About a Cat

Some words about unexpected diagnoses and singing to survive, about relieving the pain of a loved one and end-of-life morality, about personal grief and global trauma, about Earl "The Pearl" Starshine

On the last Wednesday in September, Kate and I took our short-haired ginger tabby named Earl to the emergency veterinary clinic for an MRI. The procedure was meant to confirm a viral ear infection the ER vet identified a week prior. Fearing it was spreading to Earl’s brain, she wanted to verify the diagnosis and treatment. 

It was the culmination of a tough few months for the eight-and-half-year-old we called “Early.” Last January, he began tilting his head in a way that Kate thought was the aftermath of a mild stroke, and the vet warned could be the result of an issue with his vestibular nerve. Then over the summer, this strong big-boy of a cat, who’d caught his share of mice and once stalked toddlers and elders with intent, began losing balance, acting increasingly frail. The ER vet said these were common side-effects of the ear infection, but assured us that it was largely curable. The fact that Early was in good spirits with a healthy appetite likely meant we caught it in time, she said, and putting him on antibiotics would revive him over 10-12 weeks. The MRI, enabled by pet insurance Kate splurged for after his pre-pandemic kidney problem cost us a month’s rent, would corroborate that course.  

I was deep in my writing head when the call-back from the clinic came in. The ER vet and I’d met only once, when she issued Early’s diagnosis, but I took to her bedside manner pretty much right away. She spoke with a graceful empathetic tone and deep southern drawl, carried a strong queer-woman demeanor (mohawk, cut-sleeves black t-shirt), melding salt-of-the-earth warmth and no-bullshit professionalism. Kate found online evidence suggesting she was a proponent of holistic and herbal medical practices for animals, which pretty much sealed the trust. “Is this Earl’s dad?” the vet asked. Except the phone line’s static and her accent made it sound like “Earl’s dead!” and I felt my heart explode from my chest. He wasn’t dead. But my mind began racing towards oblivion, tuning the world to a different frequency.  

Was I near my email? she now asked. Could I open the attached images? Did I see the tumor on his brain? (Yes, it was large, inescapable even to my untrained eye.) The big white blotch on the MRI scan was operable, she was now saying, but because of its placement, there were few guarantees of his either surviving the surgery, or fully recovering. Her voice was sympathetic but inescapably downcast. Would I like to discuss end-of-life procedures and planning? Fighting the in-rolling fog, I told her we could have that conversation when my entire family arrived to pick up Early. Two hours later, Kate, the kid and I sat in one of the clinic’s observation rooms, listening to how long our cat could remain comfortably alive without intervention (not long), being given options. 

When we brought him back home, Early instinctively jumped out of the suppressive, too-small carrier. Still high on procedural anesthesia, with no command of his limbs, he continuously fell over, crashing into furniture, visibly petrified. This was the first in a series of moments over the next nine days, during which we all broke down, sobbing without abandon. Tears lamenting what was happening, and what would follow.

In our family, serious discussions take place around the dinner table, the one time of the day we’re all focused and functional. I am a proud dad and husband when I say most such exchanges retain healthy emotional equilibrium, leaving little ignored, shared agony be damned. Everyone gets their say, decisions are communal. Considering our experience since the pandemic kicked off — a string of deaths and ongoing illnesses of friends and loved ones, debates on the humane aspects of forestalling the inevitable — there was unanimous desire not to prolong Early’s suffering. The question of how, when and where remained open. 

Upon consulting friends who’d recently said good-bye to cherished pets, we agreed that Early’s final breaths should take place in peace at home, rather than on a cold metal table of a clinic. Kate found an end-of-life vet who could make a house call one week from Friday (the kid sensibly forestalled their trauma by requesting a weekend to recover), and a death day was set.    

***

It was the then-four year-old who’d asked for a cat — had, in fact, kept asking for a cat, smitten with photos and claiming impossible memories of the two aging felines Kate and I brought to our marriage. (Both passed soon after the child’s birth.) The white’n’red-haired kitten was adopted on a weekend when the Mets were losing the World Series to the Royals, and I was writing an essay on Raymond Pettibone’s surf paintings. The child, who at the time was enthralled with rainbows, unicorns and blinking-light sneakers, named him “Starshine.” But after a couple of weeks, even the kid recognized it as unwieldy, so a family brainstorm on Mr. Starshine’s new “first” name ensued. 

Though the kitten had only been with us for a short time, his aggressive “trashy bro” attitude was instantly evident. The contentious relationship with his primary owner was especially clear: the cat didn’t pledge kinship to the kid, more like developed a competition. His low-level violence and reactionary temper would never fully subside — he scratched me up mere weeks before passing, summoning a final rage when I momentarily pulled back on the rubs. But he wasn’t bad or dangerous, so much as an occasional asshole. The name we agreed on, “Earl,” seemed tailor-made for that attitude. (Yes rap fans, “Starshine”-”Sweatshirt” word similarities did come up.) As an aging Knicks fan, I attached the middle-name sobriquet — and the ballad of Earl “the Pearl” Starshine was ready for performance. 

