My ex-husband and I got Mumin on a warm summer day in Sweden. We'd been to visit his mother and stepfather at their home in the middle of Sweden, and a local farm was advertising rescue farmhouse kittens. We'd already had Maggie (named for Maggie Simpson) and Maggie was a wild, untamable kitten. She didn't want to be held, she didn't want to be touched, and her preferred way of life was to be causing some form of distruction. I'm one of those that think cats are better off in pairs because they can offer each other company and comfort, so it was always in the cards to get another cat.

Enter a little black and white kitten.

We went to a farmhouse where we were presented with two options - an all-black male kitten or a black and white female kitten. Since we already had a female kitten, we thought it would be best to get another girl. We paid a fee (a donation to the society and the cost of the kitten's shots).

And just like that, Mumin was a part of our life. She was named for a Finnish cartoon character and although I was nervous about bringing her home - cats often have a hard time adjusting to each other - I had nothing to worry about. Maggie and Mumin took to each other as though they'd always had each other in their lives, and always would. They looked nearly identical, with the exception that Mumin's eyes were yellow to Maggie's green and Mumin had a front leg that was white up to her upper leg, whereas Maggie's simply look encased in a pair of white 1950's gloves.

Mumin turned out to be very ill with a severe parasitic infection and a few vet visits later she was healthy. The parasitic infection damaged her growth though (or so the vet said) and as a result she was always a small cat. She and Maggie got on fabulously and in Sweden where you'd find one sleeping you'd generally find the other.

Mumin was my cat. She liked to curl up on my lap under the blankets, and we'd watch TV together while the snow fell outside. She liked to chase toy mice and if you threw one for her she'd bring it back, meowing as if to say "See how much I love you? You drop your toy and I'll bring it back to you." She had one of the sweetest, most patient dispositions ever - she wasn't the cleverest of cats but she was kind and loving. While Maggie is the angry, unfriendly wild cat Mumin was the happy, purring happy-go-lucky cat. We had our rituals, amongst them me giving her nibbles of cheese in the mornings. She liked to be held against your chest, like a baby. She loved to sleep on your lap with her head curled under, blocking out the light.

When she and Maggie came over to the UK after serving out their pet quarantine time in Sweden they have both gained a significant amount of weight. They'd been living with my ex, serving their quarantine, and had been simply eating to bide the time. It had never once occurred to me to not bring them over-they were my girls, they were coming. On the airplane trip over both nearly died as I had misguidedly given them tranquilizers to ease their stress-turns out animals sleep at that altitude anyway, drugging them dangerously lowers their body temperature.

There were new rules when they arrived. Angus' pets had a different way of life to mine. Dogs are not allowed upstairs. Cats should go outdoors. Pets on beds is generally not ok. It was a change, but in general the cats took to the changes in an entirely positive way. It turned out that Mumin, she loved the outdoors. She was incredible at catching animals to present to us as gifts. She and her new best friend Gorby would be outside for hours wiling away hours. She tolerated his puppy-ness. He, in turn, loved her. She'd spend all day outside on various rambling adventures and in the summertime it was impossible to get her inside. During the winter she wouldn't go out and would instead start gaining winter weight like a grizzly bear, which she'd quickly lose once it became warm enough to investigate the great outdoors.

I think it was for this exact reason we didn't notice what was going on.

She'd lost her usual winter weight. At a vet visit in March for her immunizations she was weighed, and came out a reasonably light 3.8 kg. She was pronounced very healthy and happy. She was wormed, boosted, and continued her fun outside.

We'd noticed over the past few weeks that she was looking too thin. But her antics outside with Gorby were continuing, she still came inside from time to time, and she was as loving and sweet as ever.

Last week we thought she'd become too thin. Her personality was still completely normal, so we decided to watch her and make sure she was ok. I'd decided to book up a vet visit, but then she was her usual self so I figured maybe this was just extreme summer weight loss.

When we returned from Scotland on Tuesday, I saw her in the evening. I was shocked by her appearance-you could see her hip bones. Her fur was matted and dirty. I held her and washed her fur, which infuriated her and she dashed outdoors. I waited for her to come inside so we could go to the vet.

But she didn't return until Friday morning, which was highly unusual for her.

