Requiem for Motor

On Monday evening, December 2, 2013, Motor went to that pet garden somewhere around heaven where St. Francis of Assissi is now taking very good care of him. His passing showed us that he loved us even more than we had ever known. His kidneys had failed and he was unable to move. Yet, when almost dying, as I stroked his fur, he would blink his eyes, and would close them in that cuddly manner as he used to do in our beds when preparing himself to sleep next to one of us. He would even utter a feeble, faint, almost inaudible meow as if wanting to tell me something.

On Sunday he had gone from getting quieter to becoming lethargic. It was not possible to wait until the next day. I took him to an emergency veterinary hospital in Swansea, MA. The prognosis was not good at all. I returned home at about 2:00 a.m. in the morning in a sea of tears. That night I did not sleep one single second. I didn't have time to sleep--and wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway.

Catherine went to see him at the vet hospital on Monday afternoon and desperately wanted to drive him to the other veterinary clinic close to Boston where they had promised to be a little more understanding regarding billing. That was the plan. I intended to pick him up and drive him there, but needed to take Maximilian to the E.R. at Hasbro Children's Hospital first. There was nothing wrong with Maximilian, though. I think that all he had was the result of having overheard more than he even wanted to know.

It was extremely hard for me to convince Catherine not to try to drive Motor to Boston. That very same morning, she had been diagnosed with a cornea infection and couldn't drive so far. She didn't care, though. An argument around her own health would never work with her. On my cell phone from waiting room at the children's hospital I pleaded with her. I told her that Motor would not make it to Boston. I told her I needed her to go home and take care of supper for her younger brothers.

Gerard and Warren were totally distraught that they were not able to see their beloved Motor at least one last time--but there was no more time.

When I arrived back to the vet hospital on Monday evening, Motor was near death. He had not responded to the antibiotics--and that ruled out the U.T.I. cause, which would have been the most treatable option. The vet on charge, Devon Young, was very nice and very comforting. Yet, there was nothing else that could be done. Catherine wanted to go back to the veterinary hospital. I had to plead with her again. The twins were extremely attached to Motor and had lots of school work to do. They were dealing with their own pain and had many college finals coming up. Catherine had already jumped into her Grand Cherokee to start her way to Swansea, but made a U-turn and went back home to prepare supper and get the younger ones to bed.

No matter how extremely difficult it was for me to do it, I signed the authorization for that final injection that would do no more than what nature was doing already. I was asked to wait in one of the examination rooms, outside the treatment area.  Time seemed to crawl--and then I was called. Motor had started passing on his own. It was as if he wanted to spare me the additional pain of having signed that authorization. Due to our firm, unyielding Pro-life convictions, having to put him to sleep was even more blatantly painful, even more excruciatingly difficult. He wanted to spare me that pain--the pain of having put my signature to that paper.

Even though the vet did help with an injection, it was only after he had already started passing on his own. On the contrary, there was nothing that anyone could do to spare all of us the pain of no longer hearing the bell in his collar and not seeing him any more appearing from any corner and coming up to us. Only a few days before he had been jumping onto, and down from, the highest shelves in our closets and the tallest pieces of furniture all around the house.

He knew he was loved--and there is no way he can ever be forgotten. He won't. Love does not go down with the passage of time.

Up to here, the photos are from Sunday night, Dec. 1st-2nd, 2013, when he was admitted to the veterinary hospital.

This photo and the following ones are from Monday evening, Dec. 2nd, 2013.

I want to close this post with a stanza from a poem I wrote many years ago, when my daughter, Catherine, was twelve years of age:

And that little girl who was then only eleven
had deeper thoughts than science and vets.
I told her that maybe somewhere in a far corner of Heaven
St. Francis makes room for faithful pets.