Goodby, Pickle, and Thanks for all the Hugs
Her name wasn’t really Pickle, it’s just when I named her Blackberry my then-husband refused to call her that. Instead, he called her Pickle. Eventually, he won, and even I almost never called her Blackberry.
Somehow, I’d known Pickle was coming — I just knew that sooner or later (probably sooner) a kitten was going to show up on my doorstep after I put down my heart cat, Jake, in early 2006 from vaccine-related carcinoma. However, when weeks went by, I told myself that was silly superstition and I should fill the cat-shaped gap in my life by doing the normal thing and going to the humane society. So I did that, and my now-ex and I came home with a blue kitten I named Speck. But this is not Speck’s story.
A couple of weeks after she arrived, the dogs were making a ruckus outside. And there, among the dewberry vines our casual approach to yard maintenance allowed to grow next to our front door, was a tiny tabby kitten. When we tried to get near her, she hissed and spat and tried to make herself look as prickly as possible. She probably was barely four or five weeks old, so that was adorably ridiculous. There was no question of not keeping her, since we’d been waiting for her, so it was off to the vet’s for a brief quarantine to make sure she was vaccinated and didn’t come with any kitten diseases.
The vet has her down as Blackberry, a name I chose because we always called dewberries blackberries when I was growing up and because she was so determinedly prickly. But as I said, that didn’t stick.
Because she was so young, she had a habit of pretending to nurse on my arm. This was a habit she kept throughout her life, and it was pretty effective at persuading me to keep her nails short, because she would “make biscuits” as well. The last time she did this was the Thursday before she died.
When we moved to Georgia, she got out one day and was lost for a week. I had to get special permission the first day she was lost so I could work from home to try to be there when she came back. The other days I just had to go to work. Finally, I went out looking for her while talking on the phone. She followed my voice home and after that both cats were indoor only.
About a year after that, I had a dog who developed a liver problem. Even though I was working at a new job with “unlimited time off,” my boss made it clear that I still needed to do my 3-hour round-trip commute and 8–10 hour days while she was getting sicker, leaving her and my other dogs home alone at least 11 hours every day.
Eventually, her best shot at treatment was at the veterinary hospital a couple hours away. I did take off to take her there, visit her once, and bring her home when it was clear the treatment wasn’t working. My boss had never had a pet in his life, and strongly implied I hadn’t paid my dues enough yet to leverage the PTO policy. Still, was there anything else I really could do? I already felt like shit for leaving her home alone for so much of her last weeks of life. Today, I wouldn’t leave a healthy dog alone that much of the day. Certainly not day after day.
The past couple of months, Pickle was getting sicker and sicker, and, for the most part, I was working from home during that. My coworkers had already gotten used to seeing her on calls, but they saw her more often as she sought comfort.
A symptom of her final illness was that she would pee in weird places. I can’t really call it incontinence, because she would have to make some actual effort to get to those places, like the bed, whereas the cat boxes were really easy for her to use, if she would. It was not uncommon for her to just pee next to the cat box as well.
I never once had to explain to anyone on my team that I was 10 minutes late starting because I had to clean up a puddle or change my bed. I couldn’t help comparing how much less stressful her final illness was than the hell I went through and put my dog through 10 years ago in Atlanta. Working with people who care about you as a person is completely priceless. I am amazingly lucky to have it, and I hope wish that good fortune on everyone reading this.
