Scooter

Yesterday, it was Maggie.

Today or tomorrow it will be Scooter.

Scooter was a stray my wife took in. He's about 16. His kidneys have been failing, his teeth giving out. At the last vet visit we were told we could try an expensive operation, but that the operation might not work, and he might even die during it.

Or we could let him go.

At his age, we opted for letting him go.

We almost took him in last week. But with my mother-in-law still in the hospital for a stroke, and with my wife leaving for a conference, we put it off. Since Scooter is my wife's, I left the decision to her.

Last night after I came home from voice camp, still thinking of Maggie, I noticed blood in Scooter's water dish. He's bleeding from his mouth. He hasn't been eating. He's stopped even lapping up milk. I spoke with my wife briefly last last night and told her what I thought. After I got off the phone, Scooter came out of the corner where he has been sleeping and hiding, jumped awkwardly up on the couch, and lay with his head on my lap for a few minutes. Then he went back to his corner. He's still bleeding.

I'm waiting for my wife to call at her lunch break. Do I take Scooter in this afternoon, or wait until she gets back? It's her call.

Whatever her decision, by Friday I will be petless for the first time since I was 10.

As for Scooter, he's a beautiful cat. When we first took him in my wife assumed he was a girl and called him Princess. Then we took him to the vet, who informed us Scooter was no princess.

Scooter did like to run around, so his name became obvious. He was the king of the house. If you sat down, your lap was his bed. The tables and counters were his pathways, no matter how much we tried to chase him off. He was forever trying to escape outside - I have scars on my arm from one time when I tried to stop him. In the morning, he would breath on my face to make sure I got up to feed him. Maggie, a gentle soul even though she was more than 7 times Scooter's weight, always deferred to him.

I guess in falling yesterday Maggie deferred to Scooter one final time.