Matisse

Matisse, the cat, was born in a Mexican pot in the front yard. He lived his life in the back yard, sleeping in the studio with his brother, Magritte. When they were young, the stripes on their heads very clearly resembled the letter ‘M’, thus the names.

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Matisse is on the right, snuggling with his brother, Magritte on a rainy day.

A year ago we discovered Matisse had cancer on his back leg. We discussed options with the vet, none of which were cheap. She told us that we could treat him, but it would involve surgery and even then it would depend on which direction the cancer was growing. If it was growing toward the body, then she’d have to refer him to a specialist, which would cost even more. After some deliberation I asked if removing the leg would effectively remove the cancer. She thought for a second and said yes, it would. So, I suggested that she operate, and if it were growing toward the body, then she could remove the leg. She agreed that this would be a good plan.

A couple of days later we brought home a tripod. The cancer was growing toward the body, but she said that removing the leg did remove the cancer, that it hadn’t spread beyond that point. Our instructions were to give him medication if he was in pain and to make sure that he practiced walking every day. I wondered how we’d know if he was in pain, but when it came time, it was fairly obvious.

As for walking, he did a little in the studio where he lived, but after a couple of days I couldn’t coax him to take any steps. He didn’t look like he was in pain; he just wouldn’t try. So, I took him outside into the back yard. I thought being in his grass and in the sunlight in his yard, he might cheer up and want to sniff around. Barry was very much against the idea of taking him outside, but Barry tends to be (in my opinion) a helicopter parent. What Matisse needed, I thought, was something to interest him. So, with Barry watching me like an skeptical first-grade teacher, I carried poor little Matisse outside and sat him gently in the grass. He blinked and I could see his nose engaging with the scents of the outdoors. I pet him for a few seconds, then pulled my hands away to see if he would try to take a few steps. Then, with Helicopter Parent watching, our just-out-of-surgery, three-legged cat RAN across the yard and under the other studio. Out of reach. Leaving me alone with Copter Parent to explain myself.

We got him out from under the studio (with a long pole, which Barry castigated me for all over again) and Tripod ran in an arc around the yard, heading straight for the opening to go under the house. A tomcat that had taken up residence in our back yard headed him off. (None of us is sure why. One just doesn’t run in the presence of another cat.) After all that running, Matisse huddled in the grass and I was able to pick him up and take him, under Barry’s critical gaze, back into his studio home and set him down.

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Matisse/Tripod - filtered with the Prisma app

There were other episodes of Earnie being a bad uncle. I decided to let him walk around outside again – this time while Barry was out of sight. Matisse hobbled a little bit in the grass, then made a beeline for the house and was under it before I could react. I sat on a chair, drinking Topo Chico on ice, watching the opening for him to re-emerge. When Barry came out, he knew what was going on without my having to confess my sins. I don’t typically just sit, staring at the house. But, in my own defense, I thought it was important to keep the poor cat’s spirits up and let him get used to getting around on three legs. I mean, he had been free to go under the house before the operation. Surely, he’d be okay under there and come out when he got hungry. He did come out eventually, and Barry finally got comfortable with the idea of him being outside again. There is not much point in saving his life if we keep him cooped up and don’t let him live it happily.

And, he was happy for about a year. Then, a few weeks ago he went under the house again and this time wouldn’t come out. Barry had to crawl under there to get him. Again we took him to the vet. This time they said he was beginning renal failure. So, from that point on he lived inside, sitting in his window watching the world that he didn’t have the energy to participate in any more.

On the day before Christmas Eve, we got home and Barry went to feed the cats. He came to me looking shaken, saying we needed to go to the emergency vet clinic, that Matisse had taken a turn for the worse. I went into his studio and Matisse was in a heap on the floor, meowing in distress. I put my hands on him and he calmed down a little. Barry came in and I left them together while I gathered an old town and the kitty carrier. I opened the carrier, wrapped Matisse in the towel and set him in his bed. Then we loaded into the truck and set out on a Sunday evening to make the now-familiar trip to the after-hours vet clinic.

I put my hand under his head and front shoulder to help him breathe and so that he could feel me with him. Along the way I had Barry pull over into a gas station parking lot to visit a little with Matisse. It didn’t seem like he had much time left. They did visit, but after a few minutes Matisse was still hanging in, and we knew he was in pain, so we continued on the route to the clinic. When we were about halfway to Round Rock, I told Barry that I thought Matisse had left. He wasn’t moving any more. With my hand propping up his little body, I could feel when he breathed or twitched, and I didn’t feel it any more. Barry pulled off the highway – this time into the parking lot of a human emergency clinic. Matisse’s spirit had left him, Barry agreed. We sat together for quite a few minutes. Matisse had been ours since the day he was born. We’d raised him, fed him, held and cuddled him for eleven years. We’d nursed him through the amputation, and now we saw him on his way to the next life.

