Remembering Angelo

on the 5th anniversary of his death

Author photo. 2019.

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of my cat Angelo’s death. He’d just turned 20 the previous month. He was lying on the sofa when he started breathing rapidly, which was unusual. I tried not to panic, but I knew something was wrong. Because he was a senior cat, I wondered if this was it. If this would be the last time he visited the veterinarian.

My husband and I drove him to the emergency vet immediately. When we arrived, we called the front desk and told them what was happening. They sent a tech to our car to retrieve him. This was during the pandemic so we weren’t allowed inside the building. A short moment later, we received a call from the doctor and put it on speaker phone. She said Angelo had entered respiratory failure. He didn’t have a lot of time left and she wanted to know if he should be euthanized.

My heart sank. It beat so rapidly I thought it would pop out. My head was heavy as a bowling ball. I chastised myself for thinking earlier if this was it. I must have jinxed him.

My husband and I glanced at each other. He gave me a questioning look that told me it was my decision to make. I said yes. I didn’t want him to suffer any longer.

Angelo was the first of our cats for whom we weren’t in attendance during the procedure because of Covid. We didn’t get to say goodbye. Yet afterwards, they allowed us inside so we could see him. The room was dim, and he had been set on a towel on the exam table. Angelo’s eyes were partially open, but it was obvious his spark had been extinguished.

Angelo was a black-and-white kitten hanging out in the courtyard of our apartment building when we first met. It was a calm, spring day and he let us pet him, so I knew he wasn’t feral though we’d never seen him before. It turned out our college-aged neighbors downstairs left him behind when they moved out at the end of the semester. I don’t know why they didn’t take him to a shelter instead of leaving him to fend for himself.

We saw him once again, lying next to the brick wall of Angelo’s, the pizza joint across the street. His white fur was now dirty. He allowed me to pick him up, and I asked the delivery drivers waiting in the parking lot if he belonged to any of them. They shook their heads no. We brought him upstairs.

Angelo grew to be a big boy and weighed 15 pounds at his heaviest. His vet said we needed to put him on a diet and feed him separately from our other two cats so he wouldn’t eat their food. I found a ball with holes on the surface. It was hollow and could be filled with treats or kibble. It was an enrichment toy that allowed a cat to exercise his hunting instincts. We called it the Ball Diet and thought it would slow him down. Instead, he figured out all he had to do was whack the ball against the wall and it would open up and spill the dry food. He was clever.

Author photo. 2020.

He was the gentlest cat. Angelo slept with me every night, in the crook of my arm like a teddy bear. He was very much a lap cat and spent a good part of his days sitting on me, kneading his paws onto my thighs. He followed me from room to room and we napped together on the couch on lazy days.

He was, however, a monster on his vet visits. It took three techs to trim his nails and he growled and hissed the entire time. Once the vet had to gas him momentarily just so she could examine him. One of the customer service reps cat sat for us and told me she was surprised to see a red flag on his file because he was so sweet.

As he aged, he developed kidney disease and was put on a special diet, which helped slow the progress. He was healthy and looked great when he turned 20. He was our oldest surviving cat.

After his death, we got rid of his litter boxes and other cat paraphernalia. It was too painful to see them unused every day. My lap was empty, and my naps were lonely.

Angelo taught me that a loving relationship can exist between an animal and a human. Ours was a long one in which he sometimes tried my patience. He stole food off my plate several times, hiding behind the toilet where it was hard to get at him. But mostly, he made me feel loved. I still miss his presence.

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