My Best Friend is Dead

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Paka the Cat
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

We buried our cat Paka this evening in the garden, next to a grapevine.

She was 15 years old, which is 76 in people years, but it still seemed too soon. Lots of cats live into their high teens. Some crack 20 years even. I wanted to grow old with my girl, to take care of her. But now she’s dead. I feel like a failure, like I’ve let her down.

Paka had an abscess no one knew anything about, and it was so bad they needed to put her under anesthesia. The vet said they’d do blood work to make sure she could take it, but I guess they did not reckon on her heart, which had had a murmur her whole life. I rushed to the vet after work Friday to get her — I did not want my girl spending the night in a strange place — and she seemed woozy but OK; she was a lot like I was when I came home from surgery in December.

Saturday she ate, took her meds and seemed to be on the mend. But by Sunday morning I knew something was wrong. Paka hid herself under the couch and was having trouble breathing. Panting is a sign of pain, so we wrangled her into position to give her pain medication. Afterward, I reached under the couch to pet her, and she cupped her head in my hand, looked at me and purred. She didn’t want me to stop. I didn’t want to stop. Sweet girl.

What we did not know then was that her breathing was labored because she was getting fluid in her lungs, and her heart was giving out. Paka knew she was dying, and wanted to be with me before she went.

But to my everlasting regret, we didn’t realize this at the time. We even went out foraging for a bit, my first trip since my injury. When we came back a couple hours later, Paka was in worse shape. She was barely responding.

It’s funny how we can hold things together only just so long. We got her into a carrier and swept her to the vet, which is a couple minutes away. I was OK. Calm, even. Maybe Paka was having a reaction to the medicine. Maybe she was going to be all right.

She wasn’t. Just before five o’clock, the vet told us to come in fast. When they’d taken her off oxygen to prepare her for a trip to a nearby emergency room, Paka stopped breathing. They put her on a ventilator so we could see her one last time. I looked into her eye, and she looked scared. I was scared, too. She died on the table, soaked in our tears.

I held her, sobbing, for a long time. We took her home and put her in a box with a soft towel. We sat there, stroking her fur, until the sun went down. And then we sat in the dark.

Even now, I can’t stop sobbing. I am a grown man, and I still can’t stop sobbing. My face hurts from so much sobbing.

Paka was much more than just a cat. I got her as a kitten, just a few months old, from a crazy cat lady in Bayport, Long Island, in the spring of 1996. I picked her out because she looked a little like a cat I’d had earlier named Gomez, a cat I lost when I broke up with my girlfriend at the time — she was a vet tech and could take better care of them than I could.

But I wanted a companion of my own. I lived alone then, although I was seeing the woman who, for a time, would become my wife; Jen was with me at the crazy cat lady’s place, and she chose a cat she named Savannah, because she looked like a cheetah. I named my little cat Paka, which means “cat” in Swahili. I actually named her Paka Potea, which is a Swahili pun. “Pata potea” means the same thing in Swahili as “so-so” does in English. I tell you this because that’s the origin of our other name for her — Tater — which comes from Holly calling her Paka Potato. Funny how we give our loved ones lots of little names.

For years, it was Paka who greeted me when I came home from work every night. For years, it was just me and her. Like butter and bread. I fed her everything and anything, especially fish bits. I was fishing a lot at the time, and Paka got all the stray parts. Of the three cats we live with, Paka was the only one who ate fish. She might have gotten a little rotund — OK, a lot rotund — but she was Falstaffian in her loves. Lots of food, lots of love and lots of sunshine.

Paka the Cat eating pheasant
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Every morning I had to find where the sun would hit and make sure some fell on the floor for Paka to pick up and play with. She’d roll back and forth for a while, then sleep purring for hours.

I have hundreds of stories about her, but the best is that of our journey from Virginia to Minnesota. Holly had left some months before, and I packed all my belongings into a U-Haul truck and set Paka in a carrier on the passenger seat, facing me. It was a 1,200-mile journey that was about to be made longer: The power steering gave out in Hagerstown, Maryland, and with it the air-conditioning. It was July.

Add to this the unhappy coincidence that every goddamn hotel between Ohio and Illinois was booked up, and you have a recipe for a cranky man and a cranky kitty. We drove through, non-stop, with only an hour’s nap break on the side of a road in Indiana somewhere. But Paka was a gamer. After an initial bout of yowling, she just sat there and looked at me, mile after mile. Every now and again she’d stick her paw out to touch my right arm. She was the sweetest cat ever.

