Saying Goodbye

The Surreal Act of Euthanasia

Welcome to Being Animal. This newsletter explores the intricacies of human-animal relationships. Through personal stories, commentary on current events, and thought-provoking debates, I hope to challenge your assumptions and deepen your understanding of how animals are treated in our society. How we treat animals matters— for our own health, for our planet, and for our sense of morality and humanity.

I want to make the world a better place for animals. To do this, we have to change how we think about animals. This week, I write about my sweet cat’s final days. Putting an animal down is heartbreaking but merciful. It teaches us about our own mortality, and most importantly, it provides lessons for living our days with joy and peace.

Sammi in 2018

“How do you feel about adopting an older cat?” the shelter worker asked me. I had never thought about adopting a senior cat, to be honest, so I was a little taken aback.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think that would be fine,” I stumbled.

“Because we have the sweetest girl that might be just what you’re looking for,” the worker continued as she led me to one of their rooms. “She’s so friendly and cuddly.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’d love to meet her.”

The first time I saw Sammi she was in a room full of cats. When we opened the door to come in, she jumped down from her perch, meowed, and came over to greet us, just like a dog would. Every other cat in the room ignored us, or simply looked skeptically our way. Sammi wanted to see who we were. She came up right away and rubbed against our legs before retreating to her corner of the shelter room.

She was twelve years old, and her previous owner was too elderly to take care of her responsibly anymore, so she ended up at this shelter. She had been there for a while already, because a 12-year-old cat is a tough sell for people looking for a long-term friend. Sammi was already heading towards the fall and winter of her life, I knew, even as I was meeting her for the first time.

I followed her and bent down to pet her. Her bright blue-green eyes and tiny pink nose captured my heart. I knew it was right.

When I filled out the adoption paperwork, they asked me what name I would call her. She had already lived 12 years with her name—Sammi—so I kept it.

When Sammi came home, she purred so much, and so continuously, that I googled whether a cat could have a purring disorder. I was so anxious; she was my first pet, and I knew what a big responsibility caring for an animal was. But she made it easy. She luxuriated in the sun, hid in suitcases and bags, and curiously stuck her head into the nooks and crannies of the apartment. She was happy. Right away, she somehow knew she was home.

For about three or four years, Sammi was perfect and healthy. She would climb up onto my desk and nap near my warm laptop while I studied during law school and follow me to the kitchen when I cooked dinner. She would jump up onto the couch with me and crawl into my lap, sometimes even climbing up to my shoulders or onto the back of the couch. She was curious, and brave, and strong.

Sammi helping me study in law school.

But soon she started slowing down. She stopped jumping up onto things taller than a foot or two. She started sleeping more and stopped greeting me at the door. In the last year, she stopped grooming as much, and stopped jumping altogether.

She had a litany of medical ailments arise over the past year, too: arthritis, kidney disease, heart disease, and finally, cancer.

I knew it was inevitable. But still, it was hard to watch her decline, slowly, slowly, painfully.  

This week, we made the impossible decision to put her down. She was nearly 18 years old, and her body was giving out. We could have delayed it, treated her conditions, and kept her insides alive; but her outsides were falling apart. She could barely walk, and she stopped doing any of the things that usually brought her joy. She was starting to resemble only a shell of herself, sleeping curled up for most of the day.

Once I made the decision to form a plan for the end of her life, I agonized over when to actually do it. There is nothing more surreal than scheduling a death, putting it on your calendar as a macabre practicality, organizing the chaos of the unknown with a simple time and a place. The scheduling of it was so strange, reducing a beautiful, creative, sensuous life to a line item on an app on my phone.

My wonderful vet looked me in the eyes and told me it’s the right thing. She said, it’s beautiful, it’s a gift. She told me, it is so peaceful, I promise. We both cried and petted this gentle, rickety creature, as we talked about final preparations.

Euthanasia is an incredible opportunity to care for a creature’s final moments. It’s an opportunity to reflect on life, to prevent suffering, and to make choices about what really matters. All animals deserve such a peaceful and humane end to their lives, even though very few are lucky enough to experience it. But watching Sammi fall asleep for the final time was simply devastating—there’s no other way to put it.

We will all die, because we are all subject to our finite, imperfect, animal bodies. None of us know how we will decline, only that we will. And that’s why euthanasia is so powerful: it takes back a tiny piece of control from this otherwise unknowable universe. It bestows the ultimate gift on the creatures we love the most: eternal peace.

The force and fact of death is unrelenting. It marches towards us steadily, a train on tracks of unknowable length and course, but with a certain destination. Every moment bears us closer to it, against our will, against our wishes. I’m reminded of the last line of the Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Every moment is fleeting, pushing mercilessly forward, constantly shifting the ratio of “before now” and “after now” until there’s no more time left.

But the force of life is also remarkably powerful. The body is a formidable thing, its will to live stunningly strong. Even in the face of death’s inevitability, we still fight it with courage and hope and kindness. And the unbridled joy and love so many of us experience in the course of our days is nothing short of magical. It defies the emptiness of death to fill our days with goodness and warmth.

I always knew I would be only a part of Sammi’s life, just like she would be only a part of mine. She lived 12 years before meeting me, and only spent six in my care. Our lives were on parallel tracks that were lucky enough to merge for a time. I didn’t get all of her, and she didn’t get all of me. We co-existed, grateful for the years we had together, co-habitants on this planet and in my home.  

Adopting a senior cat was certainly a hard choice. The end came too soon in our time together, and the proportion of “good years” to “bad years” was much closer to 50/50 than anyone would want. But shepherding Sammi through her final years on this planet was an amazing experience. The love she and I had for each other was deep and abiding. It was simple: she purred on my lap, happy to be with me, and I petted her, happy to be with her.

And that love isn’t gone, just reshaped. As my wife told me, grief is a privilege; it means I loved hard enough to mourn its loss. And that’s a rare gift.

Today, I’m haunted by thoughts about Sammi’s final days and weeks, her waddling gait, her digestive issues, her fatigue.

But someday soon these memories will shift like sand underfoot, and I’ll remember falling asleep with her head resting on my forearm, feeling her tiny breaths exhale on my skin. I’ll remember her following me around my apartment, sleeping and grooming wherever I was. I’ll remember her chasing sunlight on the walls. I’ll remember the joy she felt when she came home with me that first time, trusting me to care for her with an openness and an earnestness that should inspire us all.

Being animal means being mortal; it means facing endings with bravery and vulnerability and grace. Sammi certainly did that, and she reminded me about the stunning beauty and tenderness of life, too. No matter what, we must all push forward, opening our minds and hearts to the fullness of life that awaits us.

Rest easy, sweet girl.