The Death Door

One of my cats, a sweet old lady called Kira, is dying.

She was one of a pair my wife brought with her when she moved in. Smoke grey and skinny, with sad, soulful eyes, wonky teeth and a tendency to ‘blep’— for her tongue to poke out after a bout of cleaning.

Since last year, she’s withered. You can feel the cage of the skeleton underneath her skin when you stroke her. Feel her chest flutter when she dreams— not slow and steady but erratic, like a small bird flapping around in an attic. She vomits more and eats less, spending most of her days sleeping. Dreaming, I hope, of lost patches of sunlight and misplaced toys.

About two days ago, she yowled, then froze, head forward, gasping for breath. Muscles taut, mouth wide open. Ignoring my wife and I as we huddled around her, willing her to get through it. For her to cough up a fur ball, then saunter off back to her bed and begin snoring.

But, alas, that wasn’t to be.

We left her at the vet’s and walked home in the sunshine. Talking around the issue. Hoping she was well, but unsurprised when the clinic called and said “We’d like to talk to you about the x-ray.” Diplomatic doctor speak for ‘something’s wrong, and I need to show you something heartbreaking’. An hour later, we stood staring at her skeleton and organs, nodding as he indicated a large growth around her pancreas. Did she have time? Could she come home? He nodded, kindly, but indicated this wasn’t something they could postpone. Kira has days left, maybe hours.

As I type this, she’s sitting in her blanket. Not eating, not really reacting. Just watching me and purring quietly when I touch her. For the second time in my adult life, I can feel the Death Door open in the room.

***** 

The First was in 2014 when my mother died.

She’d been confined to a wheelchair for years. Fiercely independent, she’d grown up in wartime and left home at sixteen. Worked her way around the world— teaching in Switzerland, faking a university degree in San Francisco, learning short-hand and becoming the secretary for the vice-president of shell oil in Houston. She’d lived a life. Even paralysed, she remained bright and alert— always passionate about politics and always proud of anything I did. When I’d drop round and see her, she’d beam and hug me with her one working arm. We’d drink wine, or gin and tonic, and just talk.

When I was young, she was always dieting. Terrible, fad things involving grapefruit, or fasting. None of which ever switched off her love of chocolate long enough to make a difference. She believed, like some, that thinness was next to godliness and saw her own weight as a moral failing. In retirement, her taste buds seemed to flatten and to her immense pleasure, she thinned. Turning from a healthy hundred and fifty pound woman into a little bird of a thing— all fragile bones that creaked when I hugged her.

Just like Kira.

One day, her closest friend called me and told me I needed to come quickly. That she’d taken a turn for the worse. So, I got on a plane, flew across Canada and the Atlantic and took a taxi to the ward she’d been placed in. Came in and called her name, expecting her to react, to smile. To grumble about people fussing over her.

Nothing.

She was lying on her back— arms at her sides and eyes wide open. Breathe soft, hair down and framing her face. Lying like a tomb effigy carved into a coffin lid. She glanced at me as I entered. Blinked when I held her hand, then returned to looking past me as I sat and spoke— saying something idiotic about my trip, about how I was doing, about how good it was to see her. She never replied. I… think… she might have squeezed my hand. Possibly she knew I was there. It’s a nice thought. Or perhaps it was that human instinct. The baby’s hand clutching at another body so it doesn’t fall. I honestly don’t know. Eventually, I gave her an awkward hug, told her I loved her and that I’d be back in the morning.

After breakfast, as I was getting ready to return, the nurse phoned and told me she’d passed moments earlier.

*****    Now, almost ten years later, I'm sitting stroking Kira, looking at the same eyes as my mother had. Staring past me out at something I can’t see.

I’m not much of a spiritual person. Never have been, and I doubt I ever will be. But in both cases, I felt something calling to them. As if the world we live in dimmed and a sort of…Death Door, swung open behind me. Through it pours light and memories of past moments. Of their youth and people they met. Of sounds and smells— of moments only they can remember.

When I sat there in that little room holding my mother’s hand, the door was wide open. When I left her that night, I think I was little more than a shadow, a shape mumbling in the darkness. And at some point she stood up for the first time in years, and walked through to whatever’s next.

Today, with Kira, I think it’s open just a crack. Just enough to get a cat’s curiosity up. For her to wonder what’s behind it. But hour by hour, it’s yawning wide.

As I said, I’m not very spiritual. I love the idea of them stepping through the door and into a new world. All fresh green grass and wide warm skies. Where those they lost wait in the fields and full of thick, wide trees where they can rest in the shade until the rest of us catch up. I love that idea but… I can’t imagine it. Yet, I do know we all face it at some point. The world falls away, maybe quick, maybe slow, and the doorway beckons.

***** 

A month ago, I met a friend for coffee. I greeted him with one of those ‘should we shake hands? Hug?’ things only men can do. Sort of half-awkward that turns into a back pat somewhere along the way. We were about to go up to the counter, when a man nearby turned and asked if he could have one too. He was elderly and in a wheelchair. I didn’t know him, but laughed and gave him a hug. He thanked me then fell silent for a moment. “That’s the first time anyone’s touched me in a couple of years.”

I think I made a joke before walking away, but the moment stuck with me. That physical need for connection. That gesture.

I held my mother’s hand years ago. Today I'm stroking Kira’s fur. Both of them already looking away through the doorway. I hope the gesture helps. The warmth of someone else with you at the very end.

It’s all I’ve got.

***** 

Tomorrow, maybe the day after, Kira will die. We’ll hold her until she’ll give a little feline shrug, flick her tail one last time and saunter through the door. And we’ll give her a viking funeral. All fire and heat— until the last bit of her flutters free, and rises up out of the ash. While I don’t believe, I still hope someone will hold my own hand at some point— that when my own door swings wide and the memories come flooding in, I'll see my mother, and Kira, and so many others.

I think I can believe that’s possible.