By the time we reached St. Paul I was exhausted, and so was kitty. When we reached the apartment, I threw myself on the bed to sleep — and Paka hid underneath. When I finally woke up, I could hear her purring.

I’ve known a lot of cats. Most are nice, but a little aloof. Our pretty tuxedo princess Harlequin is a lovely cat, but she comes and goes as she pleases and could do quite well by herself outside; Harlequin is more of a colleague than a pet. And little Giblet is very much Holly’s kitty: They dote on each other all day long. No cat was ever like Paka. She came when I called. She knew her name. She knew to never wake me up in the morning. She’d eat anything.

All she wanted was food, water, and to be near me. And now she’s dead.

I know some of you are wondering how it is that I can be so wrecked by the death of one animal when I hunt to kill other animals. Is it a contradiction? Maybe. But I am in no place to coldly analyze it now.

All I feel is hollow, gutted. I was forced to sit for a day on jury duty, and while I was not called, I was surrounded by wretched examples of humanity: Clucking hens. Manipulative, wife-beating, white-trash lowlifes. Mad, Jesus-howling black men with Bibles and accusing looks. I’d give a hundred of their miserable lives to hold Paka one last time, to feel her warmth, to see contentment in her eyes, and to hear her purr, that Harley Davidson purr of hers. It will stay with me forever.

We decided to bury Paka next to the grapevine. It is in a corner of the garden, in a place I can see if I look out my kitchen window. And it is in the sunshine. Paka loved sunshine.

I will miss you, my sweet. I love you. Goodbye.

Paka the Cat
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Holly loved Paka very much, too. Here is her sweet story of our sweet kitty.

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About Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the internet’s largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and cook. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

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95 Comments

  1. Hank —

    This reminds me so much of Easter 2000, and the powerlessness I had, when I had to put down my buddy, Matahan Seochael (Scots for Peaceful Bear), a Chesapeake Bay retriever I received as a gift from a neighbor friend in Homer, AK in 1990. Brought him home in the snow, bundled in the pocket of my parka. By the following year’s fall, he was 100 pounds of duck and goose retrieving magic–often because of how we could communicate with eachother with only a look.

    …I’ve seen close friends die in combat and have found no difference in the uncontrollable, subconscious, response of emotional pain whether to the loss of a close human friend, or four-legged one…

    Even now with a new pup, I miss Seochael dearly and get a little sad that I, too, will probably outlive my year and a half old Brittany: it took ten years for me to get up the nerve to start again with Ziggy.

    …Death just sucks; no matter how we try, or or are told how best, to quantify or get meaning out of it–My deepest condolences to you and Holly…

    Best,
    Cork

  2. I’m so very sorry for your loss….I know you must be feeling so overwhelmed by grief and sadness. She was such a beautiful cat and shared such a loving relationship with you….its really beautiful.
    I lost my cat Sophie about 5 years ago — she was only 8 years old and died of gastrointestinal cancer. Horrible disease — she couldn’t eat anything or drink anything at the end and I had to watch her slowly wither away. It was by far the worst experience of my life. I cried for months afterwards. Sometimes, while commuting to and from work, I had to pull over because so many tears were streaming down my face that I couldn’t see properly. Now that 5 years have passed, the pain of losing her is not so bad, but rather has been replaced with bittersweet memories of her, and I keep her pictures all over my house.

    And now that the memories have come up big time for me, I have to cry now.

    Sending you a big hug,
    Beth

  3. Add my tears to those of the others. The first thing that struck me about your post was an eerie familiarity in both the wording to a post I wrote a year ago. I lost my special friend last March and in very similar circumstances. He was a little chihuahua I adopted from the pound, and he was (in every way) my best friend.

    You’re right. They do try to be with the ones they love at the end. My little man hung in for an entire night just to see me and be held by me. The previous night I had mistaken his symptoms for a chronic back condition he had. It wasn’t until the next morning that I saw just how ill he was and rushed him to the vet’s office, but he died within minutes of my arriving. I still feel horrible for not having him near me that night and not taking him in earlier (despite the doc saying there was little to no hope either way), and a dozen other incidents where I should have been more observant or nice or…just anything.

    But as much as it pains us to go through the process, it’s only natural to wonder “what if”…especially when dealing with the finality of death. My thoughts are with you, my prayers are with you, and I can tell you with surety that this will get better. You will always miss your girl, but it will get better.

