We'll Never Know the Rest of Your Story...

A little over 5 months ago, our daughter Faith said she wanted another cat for her birthday. It was an innocent request that made our whole family much richer.

To clarify, when Faith asked for this, we already had 2 cats in our home, but one was technically her Mom's and the other was technically mine. Faith wanted one of her own so everyone could have "their own" cat. The beauty of a child's sometimes simple mind should never be lost on us.

However, this wouldn't be a simple decision. I actually laughed it off at first, if I'm being completely honest. We eventually thought about it seriously and debated it as a family for a few weeks. Could we afford another animal? Could we manage to take care of another animal? Would the other cats accept another cat? In any case, we decided to start looking before coming to a consensus on these questions, because the odds of us finding "the right cat" were very long to begin with.

When I say "the right cat," it's not purely from preference for breed or gender or anything like that (although Faith really did want a tortie). We were already caring for two Feline Leukemia positive cats, and we can't/won't bring any cats into our home that aren't already positive for this virus. It's a moral decision. We could bring home any regular cat, knowing that they might get infected with the virus. We have always decided that we wouldn't want to do that to an otherwise healthy cat.

Perhaps this is the best time to mention that Feline Leukemia is not a death sentence, and these cats can live long, healthy lives under proper care. In fact, we have Minx approaching his 7th birthday. I highly encourage you to do some research on FeLV+ cats and consider adopting one if you don't already have a cat, because they are usually among the first to be euthanized when no homes are found for them. And as you'll see if you continue reading, they can be just as amazing as "regular" cats.

I'm a firm believer that pets choose their owners, not the other way around. Everyone, Faith included, searched on the internet for weeks. Rae and I probably visited or talked to a dozen shelters and pet stores in that time. It's not easy to find a cat within these parameters, trust me. It's even more difficult when you're looking for a specific color or breed. Then one amazing day, we stumbled upon a FeLV+ tortie at the Cat Welfare Association in northern Columbus. We set up an appointment to go see her, and even though we were thrilled, we weren't in any way prepared for what was about to happen.

The Cat Welfare Association cares for up to 200 cats at any one time, so when you walk in, there are literally cats everywhere. In the saddest but most humane way possible, they keep all the FeLV+ positive cats quarantined in one room. Obviously, that's where we were headed. It was a small room, maybe 10'x10', but big enough for the five cats that occupied it. We could see four of them when we walked in, resting comfortably on two large cat trees that occupied one corner of the room. Our tortie was hiding in the farthest back corner. We asked the technician if we could spend some time in there to see if she came out to us, and of course they obliged.

Rae sat down on the floor, and almost immediately, this guy flopped into her lap:

I don't have any actual pictures from that moment, but it was pretty clear that he had chosen us. His name was Marvin, full name Starvin' Marvin, named after the character from South Park of many years past. As you can see from the picture, he's not a tortie. Almost instantly, we decided we were going home with two cats that day. I mean, how could we not?

A brief aside and thank you to Tortie, who we had to pull out from one of those cat trees just to see. I held her in my arms and she didn't try to run away, so I knew she felt safe with us. We owe her a thank you for not only continuing to be a part of our lives, but also for leading us to Marvin.

As is the case with many shelter adoptions, they were both in less than ideal shape. Tortie had matted fur in several areas, and Marvin had a nasty looking facial wound that was the smallest of the uphill battles he faced:

He had also been a victim of malnourishment before he had arrived at the shelter, and even though he had gained a few pounds in their care, you can see he was still emaciated by the time he walked into our lives:

Two weeks after we got him, we finally decided he was ready for a bath, and we discovered that he had a skin infection on his tail and other places. That led to the first of several vet visits:

Some antibiotics was the course of action and just kinda waiting to see how he fared. The vets kept us informed regularly that he was still in pretty bad shape, but doing OK all things considered. Throughout his first couple months in our home, he had his good days and bad. After one particularly bad day, we took him back to the vet and found out that he wasn't gaining any weight because he had pancreatitis on top of everything he'd already gone through. He was given more medication that helped alleviate the symptoms, and that's basically the pattern he'd go through for the foreseeable future.

