September 16, 2023

We had two barn cats until sometime Thursday. Romeo (on the right) left us in February, our best guess is he was disappeared by a coyote. Juliet had been missing for a couple of days and we had been looking for her.

Juliet hadn’t been the same since Romeo’s disappearance, she was nervous and meowed a lot. The first week after he was gone she let me hold her in my lap and in the crook of my arm like a house cat. She was also losing weight and this vet I shack up with was researching and watching her. He confided today, he thought she might be sick and suspected kidney failure. It’s a a long story but I did find her Thursday evening, alive but weak and seemingly physically unharmed. But Friday morning I couldn’t find her again and her corner of the barn had a weird but not unfamiliar smell. I looked and call for her throughout the day. Resigned she had probably crawled away to die much like the dowager cat Holly did almost a decade ago.

The good doctor and I were talking about it this morning, how we both looked for her and he was voicing concern he had somehow missed her in the garage. I added my regret.

“I should have just brought her in the house Thursday evening and nursed her. You would have never known and she would be living her best life.”

“I don’t think so, I think she was uremic [symptom of fatal stage kidney failure]. I just hope she didn’t suffer when she died.” He sounded so terribly sad. I reminded myself of that smell and it was familiar because it was similar to a human’s with uremia.

I told him a story from my early nursing career when I was taking care of kidney patients usually people with a complicated metabolic situation rhabdomyolosis. They required close monitoring and a tricky well-thought out cocktail of intravenous fluids to reverse uremia and kidney failure.

“Those patients were never restless or uncomfortable. One of the specialists told me ‘Uremia isn’t a bad way to go, people have pleasant hallucinations, they see sparkly light.’ I remembered one man asking me why there were angels standing around me. Maybe this state translates to cats, so I think she was comfortable and at ease with her transition”

He seemed comfortable with this and I realized how lucky we were to have one another to intuitively respond to the other in time of need. I needed this reminder because we had a recent rough patch. I needed to be reminded of this connection. Thank you Juliet. Thank you.

Today, I conjured a picture of Juliet making her way into the pasture after I rescued her from the garage. I see her crawling under the gate and navigating the tall weeds into the pasture, laying in the grass, the sun Indian Summer cool as it rested on the horizon. Watching the birds fly overhead, she caught sight of Romeo and—the best dog ever—Beatrice waiting for her.

My star-crossed lovers are together again. My heart is glad.