  4. My deepest sympathy, Hank, to you and Holly. You’ve given Paka a bit of immortality with your words, and then they have been shared with all of your readers and with the people that they’ve told — such as my husband & my neice.
    So now she lives in many. That can’t lessen the pain of loss, but I hope it will comfort you in the future.

  5. I’ve only been reading your blog for a couple weeks and this post broke my heart. My cat is five, and he is my first pet, and I dread the day when I won’t be able to stop sobbing over his absence.

    I’m very sorry for your loss. I hope that your pain ebbs soon.

  6. My first visit to you blog, and this was the first entry I read. Actually, I stopped reading after Paka died. I feel for you and your family and I am sorry for you loss.

  7. Absolutely, truly sorry here. I lost a few dogs over the years and the loss of every one of them pained me beyond belief. I know what you are feeling. It hurts and no words from anybody can take that away. Take care. Time heals.

    regards
    Dan

  8. Hang in there. The pain never goes away, it just grows a little more distant every day. I miss my little man too, heart of hearts, the one true thing. Crying a tear for Paka and for you.

  9. Probably should not have read this at work. SOBBING! My best friend Rally died at 15 and your story brought back all that emotion. My parents brought her home to me when I was 18 months old and I never had a better friend growing up – or to this day. And your story was so close to mine right before she died.

    Cats are funny things. When you love them and they love you equally, it means so much more because they don’t need it as much as anything else on this planet.

    Good luck in your grief. Sadly, it never goes away. 🙁

  10. Hank,

    I’ve followed your site for awhile now, but haven’t commented before. So sorry to hear of your loss. I’m still beat up about losing my favorite bird a year ago, so I know what you’re going through. I have two cats (they were not responsible for the bird’s death–that was cancer) in varying stages of health, so I’m sure I’ll face something similar in the next few years. Again, my condolences.

  11. Dear Hank and Holly,
    Please let me add my condolences to these. I’m so sorry for your loss, and am crying along with you. Thanks for posting the beautiful photos of your wonderful companion. Hugs to you.

  12. My heart goes out to both you and Holly. Time heals the aching sorrow so much too slowly. When we lost Calvin to bone cancer in 2005, we could not bear to bring another into our lives. It was 2008 before we could open our hearts to another. There will be another that needs your kindness and caring. I know that is not much comfort now, but don’t shut the door to your hearts for too long a time. I have too much tears to write more. So sorry for your loss.

  13. I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your beloved fur friend Paka. She will live on in your hearts and memories, and your loving tribute. I share your tears for your sweet girl, and know your pain.

  14. Your comment about waiting for Paka’s footsteps made me think of the poem I wrote to my first cat, Max, who died in 2006 – a big, sleek, sweet black tomcat.

    Again, so sorry.

  15. I’m so sorry, Hank. Thanks for sharing this story – it’s a great tribute to her. Paka really was a beautiful girl, inside as well as out.

    Seems like, even though you’ll have many other pets and love them very much, there’s always one that’s just your soulmate. For me, it was the dog I got just after college. It was so much like this relationship. When she died, I cried for days. It took me three years before I could think about getting another dog.

    Hugs to you and Holly and Harlequin and Giblet.

  16. So, so sorry, Hank. I’ve been there too. I lost my best feline friend just before Christmas. She too was special, but I never found the words to express it the way you have here, about Paka. We just got two new cats, and as you say, they are lovely. But I’d give both of them away in a heartbeat for one more year with her. May we both find one more special cat to share our lives with in the time that remains to us. I know we’d be very lucky if we did. My condolences.

  17. I’m so sorry, Hank.

    My heart goes out to you, and Holly. I miss my first cat, Autumn, still. It’s been over a decade since my mother called with the news that I was not home, and could never get home in time. No matter how hard it was to hold her, I envy you that ability to see her and to say goodbye. Pets teach us to care, and be cared for – to love, and to be loved, unconditionally.

    Thank you for sharing her life, and her loss, with us.

  18. Trudy, my beloved cat is 18 years old and is # 6 in my life. We’ve shared life together for 10 1/2 years, and since DH died 12 1/2 years ago, she is all I have. I moved 11 years ago and left behind a cat memorial with 3 loved ones in a Hummingbird Garden.

    A cat can be a child and a pet; Trudy is and it sounds like yours was too.