Family: Tooki
Several weeks ago, we put down our nearly 21 year old grey tabby, Tooki. It was utterly wrenching. I am crying just typing these words. Tooki was the best kitty in the world and had the best possible life. In her dotage, she remained beautiful with a lustrous coat; despite being quite thin and having a somewhat arthritic gait, she seemed far younger than her years. The silence in the house without Tooki is deafening.
Tooki and our sons grew up together. Eli remembers her arrival, but Zev can’t recall life without her. On the eve before Tooki’s death Zev joked that she lived such a long life, but not quite long enough to see him and Eli become completely financially independent.
Tooki arrived on our back patio one January evening two decades ago. A lithe kitten, she waltzed about and meowed plaintively to come inside. She was beguiling, but my husband Jim warned me she would not find her way back home if I opened the door. Unusually for our area, the temperature was due to drop below freezing and I worried she would not survive the cold. Our boys, ages two and four, were eager to welcome her in. Once our dinner/bedtime/story/song routine was over, and it became ever colder, I relented. She pranced into the kitchen and happily accepted some water and food. She politely investigated the house. I put our previous cat’s litterbox back into service. She was terribly respectful, and litterbox trained. The timing of her arrival was perfect. Only a month prior we had put down our beloved 10 year old orange rescue tabby, Pooty, and were mourning the loss.
I was convinced we would find Tooki’s family. For days I called animal shelters, vets, and rescue organizations. We posted signs around the neighborhood. After a week’s non-response, we took her to the vet to get her fixed and vaccinated. The vet estimated her age at eight months and explained she had likely come into her first heat and roamed too far to find her way home. Although I felt bad for her mother and human family, we were thrilled to have been adopted and named her Tooki. Over time, Tooki’s nicknames grew: Tooklet, Tooks, Pooki, Pooplet. Toward the end I called her Booboo.
Unlike our previous cat, Tooki never roamed further than the top of the garden and ran from other cats. She went missing only once. We discovered her after a day in Zev’s clothes drawer sleeping contentedly; she’d climbed in when it was open and made herself comfortable.
Tooki was much less costly and challenging than Pooty. Although loving toward us, Pooty asserted his machismo with other cats and even raccoons; I’d often see tufts of cat fur (never his until his final months) from a battle he had waged in the garden. We made monthly vet visits to treat yet another abscess. Pooty’s territory was large. He crossed the street to catch rodents in the neighbor’s ivy and rambled several houses away to eat the cat food left outside. He was an avid hunter, providing abundant offerings of dead rodents (ranging from intact to grisly) and live ones; the lizards and snakes he caught always escaped under the refrigerator. We could walk him around the block unleashed, and when we set off on long outings he would follow us until we scooped him up and put him back in the house.
In contrast to Pooty, Tooki wasn’t much of a hunter. She sometimes caught a bird, but I trained her to leave them alone. Tooki still observed the birds with the hyper-alert head and eye movements and emitted a staccato “eh eh eh eh eh.” The one wild creature she adored was skunks. At night when a skunk hoovered up fallen birdseed on the back patio, Tooki would exit quietly through her cat door and sit on the patio table, gazing at the skunk with what I imagined was rapturous ardor. Once I watched with trepidation as a skunk headed up the patio stairs while Tooki descended, but the skunk paid her no mind. Any vestiges of skunk spray were irresistible — she’d rub herself in the scent.
Humans were Tooki’s speed. She loved them all. Every cat sitter fell for her, and she converted many a non-cat person. She was especially keyed into my well-being. When I was ill enough to take to bed she would park next to me, curled up close and purring, only leaving my side for sustenance or bathroom breaks. When I cried, she came running, calling to me, and nestled against me. Sometimes when I laughed so hard I cried, she confused it for sorrow or pain, and it would take time to reassure her. When we took a longer than usual summer vacation, despite her adoration of our long-time cat sitter, Tooki boycotted all her normal activities for three days and took up residence in the comforter on my bed. It reminded me of my boys who, as babies, were pacified by fabric carrying my smell.
Tooki was tremendously social. She accompanied me as I worked in the garden, moving as I did and occasionally meowing for grass as she became lazier about finding her own. When I got up at night to pee, she sauntered into the bathroom for a pet. Although she would have happily slept in bed with any of us, it was not terribly restful to have her weighing down an arm or leg, wedged into one’s side, or up and down for a drink or food. Still, I indulged her from time to time. The older she got, the more verbal she became, developing more varied sounds, and replying to us when we addressed her. She almost always came when called, unless she was far up in the garden, but even there when we deployed a squeaky bird whistle she came running.
