Rest in Peace Micah

I had to put my cat to sleep today. He had liver disease and the medical options were limiting. We probably could have spent a small fortune and kept him going, but it was not the best alternative. Now he is gone and we have to move on.

Micah was not a nice cat. In fact the term we used most often was nasty. However, he was a very entertaining cat. Weighing in at about 20 pounds and with more hair than Rapunzel, he was a very pretty cat. And I believe that was his biggest issue. He wanted to be a tough cat but he was caught in a pretty-boy's feline body. Micah lived everyday with inner turmoil. We considered therapy, but he would not open up. Instead he would just lash out at us and hiss or growl. A terrible and gutteral growl. Unfortunately, coming from his fluffy face, the growl just wasn't very menacing. He had wiskers that curled around his face like a clown cat. Micah would then try to scratch you with his claws. We had removed his front claws for the safety of the furniture, so he was left with soft mittens that actually had tufts of hair growing between his foot pads. He would swat at you with paws that looked like cotton balls. Again, he would get angrier. That is when he would begin to come at you with the sharp teeth. By then, I just wasn't interested and would walk away. I think Micah was one to bottle his emotions until the right time to snap.

The emotional "uncorking" always seemed to come at his brother Joel's expense. Joel is his exact opposite. Joel weighs in at about 20 pounds, but he is short-haired and sweet as could be. He really is a lap cat (if you want a 20 pound cat in your lap). Every once in awhile, for no apparent reason, Micah could not contain the nasties anymore and would pounce on Joel. He would bite him, swat him and get the back claws up to scratch him. You could see the look of confusion in Joel's eyes like "what is wrong with you!" After a few minutes of chasing Joel around, Micah would feel like the pressure cooker valve was sufficiently vented until the next time he just had to let go. Sometimes he would try it with me and swat at my leg when I walked by, but those incidents usually landed up with me shadow boxing the cotton ball paws until he became worn out and frustrated. Or at the very least a little more angry.

Let me also add that Micah did not have the best grooming habits. Cats are supposed to groom themselves, which he did for the first few years. But after awhile I think he just could not keep up with the amount of hair he was producing. This led to knots and mats on his fur that were the size of a kitten. Not surprisingly, he did not like to be groomed by me. I think I pulled a few litters of kittens worth of fur off him over the years. I wasn't gentle and given my perception of his need to be a "tough cat" I think I was a little harder on him. Typically when I would groom him, there would come a point where he just couldn't take it and would turn and go feline on me. This usually ended with a number of scratches and scrapes on my hands and arms...not pleasant. On the bright side, at least his hair will be with us for a long time. When we went to China last year, we found his hair in our luggage. Whenever I travel for work, I find his hair in my bag or somewhere on my clothes. We keep a clean house, but Micah was a very hairy cat and it will not be gone anytime soon.

I got to be with Micah for his last few moments and he seemed settled for the first time since he was a kitten. It may have been the heavy dose of drugs the vet gave him or maybe he had made peace with his inner turmoil. Either way, I don't believe that animals have a soul to live for eternity, so that was my goodbye to him. Plus, if I did believe that animals did go to a heaven or hell, the rules would have to be very "loose" to get Micah through the Pearly Gates.

Micah left us with lots of funny stories and interesting conversations. He was the kind of cat that would make visitors double take and ask us if he was so big because there was something wrong with him.

Oh, there was something wrong with him...it just had nothing to do with his size.

Rest in Peace Micah, we will miss you.