All on its own, that name (“Earl the cat!”), and the cute story behind it, brightened its share of faces. So too did the evolution of Earl’s attitude. Like other trashy bros, he could be an amusing hang, especially once he aged out of youthful chaos, calmed down, and began to trust you. Regular visitors basked in his company for the low low price of mostly-accepted chin rubs, and unerring attention. (Though it did put his ongoing stand-off with the kid in continuing sharp contrast — and eventually resulted in another cat in the house, one whose loyalty the kid demanded and, thankfully, received.)

Soon enough, Earl found his place in our unit, asserting likes and demands. He came to love Kate’s legs, which were a curling place of nightly rest, and her lap, the throne on which he’d lie sphinx-like, paw-over-paw during morning tea. He also fully embraced an Earl-of-the-manor role — most assertively when mice invaded our apartment after a warehouse adjacent to our building was torn down. For a couple of years, it was common to be awakened by sounds straight out of Wild Kingdom, and find the nightly kill left ceremoniously for us in the center of a room on the morning after. Though, of course, as bros are wont, he’d also occasionally get bored and lazy, abandoning his post, toying with rodents before letting them escape. 

You could say Earl’s heart wasn’t fully into being a predator. But you could say he wasn’t particularly devoted to most aspects of luxurious confinement. He didn’t much care for purring, nor was he overly demanding or spoiled, ignoring all but the most low-IQ treats. Towards the beginning of his adult life, Earl made it pretty clear he was mostly seeking warmth and on-time meals. If he provided comfort in return, just by getting his…well, didn’t that seem like a good deal all around? 

Early and I managed to live in pleasant proximity for almost five years before cultivating a bond not defined by our traditional roles. It developed in the precarity of lockdown. I was drinking a lot, perpetually fearful, arriving late to bed where Early was already wrapped around Kate’s legs. At the pandemic's onset, I began voraciously reading books again, a lot of poetry, dusting off an Allen Ginsberg brick I’d lugged around since college. (“Kaddish” seemed apropos.) At first, Earl would watch me from the snug of his curl, but then he’d disentangle from my wife to come join me. Sometimes he’d look at the words on the page, then stare at me in a way cats do when questioning the sanity of their caretakers. Mostly, he’d push his head into my hand, insinuating his desire. 

Once I settled in bed, Early would park his 13lb build on my chest, head slightly raised and still. Eyes locked into mine. It became a nightly ritual. I’d rub beneath his chin, scratch the doze-inducing space between his eyes, rough-house round his ears a bit, obliging as silently commanded. We would just lie there, sometimes for what seemed like hours, in the middle of the night, a man petting his cat, the bedside lamp casting shadows, the spare but constant litany of ambulance sirens pulling out of the nearby EMS station cutting the stillness. I was able to fall asleep easier afterwards.  

At some point, I also began singing to Early. In a way, it made up for no longer being able to serenade the kid, who’d by then grown too old for lullabies I’d repurposed from classic-rock memories. But Early did not receive my renditions of “Ripple” or “After Hours.” During that grief-stricken year, I was hardly the only writer/critic using music to try to make sense of the unfolding confusion, reinterpreting ballads and break-up songs by projecting onto them existential loss. So there I’d be, with a furry attentive audience of one, quietly warbling “Tracks of My Tears” or “Soul and Fire” (or, later, a new chorus that lodged itself inside my head: “you said forever, now I drive alone past your street”). It was music of a future remembrance, and meant to assuage my fears, another attempt to access my own humanity in crisis, to hear the sound of my voice’s vulnerability at a time I dared not express it by day.

Earl “the Pearl” Starshine lay on my chest and took it all in, sometimes even resting his head on his paws, closing his eyes, as if to infer, “Go on, I get it.” Once my performance ended though, and I shut off the light, he would curtly raise himself from my chest and return to the harbor of Kate’s legs.

***

Like most people, I’ve never previously scheduled the death of something I dearly love. I recognize this is not a healthy way to interpret the final week of Earl’s life. A wise friend studying to be a Buddhist monk offered some perspective, writing me that it wasn’t death which animals feared but pain, confused by their own deterioration. Yet that complicity is part of the memory that continues to hang over me. 

Even after Kate, the kid and I came to our decision, we spent time second-guessing it. Clearly, we recognized Earl’s physical decline. He was increasingly spinning in place, looking for direction. He walked alongside walls to balance himself from falling over. He had trouble climbing up to his beloved window-sill box — so much so Kate and I began carrying him to our bed at night. Early’s aimless wobbles prompted us to begin calling him Bubbs, after Bubbles from The Wire. And yet…his mood and appetite remained good enough that we could not help but ask, Who are we to play this role? 