All pets have entertaining and inexplicable habits as well as less delightful tendencies. Tooki was no exception. Her annoying activities were few and infrequent: she scratched the back of one upholstered chair, chewed the wooden nose and tail of a side table painted like a tiger (how fitting!), and occasionally jumped up against the side of a glass exhibit case. When the boys were little, she’d hide in waiting until they walked through the kitchen door and jumped up to grab their lower legs. They squealed and protested. As Eli grew, she reserved her pounces for Zev. Once he grew, she stopped. Though she didn’t often jump up on tables (and never onto countertops), butter was irresistible. If you weren’t paying attention, she would lick unattended butter in a flash.
Some of her more amusing and puzzling traits included lapping the water off the inside of the bathtub; love of egg cartons which she kneaded and then sat or sometimes slept in; a penchant for any kind of cardboard; a taste for corn; an unstoppable desire to eat rubber bands; a favorite ball covered in fur she took into the garden, yowled at as if she’d caught an animal, groomed, and brought back inside; and endless entertainment springing up against the kitchen doorframe to catch the plastic tabs from juice or milk container caps. She initiated drinking by shaking her paw as if checking the level of a watering hole.
Any angular surface was a welcome spot for rubbing the side of her jaw, especially packing boxes. She particularly enjoyed the edge of a plastic soap dish I put on the bathroom floor between my swims, and fondly licked one soap containing Dead Sea mud. All of us delighted in fashioning new toys and games for her, poking holes in shipping boxes and threading things through, running to and fro with toy mice tied to ribbon, and trailing lengths of leather cord for her to chase. Once I closed our bedroom door for the night, she would often extend her paws through the gap underneath, as if fishing. I advanced and retracted bits of fabric under the door for her to grab. She was lightning fast, and I had to be careful to avoid getting snagged by a claw.
Like all felines, Tooki was a sun worshipper, locating the perfect indoor and outdoor spots, settling in, adjusting herself from time to time to move a portion of her body to seek heat or shade. I recently spied the perfect sun-drenched circle on the ironing board and knew she would have been there, bathing in the winter warmth. And, like others of her species, she embodied “Hygge,” Danish for “creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life.” Soon after she arrived, Tooki jumped into Zev’s crib, and they snuggled happily together.
We estimated fifteen special spots in the house where she took up serial residence. We set up pillows and boxes lined with warm socks, and a sleeping bag she burrowed into when it was especially cold, a favorite blanket for lap swaddling, the boys’ miniature foam armchair, and more. There were the porches too. When she was especially contented, she gave a double purr, one higher and one lower, like the multi-phonic chanting of Tibetan monks.
Although Tooki’s last few years brought cataracts, arthritis, hearing loss, and kidneys that required prescription food and plenty of drinking water, she remained quite healthy for her age, contented, and charming. She just played less and slept more. Her memory ebbed. She would request going outside to the upstairs porch for the umpteenth time, or expect her morning milk treat again, or want another swaddle on the couch, and I patiently repeated our routines. For a few months, she yowled woefully in the wee hours of the night and morning. When I could rouse myself from bed, I would find her staring into space or walking around, seeming confused.
Then, nearly a year before her death, there was a calamity that primed us for her demise. Jim was in Ireland for work and our young adult sons were no longer living at home. During one of Tooki’s descents from my lap on the couch to footstool, to floor, her hind legs splayed out and she collapsed, unable to stand or walk. Cats are such natural athletes that I had only ever witnessed instant righting from a fall or a missed jump. But this time, she could not mobilize. She did not complain, just kept trying. Over the next five days I barely slept tending to her sudden invalid status. I had to carry Tooki from pillows to my bed, hand feed her and help her drink, let her pee wherever and whenever she could.
I took Tooki to our kind vet who diagnosed a possible clot and seizure from which she might not recover. The vet suggested if Tooki could no longer be a cat (walking, eating, and using the litterbox on her own) it was not a good life to continue. She recommended allowing three days for improvement. I called and texted with the family; I investigated home euthanasia (sobbing while I spoke to the empathic staff person describing the process). I scrutinized Tooki’s every move and wrestled over making such a final decision. There were tiny glimmers, so I waited a few more days. Almost miraculously, by day five Tooki began regaining a modicum of strength in her hindlegs. I fashioned a new low litterbox out of nursery plant trays and plastic liners and moved it upstairs. I elevated her food dishes, so she didn’t have to bend over as much and bought a water fountain that required ingenious familiarization and enticement. Over several weeks Tooki managed to jump again, albeit at lowered heights and with a slightly wonky gait. She was stiffer and did not venture quite as far in the garden, she napped more, but she had clearly bounced back from one of her many cats’ lives.
