On Friday the 13th of November, 1998, I went to a going away party for a friend who was moving to Pennsylvania. At first, I was having a wonderful time. But early in the evening, I developed a headache. It got steadily worse. Two of my friends attempted to do a healing-energy-flow-thingy for me, but it didn't work--perhaps because, as I wasn't a terribly spiritual type, I didn't expect it to work. So I took some ibuprofen and lay down in a dark back room. I may have even slept. A couple of hours later, I emerged, but the headache remained. I bade my friends farewell and cut the evening short.
I arrived home and had not even removed my coat or set down my purse when the phone rang. When I heard my mother's voice, I knew something had to be wrong. Mom never calls after 10:30 pm. She heard my tired voice and asked if I was feeling alright. I admitted that I felt a bit sick. She said, "Well, what I have to say isn't going to make you feel any better." Suddenly wide awake and fully alert, I felt my muscles chill and stiffen with dread. What had happened? Who had it happened to?
Mom told me about Radar, how he'd been laying in the same spot for days, how he'd stopped eating, how he'd stopped using the litterbox. Radar was dying, slowly and painfully. They were taking him to the vet first thing in the morning. Would I like to come and say goodbye?
Radar had been a part of my life since I was six or seven years old. Just after my mother married Dave and we moved to Bellevue, we adopted this little white kitten with black spots. We named him "Radar" because his oversized ears were constantly rotating, like little radar dishes. He was a hunter from day one, stalking the crickets in the basement. We were forever finding cricket legs in the carpet. Radar grew up to be a large cat with long, silky fur and impressive hunting skills. He constantly brought home mice, birds, bunnies, and once even a bat! We frequently found half-eaten offerings just outside the door.
When I was a little girl, I'd drag Radar upstairs to my room and set him up in little scenes with stuffed animals and other props, putting hats and other such things on him, and then I'd take photos. All this he endured with a seemingly infinite patience. I remember sharing the fries from my Happy Meals with him, and thinking he was such a weird cat for liking potatoes. And I remember once when I was little, I found a mouse in my bureau. Mom threw Radar inside and closed the drawer. We heard a lot of thumping and bumping, and when we pulled out the drawer, out came Radar, proudly displaying his kill.
I grew up, went to college, and moved out on my own. I adopted two cats myself, but Mom's three cats continued to hold a special place in my heart. Radar slowed down a lot as he aged. He spent a lot more time indoors, sitting in the window and just looking outside. The other two cats, Clawed and JC, were both gluttons, and these two fat cats hogged all the food. Radar, never overweight, grew distressingly thin. Mom started feeding him on the side, giving him the best food in a secret dish upstairs that the other two cats didn't know about. He also got his own water dish in the upstairs bathroom.
Now Mom was telling me that Radar had been just laying by that water dish for about a week. He wasn't eating. Mom had even offered him the juice from a can of salmon, and also from a can of tuna--not cat food, but real people-food tuna. He managed about six licks of the liquid, and that was it. He couldn't even take a bite of the solid chunks. He had been drinking a lot of water, but he wasn't now. He hadn't even used the litterbox in two days, and there was no evidence that he'd used the floor either. It seemed that his kidneys had given out.
I said I'd be there at 7:30 am to say my goodbye to Radar. When I parked my car, the clock said 7:31 am, and I felt bad about being late. I rushed up to the door and rang the doorbell. I didn't wait for an answer, instead going right inside. I went up the stairs and looked into the bathroom. Radar lay beside his water dish, unmoving. I worried that he'd already died.
Mom stood in the hallway, and she told me that I could go in. I did, leaving the light off, and I sat down on the floor by Radar's side. I stared at him for a minute or two, then Mom told me it was okay to touch him. I reached out and stroked his once luxurious white and black coat, and Mom left us alone. Beneath the tangled mats of fur, I could feel his ribs. When I stroked his back, I could feel his vertebrae protruding like spikes. I found that beneath the thick fur, his tail was no bigger around than a pencil. He was nothing but a skeleton with fur stretched over the bones. In profile, his head was wider than his body. There was nothing left.
At my touch, he lifted his head, but he didn't open his eyes. They were crusted shut. Radar slowly and painfully staggered to his feet, turned around, and lay down on his other side, facing me. He'd lost the ability to retract his claws, and they curled under, pressing into the pads of his feet. I petted the top of his head and just behind his ears. All of his fur was matted and tattered except that patch right there on the top of his head. That was soft. That fur felt young.
