Ode

Squidgy had to be put down yesterday. He had tumors and a lot of blood issues that we weren't really aware of. Over the last two weeks, he had been spending all of his time in the laundry room on the washing machine or in the dryer. Mar found him in a pretty bad way yesterday and decided to take him to the vet. We both knew he didn't seem to be doing very well, but thought he just needed some medicine. So it was a shock to find out how bad of a situation he was in.
Squidgy and I didn't really get along very well most of the time (and that's an understatement). He woke me up all the time, peed on my stuff, and cried this awful scream that sounded like a human baby. But I've been really bummed out since he died, and there's two main reasons. One, I've lived with him for nearly five years. When anything or anyone that substantial becomes part of your routine for that long, there's a drastic change in the atmosphere when it's gone. Our house feels different now, even if it's quieter and dryer. Two, it's difficult for me to think about how something so relatively simple as a cat's body can become so diseased. It's obviously more tragic when a person dies of disease, but I think I've become almost immune to the idea of people contracting diseases because you hear about it happening so often. When it happens to a cat and you actually consider what's going on inside their bodies, it just seems very grotesque and upsetting.
Like I said, I didn't really have a lot of good times with Squidgy. But even though he was my nemesis, sometimes when I would lie on the couch to watch TV, he would lie on my chest and it was really comfortable and nice. Then he would stand up and push his front paws under my ribcage, and it drove me nuts. Regardless, I'm sad he's gone and wish he was still here.