We came home from a birthday party in Raleigh, set our coats down in the kitchen, and Carl came trotting in to greet us as he always does with his trademark “ba-kow” hello. Laurie asked me to fill her water container, and I stepped over to the sink.

“Oh! What’s happening! He can’t walk! Nate!” I quickly turned around to see Carl take one step further, freeze, and fall flat on his side on the kitchen floor. His legs stretched out in an unnatural pose, then he started twitching. I dropped to the floor, trying to comfort him, cooing and petting, thinking maybe he’d snap out of it. Laurie asked “What should we do?! Should we call the vet?” I grabbed my phone and dialed the vet using their fridge magnet ad.

The phone just rang. Carl took three gasps of air, paused, one final gasp, and he was still. The phone rang more. Nobody was answering. Then Carl started shivering, but quickly went still again.

“I think...he’s dead. I think we just watched him die.” I hung up the phone, unsure of what I would say.

We sat there staring.

“Laurie, he’s dead. He’s not breathing.”

Carl’s eyes were wide, glassy, his mouth open with his few remaining teeth visible. It happened so fast. We were in shock, continuing to stare at his still body. I pet him a few times. “Oh, buddy.” Hazel nonchalantly came over to inspect, sniffed Carl, and I pushed her away. I half-expected her to freak out, but she seemed totally disinterested. Typical cat.

I called the vet again. We had a vet appointment for him in just two days to get his teeth cleaned and get some more scans and a calcium panel. He had been breathing weird for months, mostly when purring. He’d puff out breaths from his open mouth. The vet finally answered. “We have an appointment in a few days but our cat just had a seizure and died in front of us.” She said we could bring him in for cremation, but they closed in an hour, so we needed to bring him right away.

I wrapped Carl in a white towel, and gently laid him in his favorite cardboard box that he had been using for years. We jumped back in the car and headed towards the vet.

Halfway there, I started questioning the plan. I asked why we weren’t burying him on our property. “We’re going to take him to a strange place where they’ll put him in a cooler until the cremation guy comes once a week, then we’ll drive back and get some dust. Why wouldn’t we just bury him?” Laurie insisted I should do whatever I wanted, it was up to me. I pulled over into a gas station to fill our tank while I thought. Soon after, I called the vet while exiting the parking lot, and mistakenly found myself turning left on a busy road with a large divider, and floored our van over the divider, scraping the bottom. “Never mind! We’re going to bury him!”

Carl was only 15, but he had been struggling with a series of health issues over the last few years. Steady weight loss and an unnatural thirst led to a pancreatitus diagnosis. Then a few months later kidney disease, then hyperthyroidism. He was drinking copious water and filling the catbox every day. Beginning this year, his weight dropped to ten pounds and change. This was a cat that was 21 lbs at his peak, and typically hovered around 18 to 19 for most his life.

Seeing him so skinny was shocking, but throughout all these health issues, he continued to be active and played with me every night. He was a good buddy through and through. A gentle cat brother, first with Eva, the wild feral beast he somehow convinced to share grooming duties & snuggles. Then with Hazel, though she would only let him sleep nearby, no touching. He was so patient with her.

I buried him by the creek in his favorite box. I figured he’d enjoy the water sounds. Sitting and listening to a creek drift by is one of my favorite things to do.