Nine months after her impressive recovery, Tooki’s decline accelerated. Her world became increasingly circumscribed and challenging. She couldn’t jump any longer, even onto the lowered spots I engineered. Her hind legs had so little power that I had to put down non-skid matting and small towels to keep her from skating on the wood floor in front of her water fountain and food. She couldn’t descend to the stool from the couch without losing her grip, so I arranged soft pillows as landing pads. She no longer visited the garden to explore sunny spots or nap on the redwood stairs that perfectly matched her grey coat. And she was not always awake for her morning brushing from Jim. Bathroom accidents became routine. She threw up more often. As her vitality ebbed I sometimes had to check if she was still breathing. We loved her no less; it was just exquisitely poignant and more work. Her ninth life was clearly coming to an end.
As her locomotion became increasingly arduous, I bought her a heated nest. She adored it, and spent most of her time there, napping or (with failing proprioception) grooming the fluffy blue material. She still suffused our lives with affection. Peering over the nest’s edge, Tooki would greet us volubly as we passed. Often she awoke from sleep when I came near and meowed at me. When we came in the house she still tried to herald our arrival from the top of the stairs. Every morning, she sat patiently in the bathroom while I brushed my teeth and cleaned her litterbox, then followed me into the kitchen. No longer able to jump, she waited for me to lift her onto my kitchen chair for a dollop of milk from my palm and a spot of wet food. If I my delivery lagged, she would shift from paw to paw and yowl. On a nice afternoon, Tooki still ventured out on the porch, cautiously ascending the stepped pillows I had constructed, to sunbathe and nap. Every evening, I swaddled her in a blanket, creating a delicious warm spot on my lap. Until the end, she was endlessly generous in her affection, talking and purring, and rubbing up against us.
The final downturn to Tooki’s health came without warning. She suddenly developed extreme bad breath; a visit to the vet revealed a mouth ulcer and recent extensive periodontal disease. We couldn’t justify putting her through tests that would not alter the outcome and she was too old and frail to withstand poking, prodding, or intervention. We agreed to a shot of antibiotics to resolve the ulcer.
We discussed euthanasia with her vet. I agonized over the right timing… how could I be certain? The power to take her life was daunting and overwhelming. But after a few days, as her health slipped further, it was clear. Her bodily functions were no longer behaving. She was hardly leaving the nest. We scheduled her euthanasia. The day before, with a welcome sunny respite from the rain, she had a last long luxurious nap on the porch. We had a Facetime with Tooki and our sons so they could talk to her and have us pet and massage her just so. They showed us photos of her on their phones over her long life, including the crib visit with Zev. We cried and laughed together. I held her on my lap that night one last time, then placed her gently in her nest.
At her final visit to the vet, the injected sedative slowed her breathing, widened her black pupils, and took her partly away. I stroked and kissed her, and she heaved a big sigh. It reminded me of my mother dying in the hospital and my father in hospice, when morphine relieved their pain but altered their essence. Once the vet gave Tooki her final injection, her beautiful yellow eyes remained open, her body soft and warm, but she was transformed, and I grieved at the immediacy of her vanishing. It was the same when my mother died and when my father, near death, was only a whisper. It is a sleight of hand I couldn’t fathom then and still cannot, where even the smallest creatures are so profoundly and instantly altered. In the absence of breath, movement, sound, and smell they become unrecognizable. When birds die in the garden, even when I can hold them in my hand, they are often difficult to identify. Afterwards, I had trouble composing a mental image of Tooki and replayed her final moments repeatedly, in the same way I had with my parents’ deaths. I look at photos, but they hardly conjure up the being.
Shortly after Tooki died, I began cleaning up and putting away all her belongings. Seeing her nest or pillows or fountain just made me ache inside. I donated items and saved some for a future kitty. We have a small amount of her fur, downy as a rabbit. But I am taken aback at how quickly reminders of her disappear: almost no strands of cat fur, no shed nails, no scattered kibble morsels, no litter crumbs. It rattles me. I confuse some of my own hairs for hers. We aged together… her bold stripes fading as my dark brown hair greyed. I still look to the spot where her nest was, note the sunny spots where she would have put up shop, go through my morning routine fully expecting her greetings, hear her nails clicking on the wood floor.
I recently brought Tooki’s ashes home in a wonderfully aromatic cedar box. I told Jim we should equip it with a random meow; he said we should put the box at the top of the stairs so she could greet us when we come home.