Saying all of this, I'm amazed that he had such an amazing spirit about him. For example, I was home sick one day in early March, and he spent the entire day with me:

In fact, it was quite common for him to seek out any human in the room:

He would regularly greet our friends who came over as if he'd known them his whole life, and he used to wait for me at the door every day when I came home from work:

He looks pretty good up there, right? That pic was actually taken after he'd conquered another obstacle: having TWENTY teeth removed. Yes, after all the malnourishment and other internal issues, his teeth had suffered as well. You can see the area on his left front paw where they had shaven him to inject the IV for his meds during the surgery.

In that instance, the vet had to keep him overnight. When we spoke with them, they said he wasn't eating or acting normally for a cat that just had that procedure. We soon found out that it was because he was depressed, because when Rae showed up to pick him up the next day, he perked up. We had him back to "normal" for a little while, which included him attempting to get up on our table during meals:

That's one of the most interesting things I learned about Marvin. The shelter will never let us know the full backstory of how the cats came to be in their possession, but I sense that at some point in his life, he knew deep, unconditional human love before us (He was also probably fed from the table, or fed people food at some point!). We think his human may have passed away and he was abandoned in the process, perhaps having spent some time on the streets. Whatever it was, in spite of everything he'd been through before and also everything he went through while we had him, he was always so eager to love.

Shortly thereafter, he was doing better for a few weeks, but then he slowly started to decline. He got a cold, and even though we took him to the vet once again and got some more meds which helped a little, I'm not sure he ever fully recovered from it. As I said before, he'd have good days and bad. Nothing was truly concerning because he always seemed to bounce back. He was feeling well enough on some days to go out into our back yard with the other cats:

He really enjoyed that (they all do), but he did always stay close to us, rarely going off to explore. I really think he was afraid of being abandoned again. However, in the last two weeks or so, this became the norm when he wasn't eating:

And even though he would eat and eat and eat, sometimes up to 6 meals a day, he wasn't gaining any weight. It became somewhat of a running joke when we'd ask the cats if they wanted treats, none of the other cats would eat all of their treats and Marvin would pick up their leftovers. Treat time was always his favourite time of day.

You can probably see that his ears are flopped over in the above picture. We asked the vet and did some research on our own, but couldn't come to any definitive conclusion. Although it looks adorable, in hindsight we think that was his body telling us something. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, we were witness to a terrible episode where he tried ardently to get to the litter box but couldn't even hold it in before dropping a couple loose stools on the floor as he walked gingerly toward the bathroom.

He did make it to the box, but then he attempted to hide after he'd done his business. An animal in pain attempting to hide is a really bad sign. I found him crouched behind the bathroom door several minutes later, facing toward the corner and barely able to walk. We tried to get him to eat or drink, even resorting to trying to use syringes to gently force it down his throat. He didn't improve, so we frantically took him to the OSU Emergency Veterinarian.

They didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. They attempted to stabilize him, but they said he would need to be hospitalized if there was any hope of saving him. Knowing what he'd already been through, plus how he felt the last time we had to let him stay overnight at the vet, and with the added burden of upwards of $4,000 in additional medical expenses that might still have not ended up saving his life, we made the toughest decision. When I looked at him for the last time, his eyes still said "Thank you" even through all the pain:

To say that we were stunned and deeply saddened by this sudden turn of events would be an understatement. At this point, I've written almost 1,800 words about our special little guy and I can't find any to describe how I felt in that moment, how I managed to drive home, or how we found it in ourselves to dig a hole in our landscape to lay him to rest just a few hours later. One thing I don't want to forget to mention is that the loss of a beloved pet affects us as humans in ways we can't describe, but it also affects the lives of the other pets that shared his life. We let Minx and PAws in the yard yesterday, and the first thing they did was visit their dearly departed brother:

They've been acting differently over the last three days too. We all have. No cat is "just a cat" to anyone or anything who loves them. I've held it together the best I could have over the last three days, but I'm absolutely fucking broken inside right now.

There's always a silver lining. The old cliche "Everything happens for a reason" is something I do believe, and I also believe "There are no accidents." This whole thing was meant to teach us something, and Marvin chose to be our teacher. Maybe he wanted to show us that it's possible find happiness in spite of all the horrible things you may be forced to endure. Maybe he wanted to show us how to love and appreciate everyone and everything in our lives. Or maybe he was a desperate soul looking for a little bit of redemption in his final months and he needed us to set him free.

I don't know the answer, and we may never know the rest of his story. I do know that in time, we'll be OK with this. I miss him horribly. We all do. We are also all so much richer because he decided to be a part of our lives, no matter how brief that time may have been.