Tribute to The Old Man

The Old Man

We had to put The Old Man down Friday.  Cats are known for many things, living long is one of them, and occasionally you'll hear of one living to be a ripe old age, and Rutger, aka The Old Man was nineteen years old.  A respectable age under any circumstances, and considering his lineage, rather remarkable.  I've considered this column, this one about The Old Man dying, for some time now.  We've all suffered through countless writings where the writer obviously loved his pet, and needed for whatever reason to ease the pain of sudden loss by sharing the otherwise mundane life story and tearful goodbye scene at the end.   And of course most of us have suffered through the actual loss of a beloved pet/friend/companion, and realize how utterly intense it can be. 

I'm writing this because my wife says I should.  And I believe she's right, so bear with me.

The Old Man was born under a porch in Goshen, Oregon, to a much littered feral mother, sort of a feline neighborhood prostitute.  The litter of four was distributed free to good homes as usual and my wife was one of the recipients, in April of 1994, when the kitten was barely two weeks old.   She named him Rutger, after one of her favorite actors at the time, Rutger Hauer.  From the very beginning Rutger was slightly off, a bit different kitten-wise.  He would wait in ambush for any moving object to walk by and pounce on it like a hungry leopard.  He could scare the crap out of perfectly rational adults at any given time, and the look in his eyes didn't help to calm the victim.  It was "The Look" that made Rutger who he was.

First of all, it was the shape of his eyes.  He looked ... angry?  He was a staring contest master, and I swear people could feel him staring at them from across a room.  The Look was unnerving to say the least. He was not an easy cat to make friends with.  His disposition matched his visage,  maybe it was because of his feral family tree, and in general he didn't like humans, especially humans touching him.  Most cats arch their backs when petted, Rutger would bow his back and sink to the floor to get away from an offending human hand.  But this reaction wasn't out of fear.  Rutger feared nothing.  He had the most aggravating attitude of any domestic animal I've ever known.  He took life at his own speed.  You couldn't shoo him, shush him, startle him, or heaven forbid train him to do anything.  But at the same time, for some reason, he commanded respect out of all around him.  I think it was those eyes, The Look.

There were a few humans allowed to touch him; the daughter, the wife, and on occasion, me.  He was known to have actually played feline games with us once in a while, which would last until he tired of us.  We would be allowed to pet him too, if only for a few minutes until he ended the session with a quick unapologetic bite on the end of a finger.  We always felt honored.

Toward the end he mellowed, of course, and in spite of diagnosed heart and liver problems, stayed relatively healthy for most of his 19 years.  The other pets in the house treated him like a revered grandfather, The Old Man, and they would visit him at his special spot on the couch where he would appear to council them on the ways of the world, while licking and cleaning their fur.

The end came quickly.  In his later years he had developed arthritis in his hips, and had mastered a peculiar little walk, but on Wednesday morning his hind legs weren't working right at all.  He was walking like a drunken rabbit, splayed out on the tile floor, struggling to get to the water dish.  Vet said he had probably had a stroke, what with his heart problems and age.  Thursday, after another apparent stroke, the hind portion of his body hardly worked at all, and he stopped eating.  He allowed us to hold him and pet him, which we did all day, and he was communicating with those eyes all the time.  He didn't appear to be in any pain, and there was no fear.  Friday morning he couldn't stand at all and appeared paralyzed.  He lifted his head slightly and looked at me, and The Look was gone.  He was tired.  My wife held him close as we drove to the vet, and he went to sleep quietly, calmly, and with great dignity. 

I'm not much of a "cat person."  But The Old Man earned my respect, and in the end, my love.  He was a fine curmudgeon.