I won’t even begin to pretend that she was my cat. She existed in my wife’s life a good seven years before I even came into the picture. Still, we bonded immediately, same as she did with anyone she ever met.

On the second weekend of mine and my wife’s super-secret (she was kinda my boss) relationship, she allowed me to stay in her condo alone. Well, alone plus Zoe. She was flying to Atlanta for Shaky Knees and I had a table at Texas Frightmare Weekend. My choices were to get to know Zoe, get a hotel, or drive a three hour round-trip to the venue for three days. Let’s just say me and old Zoe got along famously. She slept with me all three nights like we knew each other. I even scooped her litter box.

She earned a lot of nicknames over the years and, as with all my pets, they get theme songs. Pazuzu and Zoodles were two of my favorites. Whenever she was hungry, I would often initiate the conversation regarding Zoodles Noodles. There was never anything with Zoe that could be considered daily conversation. We made it special.

My novella, “Starving Zoe” was originally called “The Screaming of the Trees”. One night, my wife shouted from upstairs that Zoe had a vet appointment in the morning. To confirm aloud, I replied, “So, we need to starve Zoe?”

Click.

For the next seven years, I watched Zoe go from super-chunk to skin & bones. Car rides stressed her out incredibly, and my cat – a brain damaged rescue named Keekers – would forget who Zoe was whenever she’d return from the vet. They’d fight for a month! Zoe’s last vet visit revealed the beginnings of some major kidney issues, so we pondered the choices.

Do we let her spend her last years being stressed out, poked, prodded, cut on, and medicated…

Money wasn’t the issue; Zoe had insurance. The truth was, my wife and I agreed that anyone who truly loved their pet like a family member would choose the latter. Spending thousands of dollars to put yourfur baby through a painful hell is the furthest thing from friendship, companionship, or any other ‘ship‘ imaginable. Statistically, with Zoe’s advanced age, she’d live about the same amount of time either way. So, we chose what we considered to be the less narcissistic approach. I’m an artist and my wife’s a super-cute bad ass. We didn’t need the social media attention related to Facebook Pet Drama 911. This was our opinion, of course.

I mean, if you’ve done that before, then that’s on you. Good for you on making that decision. I hope it was an enjoyable decision and the right decision for you and yours.

As for me and mine? We’re Vulcans, deal in logic, and probably not from this planet, originally.

“Oh, bless her pea-pickin’ little old heart.” Spit.

Last night, a veterinarian came to our home. We sat with Zoe, gave her the smelliest tuna we could find at the grocery store, let her lick the cheese powder off Dorito’s chips, and loved her like we would any other night of the year. She went to sleep in my wife’s lap, and she did not wake.

It’s the next morning. I’m sitting at my writing desk and I cannot hear her purring. We didn’t play-argue this morning about how loud her stinky food was or about how much of a mess she’d left overnight in her litter box. There’s no tap of claws upon the hardwood floor as she journeys from box, to bowl, to bed (I was convinced she used just enough claw to purposely annoy me).

I cried like a kid with a skinned knee. I don’t even do that when humans die. It’s probably because none of them are as genuine as my sweet, starving Zoe.

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