When she finally came in she was frail, shaking, and uninterested in our usual morning cheese ritual. She was frighteningly thin. I held her in a towel and called the vet. We thought maybe she had some kind of parasite, maybe something she hadn't been wormed for.

The vet was very worried-Mumin had gone from 3.8 kg to 2.2 kg. She started to get sick all over the vet's table and was shaking. She was held over at the vets as they could feel a mass in her stomach.

Through it all, she was purring.

They took her through a swinging door and that was the last time we ever saw her.

They did x-rays and took blood at lunchtime. They called us. They were worried. They felt exploratory surgery was needed and they would call me and keep me posted.

When the vet finally did call I think somehow it was what we knew was coming.

The vet had found a massive tumor in Mumin's small intestine, just at a critical junction with the large intestine. It would be impossible to remove the tumor as in cats, it's apparently at a junction that you can't successfully re-connect. But as though the tumor weren't enough the lymph nodes were swollen and cancerous. The vet said they could do a biopsy and try chemo, which would buy us another year at most, but that the tumor was such that it would burst at any time, killing Mumin. Even if it hadn't, Angus and I wouldn't want to put Mumin through chemo. I fully understand that other people feel it's the best solution for their beloved pets, but he and I feel that Mumin wouldn't have understood what she was going through, that the pain of chemo would have been too great.

The vet and I agreed to let her go on the table. Waking her up just so I could say goodbye was a gesture that I wanted very, very much but I knew it was too selfish. My goodbye would have to be implied. My "I love you, baby" would have to be understood.

And so my little girl died.

Someone sent me an email not long ago (Foggy? Was it you?) about heaven. It told the story of a man who died and met his beloved dog in the afterlife, and they were walking along and came to the pearly gates. The man asked for a bowl of water for his dog and the guardian at the gate said "Sorry, no pets allowed." So the man and his dog kept walking until they came to another pearly gate, identical to the one he had just been at, and there was a bowl of water there. The dog had a long drink and the man turned to guardian at the gate. The guardian welcomed the man and the dog. "What is this place?" asked the man. "I was just at a place like it, only they wouldn't take my dog." The guardian smiled. "This place, my friend, is heaven. Both of you come on in."

It's stupid, really, but I like to think that's along the lines of what happens.

And for everyone who commented who also lost a friend, I hope it happens for you, too. Thank you for being there. It's been a bad time lately and I'm a little screwed up right now, so thank you.

Animals take up a deep space in my heart, and in general I trust them more than I trust people. Animals will only hurt you out of fear, while people, well...who the hell knows how they work. Animals have an innate sense of love and kindness and as long as you encourage that love and kindness the relationship you have with them is immeasurably sweet. As I get older my relationships with my furry buddies gets better and better, to the point now where I can't imagine extricating a single one of them from my life.

Until now, that is.

I feel like I shouldn't complain that my cat passed away. It's not like the body of a solider covered in a shroud from the beaches of Normandy or anything like that. I guess I feel embarrassed that losing Mumin has hit me so badly. But the truth is, my pets are my kids. They've always been my kids and always will be, even when real kids show up. Mumin was a bright spot in my day and one of the characters that I thought would tolerate and be patient with the Lemonheads as they go through their tail-grabbing stages. She was a sweetheart, a good girl, and a good friend to Gorby.

Maggie and Gorby are both being very needy now, as though they know something's amiss, too. I keep holding and cuddling Maggie (much to her annoyance) because no matter how unfriendly she can be I love her, too, and couldn't bear to lose her either. We will go on, and Angus has agreed we can maybe even think about another kitten someday. But we're still at a stage where we miss the little Mumin, and I think it'll be like that for a long while.

I'm not dragging this out and I'm not refusing to move on. I wrote this not for sympathy but so that you could know who Mumin was, what affect she had on our lives. I know a lot of people are probably rolling their eyes with a sigh of "Geez, man, she was JUST a cat." And she was a cat. But she was a cat I loved. I won't be posting about her for a while now, I think. It is time to move on and we are all moving on. Just as you have your own companion-sized shapes in your heart, so do I. I need to let the Mumin-shaped hole in my life heal. I never knew something so small could leave such a space behind.

But then, she was like that. Always catching you by surprise.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:18 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment
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