All Cats Go To Heaven

Heaven isn’t just for dogs.🐈

When my parents inherited Barney, they were nervous. He was known to take down Christmas trees and swat at house guests. His slender frame with white fur with black spots brought nervousness to newcomers. But when my grandma died, my mom knew she needed to take care of this cat. Besides, she thought he would pass away soon — he was already fourteen years old. I was a newborn when he entered my life. He immediately took on the role of cat dad. We were two peas in a baby walker. No one saw it coming.

Barney was picky about who held me. If they weren’t for my parents, Barney would give them a guttural growl. With every inch I grew he remained my loyal companion. He would lay against my back while I played with a mess of Polly Pockets. He even forgave me for that time I tried to spray him with lilac perfume. But not without giving me a good scolding through a few hisses.

We thought his days would last forever. My extended family members often called him immortal. One day he stopped coming when we would say his name. We don’t know the exact time he became deaf. But he felt every vibration. I would smack the ground three times with one of my small hands and he would come to me wanting to pets.

He was the only cat we knew that would howl at the moon. He jumps up onto the back of the patterned couch and would let out a deep howl. You could hear that kind of meow anywhere in the house. Even his regular meows were loud enough to catch quick attention. He would love the heat and lay near the fireplace during the winter. My mother feared he would get too close. But he never did.

And then one summer afternoon I walked up to my dollhouse to see him drinking out of my dollhouse pool. Barney had never done this before. I told my mother what I had seen between giggles. What had seemed so silly at first led to a tragic chain. We would find small pools of urine on the kitchen floor. The spots he loved on the armchair and near the fireplace were all but forgotten. He designated his new home one of the most frequented spots in our home, the kitchen. He now loved the heat that came from under our old double-door refrigerator. My ten-year-old self thought this was a traditional sickness. But my parents didn’t dare correct me, but it was still not encouraged.

My parents started with administering at-home IV treatments from our veterinarian. My mother and I would try to calm him while my father would hold his IV up above. Barney hardly fought the needle. He was dehydrated despite us moving his things to the kitchen. I had thought that IV held the cure to Barney’s problem. The IVs had always helped the people I saw on my mother’s TV shows. But even after two IVs, he remained the same. The veterinarian told us he had a seizure and dementia.

His range of movement quickly declined. My family did and still does not believe in letting animals suffer. It was the weekend, which meant my mother was off of work.

Now my memory stumbles. Did my mother’s tears begin before the car ride to the veterinarian’s office? Or was it my dad not saying much of anything for days? Grief can make memories blur. But I will never forget the look of life as it left in his eyes.

I didn’t feel right coming home with an empty cat carrier. We were expecting to pick up his ashes a week from then. The tears would turn on and off like a faultily wired light switch. But that evening, my mother and I experienced something that changed us forever.

In my nightgown, I stepped a child-sized foot in front of the double-door refrigerator. Before I could even put my hand on one of the refrigerator’s handles, I heard a familiar deep meow. I burst into tears. We had no other cats. My mother was in the room with me. We held each other as we both cried tears of grief. As my mother held me in her bed, she told me our cat was saying goodbye. I knew she was right.

That was now far long ago. I still live with my parents in the same house. I never heard that meow again. But every now and then, I see a white cat with black spots in my peripheral vision. He runs happily with the energy I recall from my youth. All the memories I have of him I treasure. After he died, he gave me a gift. I’m blessed to learn that all cats go to heaven.

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