Doc Hop

May 2013 to March 27, 2025

Last week I had to say goodbye to my sweet boy, Woodward.

He had the dearest, gentlest, softest soul, and I am endlessly and eternally grateful that he was mine and I was his. My sweet and scrappy little Ohio barn cat meant more to me than I ever thought a cat could mean to anyone. He walked with me through so many phases of my life — from Athens, Ohio, to Augusta, Georgia, and now to Long Beach. He came into my life during my worst days, and he’s seen me through my best. I’m glad I got him here, but I wish I could have brought him further.

This post is my love letter to him.

I noticed that Woodward was sick last Sunday, and I still can’t believe I hadn’t noticed earlier. It must have happened so slowly and then all at once. After I poured him and his brother’s breakfast, he walked out of my gaming room and meowed at me, and he just looked ragged. He was much noticeably thinner, and his coat was not as smooth or well groomed as it normally is. Since he wasn’t jumping up on the counter for food, my first thought was that he either hurt his leg or a tooth. We had just been to see the vet in October for routine check-ups, bloodwork and shots, where both my boys received clean bills of health, so I didn’t consider that it could be something more dire. When he didn’t eat his dry food I rushed to the store to pick up some wet. He ate a bit, but not enough, so I immediately reached out to the vet to book an appointment. At this point I was beginning to consider a UTI as the source of the issue, as he has struggled with them in the past.

I was able to book an afternoon appointment with his primary vet, Belmont Shore Veterinary Hospital, on Monday. But while Woodward weighed 11 pounds in October, on Monday he weighed just seven. He had done such a good job at hiding his sickness that I had no idea that he was ill until it was already too late. But looking back, I just don’t know how I didn’t notice anything sooner.

The vet did some bloodwork and completed an X-ray, suspecting an issue with his liver caused by a lack of appetite. What initially caused the loss of appetite will always remain a mystery, because despite all the tests and X-rays and ultrasounds, no one was ever able to definitively tell me. The vet recommended immediate specialty care, so after stopping at home I headed to ACCESS Specialty Animal Hospital in Torrence. I stopped at my apartment before taking him in because I suspected this might be the last time I got to spend at home with my boy. I hate that I was right. I held him. I gave him some wet food and he ate a few bites. I wish it had been more, but I don’t know if it would have made a difference. The fact that he ate at all gave me a fleeting and false hope.

I held him in my lap the entire ride to the hospital and tried to cherish each moment, each stroke, each deep purr. I don’t know how I drove with the tears in my eyes and the pressure on my chest, but we made it. The car ride was the last real time I got to spend with him, and I tried to feed my love into him with each mile. If love could heal. I felt a rush to get him seen, but also a desire to never stop driving. I wish I was still driving with my sweet boy in my lap.

The vet hospital also suspected an issue with his liver, which additional tests and bloodwork confirmed. Hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver). They ended up keeping him on IVs and medicine for two days, but by Wednesday he was still not eating and the vet recommended aggressive action in the form of a temporary feeding tube. They performed the surgery on Wednesday afternoon and messaged me within an hour to tell me that everything went well with it. I was supposed to pick him up the next day for an extended visit so the doctors could show me how to care for him with his feeding tube, but a doctor called in the middle of the night and asked me to come because it did not look like he was going to make it through the morning. Just a few hours and I’d be too late.

My hope had been so up and down over the past week. I felt like I woke up each morning to disappointment and heartbreak but went to bed each night with faith that the IV, medicine, and then finally the feeding tube would work. The vet said that 80 percent of the time it did. But as I drove down the LA freeway at 2 a.m. on that early Thursday morning I knew my time was up and that I preparing to say goodbye. Only this time I didn’t have my guy on my lap, and I had to reflect on the fact that he’d spent his last days in a sterile and scary hospital rather than at home close to my heart, where he should have been. I don’t regret trying everything, but I do wish I could have brought him home.

Every goodbye feels impossible, but I have never had to make the choice to put a pet down before, and I had actually started to hope that I would never really have to. Yoga passed in my arms at her own time, and it was my sincerest hope that I would lose all my animals in the same way.

As soon as I arrived at ACCESS they brought me into the back room and opened up Woodward’s cage, where he was laying with a thick blue collar, holding his un-used feeding tube in place. He wasn’t facing the door but as soon as he felt my touch he looked up and knew it was me — his momma. The smell of the place was so overwhelmingly sterile and I hated even more in that moment that this is where my poor boy had to spend his last three days on this world, rather than at home, with his family who truly loved him. But the second his big eyes met mine and he felt my hand his whole body purred and it rumbled through my whole body. I leaned half of myself into his cage and laid as close to him as I could, reassuring him that I was there. I’d come back. I hope he knew the whole time that I’d always come back.

