Lessons in Aging

One thing that having pets [not parrots in this case, who can outlive us, and presumably not elephants if you have a pet pachyderm] is that they force you to confront mortality when they approach the end.  My oldest cat is Malkah.  She was a rescued feral kitten I tamed – took about a month and a half and endless patience. We have lived together for almost eighteen years and I hope we share more, at least more months.  I thought she was dying last year, but she rallied, and I can still hope will do so again.  She’s an apricot and white cameo tabby with medium longish fur and a very sweet face.  I had originally named her Tamar, date tree, but after she would not come out from hiding under the bed for a week, I changed her name to Malkah, queen, and she began slowly to emerge.

Since she began to be a companion animal and not a wild creature, she has always been very affectionate with me and with Ira.  She remains wary of strangers, although with a good memory for those she has learned to trust.  Always a bit afraid of men.  More apt to let herself trust women.  She remembers my friend Elise, even though these days she visits generally only for three or four days once a year.Another set of lessons an aging companion animal teaches you is about how and how not to grow old.  All but one of my previous cats have grown more affectionate, almost clingy, as age began to weaken them.  Malkah has grown more private.  She had raised another rescue, Efi, who had lost her mother very young and was sick.  Malkah helped me nurse her back to health and became her mother.  Until this spring, they were inseparable – ate together, slept together, groomed each other.  Then Malkah withdrew from Efi, who has now become more social with us and the other cats.  Malkah no longer relates to any of the other five cats, although Xena and Sugar Ray have both tried with her.  Xena, the youngest and another rescue, is gregarious and friendly and wants to chum around with all the others.  Sugar Ray is a pacifist and a gentleman and has always been courtly with Malkah.  Malkah ignores them.  She hides a great deal.I learn that withdrawing when you age is a really bad idea.  You get less stimulation, less support, less affection.  It’s best not to give way to your pain or weakness, but to make the effort to relate, even to make new relationships if they are available to you.  If you hide, you do not get the help you may need.  In Malkah’s case, she sometimes missing her regular twice a day medication because I can’t find her.I know she is in pain because although she has always been a silent cat, she moans a great deal now and often howls at night.  I get up and bring her to bed with the others. She headbutts me a couple of times, purrs briefly and then wanders around the bed moaning and seemingly confused.  She leaves then.  I have had a cat before with cognitive dysfunction – cat Alzheimer’s – but she also has lucid times when she seems to observe what’s around her with comprehension and respond accordingly. She has increasing trouble climbing the stairs.This week she’s going into the vet to see if there is some additional medication that can help her.  She’s on three now.  I am hoping maybe one can be replaced with something stronger.  I don’t know if she will accept a fourth dose of something.  We have our struggles already with three.  She’s not eating much and has lost a great deal of weight.  Her face is still the sweet Malkah but her body is gaunt.  I wash her as she no longer grooms or cleans herself and won’t let Efi take over, which she would if allowed to.  She has repeatedly tried.She has been my dear friend for almost two decades, slept pressed to my side until the last six or seven months, purred me to sleep.  Sometimes when I looked at her and our eyes met, she would purr loudly. She had a purr you could hear in the next room.  No more. I don’t know how much longer we’ll have together, but already we are less together than we always were.  She is still giving me valuable lessons and how I should and should not grow old.