I cried as I petted this old cat. I cried so hard that I had to take off my glasses and set them aside. Then I said a prayer, my voice a hoarse whisper, "Holy One, Creator, on this day we give Radar back to you. Amen." I couldn't say anymore, because I was crying again.
Mom came back into the room. She picked Radar up and held him. He meowed in pain. Mom gave him to me to hold, and he was so light it seemed unreal. I think the kitten we brought into our home nineteen years earlier might have been heavier than this aged wisp of a cat. He cried out again, and I returned him to Mom. She cuddled him and crooned to him a bit, and then she set him back on the tile.
It was 7:50 am, five minutes until the time we were supposed to leave. Radar slowly hauled himself to his feet without a cry, and he walked out of the bathroom. Every agonizing step seemed to require all of his strength, but he was determined, and he made his way down the hall. He went into Mom and Dave's bedroom and crossed to the balcony door. Mom opened the door for him, and as Radar stepped across the threshold, his legs gave out and he collapsed. But he got right back up and went outside. He paused at another water dish, but he was unable to drink. He fell down again, and again he got back up. He took a few more steps, then he lay down on the wood. This short walk had taken him about four minutes.
Mom, Dave, and I all looked at him laying there on the balcony. He wasn't laying as he'd lain on the tile. On the tile in the bathroom, he'd lain on his side as one already dead. On the balcony, he lay only because he could no longer stand, but he was alert, savoring every sensation. He smelled the outside air. He felt the wind in his fur, and the wood planks beneath him. He listened to the birds. He seemed to be impressing these things into his memory. I believe he knew what was coming next.
He only had a minute outside, then Mom said, "I'm sorry, but it's time." I felt a pain in my heart. Couldn't we give him one more minute? He'd worked so hard to get to the balcony. Couldn't he have just a little longer? No, it was time. Mom picked Radar up gently, and he cried. We took him back through the house. Mom held him out to JC, the youngest cat, who looked dumbly at Radar without comprehending the significance of the moment. Mom held Radar out to Clawed, the middle-aged cat, who promptly hissed and flattened her ears. So typical of Clawed.
Then we wrapped Radar in a towel and took him to the truck. We drove to the vet, and the closer we got, the more Radar cried. It was unbearable. We arrived at the vet's, and Dave went inside to get things in order. Mom didn't want to subject Radar to a waiting room full of dogs during his last moments, so we waited in the truck. Radar burrowed into the towel, trying to hide. Mom and I petted him and tried to offer comfort. Dave emerged from the building and signaled us. The room was ready. So soon! Too soon! The room was ready, but we weren't.
We took Radar into the room, the northernmost examination room of Bellevue Animal Hospital. Dr. Rock-Paul came in and examined him. He had a lump in his abdomen nearly the size of my closed fist. It might be a tumor. It might be one of his kidneys. Either way, there was nothing that could be done to save him. He was an old cat, with nineteen years of life behind him. Mom signed the form, and Dr. Rock-Paul made the preparations.
Radar's eyes were clogged with a thick yellow gunk. We wiped as much of it away as we could, and he looked at us and the room. We lay Radar on the folded towel. He didn't struggle. He didn't even move. He even stopped crying. Mom stroked the top of his head, that patch of kitten-soft fur. I stroked behind his ear. Dave stood a few feet away, unsure of whether he could even stand to stay in the room. Mom told Radar that she loved him. Dr. Rock-Paul put the needle into Radar's leg, and then she pressed her stethoscope to his chest. "He's already gone." So fast! Too fast! How could it have been so fast?
I didn't look at a clock, so I don't know the exact minute, but Radar passed away at approximately 8:20 am, Saturday the 14th of November, 1998. Mom and I continued to stroke Radar's fur for several minutes after he was gone. I'd never been present at the time of death of anyone before. Radar wasn't just a cat--he was family. We weren't ready to let him go. "I can't believe I just did that," Mom sobbed, "He was my favorite."
The drive back was somber. I thought of Felix, a cat I had known for about eight years, who had recently been put to sleep. Felix's owners had heard the song Iris on the radio as they left the vet's. "I'd give up forever to touch you, 'cause I know that you feel me somehow. You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be, and I don't want to go home right now." They told me about that, and now every time I hear Iris on the radio, I think of Felix. Mom, Dave, and I did not listen to the radio as we returned to the house on that Saturday morning. We talked a little, but mostly we drove in silence.
