Today I am over at Tara Lain's blog, with my co-author for The Good Boy, JA Rock. We're taking part in the Paws with a Cause blogfest, and talking about crazy pets and our almost identical history of "Please! PLEASE MUM! Can't we keep it, PLEASE!"
Check it out! You can win a copy of The Island, by me, your choice from JA's backlist, and a heap of other great prizes.
Now, because there are only so many words you can write on a guest post, I talked about my cats, who are all adopted. I mean, obviously I didn't give birth to them, but I also didn't go to a pet shop and buy them. No, I had no choice but to take them in, you know, once I looked them in the eye.
But because I had to keep it short and sweet, I didn't talk about Eudo.
Also, because Eudo is a sad story.
Eudo was the stray cat who used to come into my house and eat my cats' food. My cats hated him with a passion, but the sort of repressed British passion you only really see in Merchant Ivory productions. They glared a lot, and looked miffed, but Eudo didn't care.
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| Eudo, not caring. |
Once, Eudo didn't come around for a few days. When he finally showed up, he was in bad shape: dragging his swollen leg behind him, his ear torn, his tail all busted up. But still hungry.
So I made a vet appointment and gave him breakfast.
"Don't eat too much, Eudo," said my mother, who was visiting that day.
"Fuck it, Eudo," I told him, "eat as much as you want. Go nuts."
Because I knew where this was going.
The vet was very nice about it. Yeah, it was bad. Yeah, it would be the kindest thing. No, they wouldn't charge me. So I made the Grown Up decision.
Which was no consolation at all when it occurred to me later: that stray cat, hit by a car, had managed to drag himself to the one place where he felt safe. And how did I repay him?
With a Grown Up decision.
You can't save them all, of course, but a part of me will always be the little kid standing outside the pet shop or the animal shelter, begging to have the chance.
4 comments:
Aww, jeez, poor Eudo. But well done on the grown up decision. I felt very coward-ishly fortunate to be away at school when my mom and brother had to make the grown up decision after Crazy Pete got hit by a car. I would have liked to say a proper goodbye to him, but maybe it's best to keep me out of the room when things like that happen.
Eudo was a smart cat and knew he had found a soft hearted person when he found you. You did the best thing you could for him. It's always sad when we must say goodbye to our animal friends.
Thanks, Nona! My rational brain knows I did what I could, but sometimes I don't listen to my rational brain at all. :)
It wasn't totally grown up. I made my mum come with me!
And every time my ten year old dog struggles to get herself up the stairs, I can't stop thinking that we're not too far away from the inevitable. And I'll be taking my mum then as well.
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