The first night, Lynda was shocked. “Cookie,” she said, “what’s the matter with you?”
Cookie walked out of the room. Thinking something was wrong, Lynda followed. Cookie went straight to the bed. Lynda looked all over, but couldn’t find anything wrong. Eventually, she went back to the living room. Cookie came in screaming and led her back to the bed. It took Lynda a while to realize there wasn’t anything wrong. Cookie had simply decided it was time for the two of them to go to bed. From that night on, unless there was something special, bedtime in the Caira house was 10:00 P.M. Cookie insisted on it.
Not that there was much sleeping. Cookie was a bundle of nerves in the bed, climbing all over Lynda, playing with her feet, walking around on her pillow. She rubbed her nose on Lynda’s lips, her cheek, her nose, anywhere on her face she could reach. When Lynda turned off the light and closed her eyes, Cookie waited a minute and then ran a paw across her face. If Lynda didn’t respond, Cookie bent down and pried her eyelid back with her paw.
“Honey, I’m alive,” Lynda would tell her softly, closing her eyes.
A few minutes later, Cookie would rub her paw across Lynda’s face again. It happened every night, starting with the night after her vertigo. And it didn’t stop. Long after Lynda was well, Cookie continued to wake her every night to make sure she was alive. Lynda wasn’t annoyed. Instead, she was touched. She loved Cookie. She was dedicated to the little cat. But Cookie . . . Cookie’s whole life was defined by her devotion to Lynda. What a humbling and heartwarming experience, to be loved that way. Even if it was “just” the love of a cat.
But while Cookie was worried about Lynda’s imminent demise, Lynda was absolutely convinced that Cookie would live forever. She had lost her hearing—a test confirmed that—but otherwise she was as healthy and beautiful as ever into her eighteenth year. If she was slowing down a little, well, that was only natural. A clock could wind down forever, after all, without coming to a stop.
And then Lynda read Dewey. Jennifer gave it to her for Christmas, and (surprise!) Cookie even gave her enough space to read it. As she read the last few chapters, she became more and more upset until, she would write in her letter to me, she “became no less than hysterical.” Every sign of old age Dewey exhibited in his last year was happening to Cookie!
Like Dewey, Cookie developed hyperthyroidism. And like Dewey, she wasn’t very responsible about taking her pills. Lynda would think she had successfully pushed them down her throat, then find them scattered behind the furniture. She developed mats in her hair that were almost impossible to untangle, the result of the barbs on her tongue wearing down and preventing her from cleaning properly. And like Dewey, Cookie had taken a sudden interest in cold cuts, probably because they were loaded with salt. Lynda bought her a half pound of sliced turkey at a time. When she tired of turkey, Lynda switched to chicken, no matter how much turkey was left in the bag. Then Cookie stopped eating cold cuts. She didn’t want that old bird. So Lynda tried a whole, fresh-cooked rotisserie chicken. Cookie liked that. So Lynda shared a rotisserie chicken with Cookie every week.
Jennifer thought her mother was spoiling the cat, but Lynda didn’t agree. Dewey had broken her heart. She had cried every night while reading the last chapters on Dewey’s old age and death, thinking not only about my precious library cat but about her precious Cookie. She had seen the future, and she knew the end was near. Cookie was slowing down. She was walking with difficulty. She was struggling with her diet. After nineteen years of Cookie’s extraordinary love, there was nothing Lynda wouldn’t do for her cat.
That February, Cookie developed kidney and bladder problems. The vet took X-rays and endoscopies, a whole battery of tests. He put her on a strong course of medication, sparing no expense because Lynda would have it no other way, but there was no improvement in Cookie’s condition. In April, the vet stopped her treatment. He took her off her hyperthyroid medicine as well, since it was causing rashes on her ears and belly.
“She doesn’t need the irritation,” the doctor said.
He was telling Lynda to let her go, to give her peace, but Lynda couldn’t fully accept that Cookie was dying. The little cat still followed at her heels everywhere she went, eager to love and be loved. She still waited for her on the ottoman by the front door every evening when she arrived home from work. Every morning when she left for work, Cookie looked at her with big pleading eyes, like a young child, as if to say, How can you leave me, Mommy?
In July 2009, they celebrated Cookie’s nineteenth birthday. Lynda told her she looked forward to celebrating her twentieth the next year, but even she no longer believed it. Cookie had never been big, weighing just ten pounds even as a healthy adult. Now she weighed less than five. She had taken to spending most of her days under the kitchen table. Lynda moved her food and water to the kitchen, and her litter to the adjoining room. She had lost bladder control, but even in her frail state, Cookie would pull herself to the nearest object, a shopping bag, a pair of shoes, even Jennifer’s handbag to relieve herself. Cookie would never, no matter how sick, make a mess on the floor.
Lynda’s mother was convinced Cookie was staying alive only because she couldn’t bear to leave her friend alone. Lynda’s heart told her that might be true, that the little cat loved her that much, but she wanted to believe Cookie still enjoyed her life, that her existence wasn’t a struggle. She stroked her. She petted her. She fixed her broccoli rabe and rotisserie chicken and talked to her in gentle, loving tones. When Cookie could no longer walk the stairs, Lynda carried her to bed and placed her on the pillow that had been her special place for so long. Every night for nineteen years, Cookie had slept on that pillow. On the third night of carrying her to bed, Lynda realized that as soon as she fell asleep, Cookie was struggling down the steps to the kitchen floor. On the fourth night, she left Cookie under the table.
“Rest here, my little friend,” Lynda told her. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Cookie never came back to the bed. A few days later, while Lynda was at work, Jennifer called crying. She had found Cookie on the kitchen floor, in a puddle of her own waste. By the time Lynda arrived home, Cookie was clean, but the energy was gone from her body, the depth and intensity totally absent from her eyes. She lifted her head to look at Lynda, her lifelong companion. Perhaps she even smiled, briefly and weakly, before dropping her head to the floor.
Lynda cradled her in her arms and, as tenderly as she could, eased her into the car. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, as her mind raced and her hands trembled on the steering wheel. “We’re going to get some medicine and you’re going to be okay.” She kept talking, reassuring her, even as her voice was breaking and the tears streamed down her face. She knew it was the end, and she prayed it would be painless and natural. She prayed that, whatever happened, she would be there for her Cookie. Her last obligation, the least she could offer for a lifetime of dedication, was to make these moments as comfortable as possible for her precious girl.
And she did. She made it safely to the vet, although she could barely see through her tears, and she held Cookie in her hands, lightly and lovingly, until her final breath. She held her until the little cat glanced up one last time as if to say, I love you, I’m sorry, before she folded under and Lynda felt, with her soul as much as her fingertips, the very last beat of her heart.