In Remembrance

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM….A STORY OF TRANSITION   

Billy was brought to Cat Care of Fayette by a Good Samaritan. When I first saw him, he was still a “tattered coat upon a stick”.  Peter and I had enough cats and other responsibilities with no time to nurse a very sick cat.  But that didn’t matter.   We adopted Billy.

I knew that Billy was dying….not tomorrow, maybe not the next day or week, but soon.   Billy was at least sixteen years old.  He had suffered the pain of abandonment, starvation in the wild, infections, and dehydration.  He was fortunate to have a warm place and caring attendants at Cat Care.   I knew he would be looked after; but we couldn’t let him die in a cage, no matter how warm.  By adopting him, we had to accept that we would be the ones to watch Billy go through the final portal, giving him that last dignity we all desire, someone to mourn us when we make that transition to the next plane.

I knew from the beginning that Billy was on a journey and that I could only go part way with him.  Unable to say or think “Billy is dying,” I said instead “He’s Sailing to Byzantium”.  That is why I named him William Butler Yeats, who saw Byzantium as his ideal afterlife and death an escape from infirmity.

Billy was with us for nine months.  We saw him through all the effects of the deprivation from living in the wild.  We nursed him through prolonged infections.  Three months after he came to live with us, his doctor identified a large abdominal tumor.  We were able to slow the growth with prednisone, but we knew our time with him was short.  Pain medicine available, we waited and watched as the tumor became so enlarged that Billy looked like he was carrying saddlebags.

From the beginning Billy was a “soft paw”.  He would climb on my lap or on the bed and gently touch my face or arm with his paw, his way of asking me to stroke him.  He would lie on my chest, head tucked beneath my chin, and sleep contentedly.   As the tumor grew, he found it difficult to jump upon the couch or bed.  Peter and I would lift him.  He resisted being carried to his box.  Somehow getting to the litter box was a matter of pride for him. He would painstakingly walk to the box, the bulging tumor affecting his balance.   Gingerly placing his front feet in the litter box, he thought he was accommodated at last.  We didn’t complain about the resulting puddle spreading around his back feet.  We gave him his privacy and then cleaned up after him with no complaint. We brought his dish to him to eat.  We pureed chicken and rice for him.  We fed him baby food.  Each morning we faced the fear of what the night may have brought.  Each day we waited for what the vet said would be the sign that it was time to let go.  She said we would know and she was right.

  One day Billy struggled to climb upon the couch.  I helped him.  He sat beside me.  He big sad eyes fixed on mine and slowly, so slowly y he lifted his old paw and patted my arm.  Then he lay his head down on my hand.   It was time.  Billy had arrived at Byzantium.   He was read to disembark.

Billy came into my life when I was struggling with the tragic death of a loved one, a struggle which would shake my faith.  Nearly a year had passed since her death.  No one could help me put her loss away.   Somehow Billy helped me do that.  He helped me to return to my belief that we are spirits, Billy and I and my departed aunt.  We came from a place of well being, taking on the temporary form of human and cat, and we return at last to that same place from whence we came, that place of kindness and well being, our Byzantium.

*Quotations are from William Butler Yeats poem “Sailing to Byzantium” published in his collection, The Tower

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