I don’t like to see animals suffer; that’s why I wanted to take him to the vet. I’m not against euthanasia when the animal is suffering. That being said, I feel rather strongly about letting nature take its course when possible. The body and spirit are joined, and there is a process to go through. When we intervene too much, we confuse the body and spirit, and what should have been a straight-forward process of the body shutting down gets confused. Dying is not pretty, but giving birth is also not for the delicate. They are both a part of life, though, and important in their own ways. Human life spans are much longer than dogs’ and cats’. When you have pet cats, you know that you are going to lose them. It brought me some peace to know that I was holding him when he finally left. He knew and trusted me, and I like to think that I helped him through a difficult time. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Okay Matisse, my friend. Go peacefully over that rainbow bridge. We love you.

Raku the Cat

There’s almost nothing more heartwarming than a pet who says “I love you” with their eyes.

I think I joined a choir

I think I just joined the choir at church. I’m not certain exactly how it happened, but my meds are making me “dizzy” at the moment, so maybe it will make more sense later. What I remember is this:

I recently went though a retreat call Christ Renews His Parish and I am currently going through formation. I can’t say anything more about it, and I might have already said too much. My point is that I was looking through the list of ministries in my church last night and there are apparently over 70 of them. I went through the ones listed in the bullet points of the main page of the Saint Thomas More website. The one that appealed to me most was St. Vincent de Paul. However, the list of contacts was just a list of names; it gave no indication how a person was actually supposed to contact those people. I didn’t write it off, but I felt the need to do something so I continued to look at the other options. This was Saturday night and I was looking around for a ministry to join because even though I’m going through formation I’m still feeling a little lonely in the parish.

Let me back up just a little bit. I don’t think I’ve introduced myself to anybody who might not know me, so there are probably some things that would be important to know before much of this could make sense. First and foremost; I’m single. That speaks volumes in the way my family interacts with me, and the church as well. (I didn’t write The Church because I don’t mean the entire entity which is The Roman Catholic Church. I’m speaking directly about the church to which I currently belong, and the church before that and the church before that. All of them Roman Catholic and all of them very family-oriented and I don’t have a family except for my cats and I haven’t found the official stance of The Roman Catholic Church regarding cats, or pets in general, though I’m certain that it would be a very charitable one. The Right to Life and all. I mean; I don’t think they would picket a veterinary clinic for fixing animals, even if those animals happened to be pregnant at the moment, but I’m sure that they would require the humane treatment of animals in general and pets especially.) So, the church where I have landed is very, very family-oriented and I feel somewhat more isolated here than I did before. I felt alone at St. Ignatius, Martyr; I felt very alone at Sacred Heart in Elgin, but that was mostly because all of the people who would stop and talk to my roommate – and me when I happened to be with him – didn’t look at me twice when I was by myself. An interesting thing about Saint Thomas More is that they have an organization for adult parishioners who are single. However, you have to be 45 years old in order to belong and I haven’t reached that landmark yet. So, instead of waiting around, lonely and wondering why nobody loved me every week when I went to mass I decided to do something, which in my experience produces 23% fewer results than doing nothing. Yes, I wrote the word ‘fewer’. Perhaps it’s because I make bad decision – and I do – or perhaps it’s because I should let Providence have its way, but I’ve discovered that for the most part doing nothing works out better for me than doing something when it comes to personal matters. Professional matters are different, as are charitable ones. As I mentioned earlier, I’m single, and it hasn’t always been that way and it’s better this way than how things were when I did something instead of nothing and made my own decisions about who I would be with. So, when I moved into my present apartment and joined Saint Thomas More I did nothing for a while and then I was invited to attend a CRHP retreat and I did. That was a great experience and if you have the opportunity to attend one I highly recommend it. It’s also another example of my doing nothing and good things happening because this fell in my lap; I didn’t go looking for it.

So now I move on and look for something and it’s getting outside of my comfort zone a little bit. As I said I was up on Saturday evening looking for a ministry in my church (which says a lot in and of itself) and I made a mental note of several that seemed interesting to me. The page for the Music Ministry was subtle about its acceptance of new members. It read something like this. “WE NEED MUSICIAN! OMG WE ALWAYS NEED MUSICIANS. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED COME JOIN US.” Of course, it didn’t have the acronym ‘omg’ because that stands for something that would not be appropriate on a church web site, but you get the idea.

I thought that maybe I should put those years of voice lessons that I paid for in my youth to work. Of course, I need to warm up the vocal chords again, but that’s okay because it’s almost December and I’m certain that the choir is preparing for Midnight Mass and I can join in January. Not so. Yes, the choir has just begun to prepare for Midnight Mass, but I receive an answer to my email this morning (Sunday morning?) that there will be a hymnal and a STM Music Ministry tote bag waiting for me in 2 weeks when the traditional choir meets again for rehearsal on Tuesday evening at 6:30 in the music room which is opposite the main RE office just down from the Family Center and Gift shop in the building south of the

Church. I’m not saying that they are desperate because the choir makes beautiful music and obviously they have their stuff together. But, he didn’t seem to be taking any taking any chances when it comes to my joining – the date, time and location were crystal clear.

So, now I’m going to go warm up these vocal cords and stretch my range out like it used to be. That will take time; weeks. I won’t be there by Christmas, but I’ll do my best. I feel better already. Fortunately, I’m sitting at a wooden table so I was able to knock on wood because I shouldn’t really make any pronouncements about this new experience until it has actually begun.