest of days. Instead, he curls up in his plush basket that Mychal bought him, in front of the heat vent, under my sweatshirt. It takes this much to warm him, even on these unseasonably warm days in February.

Axel is sweet on Minou; he runs his fingers through Minou's fur while he nurses, asks for him when he wakes up, and offers him cookies, milk from his sippy cup, and brings him books. He learned how to be gentle with Minou, but he also learned how to be rough. Lately, he's been picking Minou up to bring him to me, which is terribly sweet, but probably not that great for the old cat. Friends comment that Minou is so tolerant with Axel, but, really, I think he's just too tired to move.

Selfishly, I want him to sleep, because I'm pinning my hopes on death arriving while he's asleep. And perhaps death is just around the corner: he has kidney failure, it doesn't get better from here for a nineteen and a half year old cat. But I know that waiting for a gentle death is almost as futile as waiting to be ready. Even though my friends tell me that I will know when it's time, I don't think that when that moment arrives I will be any readier. Some day soon, though, I know that it will be my job to take him back to the vet. No canceling, for his sake.

nursing marathon

Somewhere between a breastpump and hypothermia this Sunday, I ran a half-marathon. I'd never run this distance before, but that didn't stop me from committing to "racing" this one. Verbally, at least.

We started the race near the Conservatory of Flowers, which at 4:30am that morning, was twenty inches under water. Simultaneous pumping at 5 am, me for Axel, city workers for the race. By the time the race started, it was almost temperate, but periodic downpours and wind kept things interesting. The race snaked through Golden Gate Park and then out and back along the Great Highway; there were thousands of people on the course (6000 for the half marathon, 3000 for the 5K). Unlike the trail runs I've raced (all two of them), the course never thinned out, and I jostled for space on the road from start to finish.

Never having raced this distance before (the closest I'd come was my first 20K this December, which was mostly a bunch of stairs and then downhill), I wasn't sure what my strategy would be. I thought to divide the course in three: maintain a moderate pace for the first 30 minutes, increase my speed at mile 4, and then again at mile 8. Only, I got bored before the first 30 minutes were up, and started to increase after mile 3, never saw mile 8, and missed mile 11 too. And finished feeling like I could run another 3 miles at that pace, which I took to mean that I'd been too cautious. But that was fortunate, really, because I was parked a mile away, and had to battle wind and rain, numb hands and feet, to get back to the Cliff House where the car was.

It seems like a bad idea to make an analogy between endurance sports and nursing, but what the hell. I never thought I'd be nursing a baby for what is going on a year and a half. Even though I knew the merits of breastfeeding, I only asked of myself to make it six months. When I made it that far, I thought I'd try to make it to the first birthday. And then things got tricky--my desires to have my body back to myself--to not pump before a race, to not be on call throughout the day, to spend an entire day by myself (alone!)--began to seriously compete with Axel's desires for nursing. It's tricky, because I know and can see the value of nursing; Axel is thriving, emotionally and physically. Although he gets most of his nutrients from food now, he gets a lot of physical and emotional security from nursing.

And yet: I dream of a race season where I'm not pregnant, not nursing, and getting a full night's sleep most of the time. (oh, the audacity of dreams)