With the date a full week away, daily sanity demanded detached continuity. Yet the time was entirely framed by Early’s impending disappearance. Each small action became part of a long goodbye. The tear-jerking torture that Kate described as a purgatorial hell of projected meaning. Here was the last fresh liter he’d ever poop into — I’m sure he enjoyed that. Here was his last wander into our apartment-building’s hallway — did the self-recognition of his condition usher him back inside quicker than usual? A neighbor who often fed Earl when we were out of town stopped by to gave him a few parting rubs — I couldn’t bear to witness that. 

I spent the penultimate day of Early’s life in our living room, choosing records for the Present Sounds gig that evening. As I played them, I’d glance over at Earl in his box, watching him watch me back. He was inspiring me to new levels of grieving middle-age emo. I listened to Ross Gay’s 15-minute “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” twice, and came over to hug him and to cry again. I then chickened out of playing it at the gig. 

I returned late, after everyone was already asleep, to find Early in our bed, comfortably ensconced in Kate’s legs, awake, staring at me. Over the past week, I’d re-instigated our lockdown ritual, welcoming him onto my belly for more gentle caresses. His weight was still mostly there, yet with a pronounced tilt to the left. On this night, I called to him, as I usually did, by scratching the blanket to make a lightly piercing sound Early always responded to. He lifted his head interestedly, arose in that casual, feline upward-stretch fashion I always interpreted as, “OK, fine, I’ll get up,” and started navigating the blanketed limbs between he and my chest. But unsteady, he fell over, and then looked at me heartbreakingly. That final night, I slid down the bed a bit, and went to him.     

Friday, October 6th began like any other day that’s ever been, at least in recent years. The kid was late-ish to school, Kate was off to a couple of morning shoots in the city, while I remained at home to do house-work. I found a large cat poop outside the litterbox, the first time I’d done so since Earl was a kitten. At one point, Early tried to join me on the couch, but missed his jump and came crashing to the floor. I picked him up and placed him next to me, but, his pride damaged, he successfully navigated back to his beloved box. He remained there for nearly the rest of his life.  

Around 4p, a text came in that the euthanasia vet was outside. We’d asked her not to ring the bell, as the sound of impending visitors had recently begun spooking Earl into hiding. He eyed the new arrival with typical suspicion, but stayed put. She asked us to recount his health history (a final check-and-balance, we later guessed), and then explained the procedure. There would be two injections: one would sedate him to sleep after a few minutes, the next would stop his heart. Early would feel no pain, the vet assured. 

I lifted him into my arms and brought him over to the family on the couch. Early did not try to jump away until the first shot went into his upper thigh, at which point he made a beeline for under the dining table, his instinctive reaction sure and steady. But that focus subsided almost instantaneously. As I sat on the floor reaching out to him, he again began faltering, before losing his legs on the carpet. His body was limp, his open eyes blank when I picked him up off the floor, Kate bawling on the couch, the kid off to the side working the sensory chew necklace for all it’s worth. 

And as I often do when I need to calm myself, I began signing. It was a simple little chant-tune I’d made up eight years prior, right after we had fully christened him, and were giddy with the name we’d chosen. The song consisted of nothing but that name: “Earl The Pearl Starshine / Earl The Pearl Starshine.” As I serenaded him, tears streaming down my face, Early’s head rested on my left shoulder, his freckled jowls stretched out, his breathing deep and even. Kate and the kid joined me in the song, moving in to apply final living kisses.

“Maybe we should put him in the box,” offered the vet. We agreed that it was a good idea, his favorite place was to be his final rest. So we laid a towel-blanket into the cardboard long embedded with Early’s fur, and that’s where she administered the second shot. At 4:40p she pronounced him gone, and covered him with another towel.

***

There’s an odd sense of relief at finally letting go of someone who’s been leaving for a while. That relief exists besides the sadness, it doesn’t replace it. 

Having consumed a week battling with ourselves over questions of morality (is that even the right word?) while shepherding Early beyond his pain, Kate, the kid and I spent Friday evening stuck in a weekend rush-hour traffic jam, exchanging one simple story after another. We grieved with open hearts, working to heal the shared scar with tears that were lighter than the ones we’d been recently shedding, with the softness that memories carry as surely as hardship. We smiled, thanking Early for his life and for the joy he brought us. It was a moment of personal sorrow, and we basked at being in it, feeling it. Alone but together. 

Yet the world at-large has this strange habit of intervening, of weaving together the fabric of personal tragedies with global trauma. It’s not that you don’t know where one ends and the other begins, it’s that one becomes emotionally subsumed into the other. On Saturday, the window of time defined for me by our private grief came to a halt, and the moment of a renewed collective agony was upon us all. They are now forever intertwined. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. 

RELATED RECENT READING:

Hanif Abduraqib, “We’re More Ghosts Than People” (The Paris Review, October 2023)

Sarah Wildman, “Life After Loss Is Awful. I Need To Believe That It’s Also Beautiful.” (New York Times, August 2023)

T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939)