They brought us into a side room and gave me as much time as I needed with him. As soon as the vet left I got up onto the table with him and held him, in his bed, on my lap. No time would have been long enough and no words would have ever been right. But I reminded him of how much I loved him and how sorry I was that I couldn’t get him the help he needed in the time he needed it. Eleven years is no time at all.

It takes three shots. The second put him to sleep and the third stopped his poor little heart. I held him the entire time, his little neck and head in the palm of my hand. Too small. After a minute the vet asked to check his heartbeat, but in a few seconds I could no longer feel his pulse in my palm, so I knew that he was gone. I can still feel his heart beat softening. I can still feel the steady rumble of his deep purr slow to a stop. I hope one day it doesn’t feel like letting him down.

Hearts & Halos are handling Woodward’s after-life care. Instead of cremation they use a process called aquamation, which uses water rather than fire and is supposed to be more environmentally conscious. It takes a little longer than a standard cremation, but I should have him home next week. I’m going to pick him up rather than having him shipped, because there seems to be so much more dignity in that. And because it means that he’ll be home sooner than way, without a chance at getting lost or misplaced. He’s too important, and he deserves to rest at home as soon as he can.

I picked out a wooden, black cat urn, which is shaped like a sleeping cat, with his full name and dates engraved on the bottom. It was the only one that felt right. This was the last thing that I could do for him, and I wanted to get it as close to perfect as I could. My absolutely perfect boy deserved no less and so much more. I wish I could have given him more time.

In all my grief, I’ve been trying to focus on the things that Woody loved, as well as the things that I loved about Woody.

Sweet Woodward was always my beta boy. I brought him home two weeks after Bernstein joined the family, and it was so hard at first. Not because I’d never had a kitten, let alone TWO kittens, but because they fought like they were arch rivals, rather than brothers from the same litter. (Although, I later learned that that can be a problem in itself.) But we fell into a rhythm. Yoga, Woodward, and I let Bernie take control, and over time Woods became the sweetest, most sensitive, most loving momma’s boy that I could ever hoped to share a life with. Both my cats are sweethearts. Bernie loves everyone; but Woodward loved me. He was like Yoga in that regard. They both held a partiality that was entirely in my favor.

Woodward loved me. He also loved sneaking out of the house and going on adventures. (And ugh, the relief I felt every single time he came home. And how I wish I could have those days back now.) He loved sinks and bathtubs, but he hated taking a bath. I don’t know if he liked the cool ceramic, or if it just gave him some peace from his brother, but every sink I’ve had quickly became his special spot. (Which encouraged me to keep my dishes washed.) He loved cardboard boxes and running his nails down every single piece of furniture I ever owned. He loved lounging on a window sill and staring at the outside world for hours. He’d groan with the weight of his entire body whenever he saw another cat hanging outside his door. I think they were drawn to him — my sweet, handsome boy. I don’t know if the feeling was mutual, or if he just really wanted to be outside. But even when he left, he always came home.

The mornings and the evenings are the hardest. Woodward seldom fell asleep with me, but he was sleeping on the pillow next to mine every morning when I woke up. Bernie would sleep on top of me, but Woody’s spot was always by my side. Most mornings I even made the bed around him so that he could sleep a little longer. But he was also first to the food bowl. And every evening he was my desk cat. My study-buddy. My fellow reader and grader. He always had the spot to my left. It used to drive me nuts sometimes — to have this huge desk with access to such a small part of it. But it’s too empty without him here. I miss him always, but at these times it’s most obvious.

I’m not sure if Bernie understands that his brother is gone, but I worry that the loss will leave him feeling sad or depressed. And I worry that I won’t be able to fill the void that his sibling left. (I’ve heard of that happening with animals that have spent their entire lives together. Becoming sick with heartbreak.) I know Woodward would miss his brother, had he been the one to stay. And I know that Bernstein senses my sadness, because he’s been steady at my shoulder. Cats are intuitive in that way. It’s just so hard to think of him as my only boy.

I want to close with a sincere thank you to everyone who has ever cared for Woodward and for everyone who reached out with a kind word or thought while we most needed it. It means more than I can say that you’ve kept my sweet boy in your hearts and heads. If love could have saved him, he would have had more than enough.

“I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.”

–- James Herriot, British veterinary surgeon and author.