Couple Saturdays ago I had to scuttle breakfast plans with my brother to take our cat Roman to the vet.
Karry was working, which meant a solo mission.
Which meant I was outnumbered.
Cat transport is really a two-person affair.
Once the boys see the cat carriers, it’s all over.
If not first sequestered, they go full Jason Bourne.
Could be days before we see them again.
Between him and his brother, Roman’s the tougher customer.
A lifelong anarchist, Roman rejects all systems of centralized authority in favor of personal freedom and self-governance.
Which makes getting him in the carrier in direct conflict with his repudiation of involuntary hierarchies.
Over the years, we’ve perfected the process.
Not that the process ever works perfectly.
Step one: solitary confinement.
By which I mean locking Roman in the middle bathroom.
I’d never been responsible for this step by myself before.
I’m not good at holding cats.
In my experience, they don’t want to be held.
At least the way I hold them.
I found him lounging by the window in the dining room.
Scooped him up by his sides and held him out in front of me like a ticking bomb as I carried him down the hallway.
I think I caught him by surprise.
The look on his face was like, “What the f*ck?”
I made it to the bathroom, plopped him down on the floor and shut the door behind me.
This allowed me to retrieve the cat carrier from the garage.
I’ve never been solely responsible for getting Romain in the carrier by myself.
I began by an overt show of respect for his superior intellect, appealing to his core anarchist sensibilities.
Given his distaste for coercive states, I tried cooperation based on consent.
By which I mean I put some treats inside the carrier and politely invited him in for snacks.
He didn’t flinch.
I then initiated casual conversation, like they do in hostage negotiation scenes in the movies.
By which I mean I essentially talked to myself for five minutes.
Then I grabbed him by his sides and just sort of shoved him inside.
Mercifully, he didn’t go down swinging.
I think he felt sorry for me and my inferior intellect.
Carried him downstairs to the garage, and put him in my car’s backseat.
I turned the carrier so he could see me and I could see him.
He whined the whole car ride. I acknowledged each and every one of his whines to let him know I heard and understood.
Checked him in at Banfield, where they put us in a room to wait.
It was the most time Roman and I ever spent alone together.
Karry is, by far — and understandably — his favorite.
I’m much closer with his brother, Viktor. We chat downstairs pretty much every morning after Viktor finishes meditating.
My relationship with Roman is much more transactional.
He comes in my room every morning to register his extreme displeasure for me being late with breakfast.
Doesn’t leave until he confirms my feet on the carpet, then he exits to the hallway, squawking in disgust the entire time.
He gets about halfway down the hall and checks over his shoulder to make sure I don’t stop to pee along the way.
“Oh for Chrissakes,” he whines every time I do. If he had hands he’d throw ‘em in the air in disbelief.
He always beats me to the kitchen, and hops up on the counter because he doesn’t trust me to remember where we keep the food.
Once on the counter, closer to eye level, he formally airs all of his grievances, pacing back and forth while giving me sauce for (a.) how long he’s been waiting, (b.) what a goddamn travesty it is, (c.) what a lazy buffoon I am for sleeping so late, and (d.) reminding me for the umpteenth time that if he’d only been born with opposable thumbs, he’d have no use for me and would have killed me in my sleep a long time ago.
Et cetera.
He does this every morning.
Big fella gets hangry.
Meanwhile, I fish two bowls from the cabinet, and pick out a selection from the rotation.
I split a packet between the two of ‘em, making sure to give Viktor a little bit more in vain hope that he will decide to help Roman on his weight loss journey.
If I take more than a minute, they get chippy with each other. Roman tends to instigate, and I try to break them apart before Viktor escalates and bites his brother on the ear.
I put Viktor’s bowl down first on the little rug by the cabinet, and Roman’s by his water bowl, wishing them each a “Bon Appetite” by name as I do so.
Viktor, a gentleman who savors, takes his time and patiently chews his food.
Meanwhile, Roman attacks his bowl like Joey Chestnut in front of a bin of hot dogs and a ticking clock. Finishes minutes before Viktor, then death stares at his brother until Viktor decides he’s had enough and walks away from his bowl. He never cleans his plate.
Whereupon Roman avails himself of second breakfast, hobbit-style.
Other than that, I’m pretty irrelevant to Roman’s days and nights.
When I get home from work, sometimes he’ll hop on the dining room table to let me pet him a couple times, just to tie him over until Karry’s return. After about three pets, he tries to nip my hand to let me know we’re done here.
All of which to say, I considered it a blessing to be able to keep Roman company while we waited for the vet to see him.
While he whined I told him how much I appreciated what a good boy he was being, and how proud I was of him, and that we’ll be home soon.
He was better for me than I deserved.
When the doctor finally came and took him back for an X-ray, I prayed he’d be as good for them as he had been for me.
Over the years he’s cultivated a reputation for being, um, feisty during vet visits.
It’s where he’s most forcefully expressed his disgust for oppressive forms of government.
Rarely goes down without a fight, or a sedative.
He took it easy on them this time, though.
When they brought him back to me in the waiting room, Roman immediately walked into the carrier of his own volition.
He knew that was the shortest distance to home.
Such a smart boy.
The vet at Banfield gave us medicine to curb his vomiting, a liquid bandage to hopefully let his stomach lining heal, and a steroid for inflammation. Said the vomiting should stop within 24 hours. Didn’t seem overly concerned.
On Monday morning I flew to Milwaukee for an all-week work function.
Karry texted me when she got home from work that day that she found dark vomit on the carpet again. Said she was going to take Romain to the ER.
Couple hours later she texted that they saw something troubling on the X-Ray from Banfield and wanted to do an MRI the next day. She said it broke her heart to leave Roman overnight, but that he was purring when she left him.
The next morning the doctor called with the results.
After listening to the options, Karry made the impossibly hard and right decision.
He’d lived a good life without suffering, and she was determined to make sure it remained that way.
So she chose the shortest distance to … home.
She said that Peter would go with her to say her goodbyes that afternoon.
He’s a good boy, too.
My heart broke for all of us.
Karry texted me that afternoon when they got to the hospital. Asked me if I was available for a FaceTime.
I wasn’t … but I stepped out from the meeting I was in.
Got to see Roman one last time.
Got to tell him I loved him.
Got to tell him what a good boy he was.
Got to tell Karry and Peter how proud I was of them … and how grateful I was to them both for calling me.
After we hung up, I took a minute for a few deep breaths and then went back in and presented to our company’s leadership team with salty cheeks.
__
That was 12 days ago.
It all happened so fast.
By which I mean the 72 hours between Roman being better for me than I deserved and me FaceTiming him goodbye.
By which I mean the past 10 years.
Got home from my work trip on a Thursday night, then left that Saturday for a few getaway days with Karry to celebrate our 30th anniversary. Got home late this past Thursday night.
Been playing catch-up ever since.
I was the first one up this morning.
Out of habit I fished two bowls from the cabinet, and started to divvy up a packet of food, giving Viktor a little more.
Started crying when I didn’t know what to do with the leftovers.
Letters for Maggie 