Misha

On a Friday, during the third week of quarantine, my second oldest cat died.

I got Misha when she was six weeks old.  One of my students told me that his cat had had kittens and one was all black.  My cat Lurch -- whom I had gotten when I was 19 -- had just passed, and Viktor, my remaining cat, was lonely.  I guess I was lonely too, because I couldn't resist her little black furballness.  

She was always fat, even outside of the long hair.  She loved to sit on the scale (see photo) and we used to joke that she was watching her weight.  

She ran away once for six weeks when Tiernen was a junior in high school.  Tiernen was so upset, she broke out in hives and had to get IV steroids because the doctors were afraid she was going to go into anaphylactic shock.  

About two years ago, when she was 11, Misha started to get thinner.  I figured it was old age because Lurch was always fat and when he turned 13 or 14, he really thinned out.  When we went to the vet or our regular appointment, he said she had hyperthyroidism:  she would be ravenously hungry but would lose a ton of weight.  I was jealous.

Over the next two years, Misha got thinner and thinner. Meds didn't work.  Changing her diet didn't work.  She was hungry all the time and stole food from the other cats, from the kids, from us.  She ate anything and everything.  Again, jealous.

But she died.  We found her under the kitchen table. She was already cold when we found her so she must have passed in the night.  I hope she wasn't in any pain.

When we found her, I told Tiernen to take the kids upstairs.  Darryl was at work.

Except here's the problem:  the ground is too hard to dig a hole to bury her.  All the vets are closed unless it is a life or death emergency.  (she's already dead, so...)

So I froze her.  Yup, as gross as that sounds, I did.  I didn't know what else to do.  I went down to my basement and took all the frozen food from our freezer chest.  I wrapped her in a bag and put her inside a styrofoam cooler that my brother gave me.  She will stay there until it warms up and we can give her a proper burial.

If you ask Joshua, "What happened to Misha?" he will tell you, "she died."  He is two, so I don't know how much about death he understands.  He knows that the daddy died in The Good Dinosaur.  I don't know.

Once, Joshua asked me if Misha was going to be a monster now and get him.  I told him she would not.  He does not know she is in the freezer downstairs. 

But I do.  I pass it every day when I do laundry.  It makes me sad and it is morbid but I don't know what else to do...