good night, sweet taeko

Taeko is likely to say goodbye this weekend.

In mid-June, in a column about fear of death, I mentioned how Taeko, our beautiful and sweet Norwegian Forest / Maine Coon mix, was dying. In late May, she was given a few days to no more than two weeks to live, but more than two months after that diagnosis, she is still hanging in there, although now clearly on her way out.

We are doing whatever we can to keep her as happy and comfortable as possible, carefully monitoring her quality of life. (As I wrote those last few words, a memory popped up on Facebook of Taeko from six years ago, in the kitchen, taking a break from eating to gaze into my eyes.)

Even as she continued to steadily lose weight, from about twenty pounds to under ten, she ate, drank, peed, pooped, ran around, cleaned herself, chewed on Ellen’s hair, jumped on my chest in bed, and even began exploring parts of the apartment she had never been to before. She spent hours on the a/c unit next to the desk where I write, occasionally spreading out in front of me and walking on the keyboard, sending me such messages as: “—r]’\,” which I am saving, perhaps to use as part of her epitaph. It's about as understandable as a cat ever gets.

There are more than 500,000 pet cats living in households in New York City — compared to 600,000 pet dogs — and more than half a million feral felines out on the street. According to the ASPCA, approximately twenty percent, or 23 million, of American households adopted a dog or cat during the pandemic.

“This incredibly stressful period motivated many people to foster and adopt animals, as well as further cherish the pets already in their lives, and our recent research shows no significant risk of animals being rehomed by their owners now or in the near future as a result of the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions,” ASPCA president and CEO Matt Bershadker said in a May 2021 statement. “Pets are still providing their families with joy and comfort, regardless of changes in circumstances, and loving owners continue to recognize and appreciate the essential role pets play in their lives.”

Working remotely from our apartment, I am surrounded by our cats. Taeko rests on the radiator at my left, Haruki on my lap, and Vashti on a pile of boxes behind me to the right. All three have made appearances on personal and professional Zoom and Teams meetings, with me in my home office and my wife in the living room. As friends and colleagues juggled parenting and working from home during the pandemic, we gloried in having our cats with us all day long. Per an ASPCA study, more than three-quarters of the households that adopted pets since the Covid-19 crisis began were free of children.

Neither of my parents had prolonged illnesses — my father died suddenly and unexpectedly in Mexico in 1985 at the age of forty-seven, and my mother passed away in 2017 at the age of seventy-six after a four-month battle with cancer. My first traumatic experience with a pet occurred when I was a teenager and had to take my beloved cat Slippers, the runt of the litter who I had watched being born two houses from mine seven years earlier, to the North Shore Animal League to be rehomed because my father was allergic to him, as was I, too. I still remember the rush of tears as I drove Slippers to Port Washington; a few weeks later, I received a postcard telling me he had been adopted. I still miss him terribly; he was the only pet my family had when I was growing up.

When I started dating Ellen, she came with Goat, an extraordinary gray tabby named after Virginia Woolf’s childhood nickname. Early on in the relationship, it was obvious that Ellen would choose Goat over me if given the choice, so I somehow conquered my cat allergy.

Goat died at thirteen after a terrible ailment that we regret prolonging. Mooshie, a smart and clever orange-and-white kitty who was my cohort, passed away at thirteen following a fight with cancer that had left him partially paralyzed. Shinsan, a fabulously hedonistic tuxedo cat attached to Ellen, also died at thirteen; we meticulously cared for him until a sudden wail one evening let us know it was time. We monitored Mooshie’s and Shinsan’s health very closely with our vet to make sure we were not letting them suffer in their last days, mindful of the mistakes we made with Goat.

We’ve been attending far fewer events than usual over these last two months, in order to spend more time with Taeko. Instead of going to five or six shows, concerts, or museums every week, we go to maybe two or three. I was not upset when an outdoor cigar-and-pizza gathering with temple friends last week was canceled because of rain.

When I went online Friday afternoon to confirm the time of an outdoor dance we were going to at Lincoln Center, I was not disappointed that it had just been canceled because of the extreme heat. Rather than go out to see Barbenheimer, I watched two Japan Cuts films on my computer, one about happiness, the other about the end of the world.

On Tuesday night, we took Taeko to the vet to make sure we were doing all the right things, and Dr. K agreed that it was not yet time to put her down. But on Thursday, a major change was apparent. Taeko stopped eating, drinking, peeing, and pooping. She was having trouble moving around, unsteady on her legs, unable to jump to her favorite spots. We decided to stop giving her the pills she so hated. We picked her up and put her on the couch and the bed, deluging her with love and affection — and lots of grooming, which she desperately needed.

When we went out to pick up some dinner, part of us was hoping that when we returned, she would be at rest, having gone in her sleep peacefully. Many friends have told us that sometimes one must leave a loved one’s room for them to die, especially if there’s too much attachment on either side.

However, putting them down alone at a clinic is another story: According to a doctor at Hillcrest Veterinary Hospital in South Africa, “When you are a pet owner it is inevitable, the majority of the time, that your pet will die before you do. So if and when you have to take your pet to the vet’s office for a humane pain-free ending I want you all to know something. You have been the centre of their world for THEIR ENTIRE LIVES!!!! It is devastating for us as humans to lose them. But please I beg you DO NOT LEAVE THEM.”

Death comes for us all. This summer, several pop-culture figures who were important to me in different ways passed: Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Joke; Irish singer and activist Sinéad O’Connor; Queens crooner Tony Bennett; singer and actress Jane Birkin; Fiddler on the Roof lyricist Sheldon Harnick; Marvin Kitman, the longtime Newsday television columnist who first showed me that writing about the arts could be an art itself; and Henry Edward Katz, a Drama Desk colleague. Although Ellen and I spent many hours discussing theater and New York nightlife history with Henry, we only just found out, via his obituary, that he had written numerous books as well as the screenplay for the famous 1978 film flop Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Vashti, who is seventeen, and Haruki, who turns fifteen next month, knows something is wrong with Taeko. Yes, they try to sneak some of her tasty canned wet food — both of them are limited to boring dry vittles — but they also sniff her more than usual, as if letting her know it will be okay. They’ve also shown more concern for us, letting us know that it will be okay.

We’re not so sure about that yet.

I vividly remember a day in October 2010, as I was walking past the local Petco (which has long since shuttered), and saw the cutest little fluffball, an absolutely adorable little kitten I could hold in the palm of my hand. I called up Ellen and told her she had to meet me there as soon as possible, that I had just found our next cat. Neither of us was sure we were quite ready, but when Ellen arrived, she immediately agreed that this was going to be an amazing addition to our family.

And for thirteen glorious years, she was everything we had always dreamed of.

[Taeko left us a few minutes ago, just past midnight, going peacefully in her sleep as Ellen held her. “—r]’\”]