Suddenly I heard music in my mind, and a choir sang Hymn of Promise through my thoughts. "In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree; in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free! In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see . . . . In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity; in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity. In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see." I knew that it was for Radar. I know that from now on, every time I hear or sing this hymn, I will think of him.
Mom, Dave, and I returned to the house. Everything seemed different without Radar. It seemed so empty to us. Clawed perched on top of the couch, apparently unaware that she was now the top cat in the family. JC didn't seem to realize that Radar was even gone.
Mom had also thought of a song for Radar. She put in the soundtrack to the musical Cats and played Up to the Heaviside Layer, the song the other cats sang for the one who died, as her spirit ascended to heaven. I found it comforting to hear.
Radar was to be cremated, and we'd get his ashes back in about a week. After we got home, Mom got to thinking, and she called the vet. "I have . . . maybe a strange request," she explained who she was and what we had just done with Radar, then she asked, "Could you save a lock of his fur for me? I mean, his fur was all matted, except for one spot on his head which was still soft. Could you cut off some of his soft fur and save it for me?" The vet agreed.
Later that morning, we went to Schuyler, our home town, for my cousin's wedding. We returned to Bellevue late at night. It was about 10:00 pm when we pulled into the driveway. I got out of the car and opened the door, and JC burst out. He was running wild and looking very spooked. JC is a rather obese and lazy cat, and he never runs anywhere. But he was running now. I chased him across the yard, in the dark, and headed him off underneath the big living room windows. Once captured, the immensely heavy JC was easily hauled into the house. As soon as I released him, however, he began running around crazily, as if he were being chased by something unseen. I had never in my life seen JC act in such a manner.
I returned to my home in Omaha, and one of my roommates was still awake. She and I spoke for a while, and I told her about Radar. Then I mentioned JC's odd behavior. She said it was possible that we smelled like death, or at least we smelled like the vet. But I wondered why then JC hadn't acted up right when we'd come back from the vet. Why nearly fourteen hours later, after we'd been to Schuyler and back? Sara then said something that I found strangely comforting, "Maybe Radar's spirit was there. The spirit doesn't age. Radar would be like a kitten again." I liked that idea. Radar had been such a spunky kitten, and I could almost see him chasing JC around and wearing him out. It was a nice idea, but . . . it was just speculation. It still hurt when I thought about Radar.
Sunday evening, I spoke to Mom on the phone, and she told me a story that lifted my heart and proved to me that everything was alright, that we'd done the right thing for Radar.
Mom got up early on Sunday morning, feeling troubled. She said a silent prayer, "Give me a sign. If Radar's alright, if he's where he's supposed to be, let me see a cardinal." She went out on the balcony for a while, she went outside in the back yard, she wandered around for quite some time, and she saw grackles and sparrows, but no cardinals. Sunrise came and went, but no unusual birds appeared. She went inside and read the newspaper, looking up every time a bird flew by the window. No cardinals. Mom went to the living room and sat in the rocking chair, looking out through the windows. All of the interesting birds generally showed up in the back yard, where all the trees were, but Radar had so loved to sit on the shelf with all of the plants, looking out those windows. So this is where Mom sat for a time. After a while, she saw a couple of purple finches. Their heads were kind of reddish. She wondered if that was close enough.
Dave came into the room, knowing nothing of her prayer, and stood with his hand on her shoulder, trying to offer comfort. He looked out the window, to the green post. "Is that a cardinal?" Mom followed his gaze, and sure enough, a female cardinal was perched on that post. She was soon joined by the male, brilliantly red. And suddenly purple finches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, red-headed woodpeckers, and every native Nebraska bird that has a speck of red anywhere on it flew onto the scene. Dozens of red marked birds congregated together briefly, with the two cardinals, and then they all departed as suddenly as they came. The cardinals paused a moment in a tree across the street, allowing Mom one final glance, and then they were gone.
Dave glanced at his watch. It was almost exactly the same time of morning that we'd taken Radar to the veterinary office. Almost exactly twenty-four hours since he took his final breath. It was like Radar had asked God, "Please send a red bird for Mom, and send a lot of them so she doesn't miss it."
Mom had asked for a sign, and the Holy One had responded. Radar is at peace and with the Creator. And we here on earth are left knowing that God is with us, listening to us, actively participating in our lives, and making sure that everything works out exactly as it should.