The Book of Hal

This isn't science or chess. I'll be back to that soon, but today I needed to write this.

We adopted Hal on Friday, September 19th from Homeward Bound Animal Shelter in North Fargo. We had been thinking about bringing a second cat home in the hopes that our 4-year old orange-and-white cat (Clementine) might like to have a buddy and mentee around to help keep her out of trouble. I’d seen Hal on the shelter website and liked the look of him and we knew that the Homeward folks would be at the Fargo Theatre’s Cat Video Fest.

“If Hal’s there,” I told my wife, “that’s kind of a sign from the universe that we should bring him home.”

Hal as he was featured on the shelter’s adoption page.

We got to the theater and sure enough, there he was in the lobby. He was a tiny boy - the site listed him as a 1-year-old 5-pound cat, but seeing him in person he was even smaller than that sounded. He was draped in the arms of his foster mom looking like he had no worries in the world, and when she asked if I wanted to hold him he gladly settled in with me in much the same manner. He was soft, fluffy, and an absolute purr machine.

We put in the adoption paperwork online as soon as we got home from the theatre and then we waited. After a few days we were starting to lose hope: He was listed as “adoption pending” but we had received no phone calls. Oh well, I thought. He was a nice guy to meet.

Ah, but then we got the call and made plans to meet him on the 19th. He was just as cuddly and calm at the shelter as he had been at the theatre and I was sold. We bundled him up and took him home, getting him all set up in our upstairs office with a soft bed, a comfy cat yurt that Clementine has always ignored, food, water, and his own litter box. He had an accident that night right as we brought him up for bed - a little bit of pee on the comforter that he seemed very upset about. I gave him lots of reassurances, we cleaned up the bed, and put a waterproof liner down just in case. I stayed with him for a little more than an hour reading some books and cuddling in our papasan chair - every time I turned a page he waved his forepaws at it, but never tried to claw or grab.

Hal hanging out in his Day One room.

We had a nice calm weekend with him after that, introducing him slowly to the house and making tentative introductions to Clementine. She was mostly just a giant grouch about it, but her hissing and low growling seemed perfunctory to us. “Her heart’s not in it” Erin said, “She likes him and is a little mad that she likes him.” By Sunday, they were sitting in the same room without incident and by the time we left for work on Monday morning we were feeling good about letting them hang out all day. It worked just fine and it didn’t even take long before we saw them sneak some actual playing in along with some mutual grooming. Our work week was busy with our usual schedule, but Hal was waiting for us when we got home, eating like a champ (we worried he was malnourished) and drinking a ton of water. We played with his favorite ribbon toy so he could show off his pouncing skills (a ground game was better than aerial tricks) and head scratches and lap-sitting sessions were still a favorite.

Enjoying sunbeams on our living room chairs.

On Saturday morning he seemed maybe a little quiet, but was cheerfully watching birds out our back window with Clementine right next to him. He wasn’t eating as much, though, and seemed a little on the quiet side. We didn’t think a thing of it until dinnertime, when he started to pee frequently outside the box in small amounts. Erin looked up what this might imply and made the decision to call the emergency vet. We thought maybe we were looking at the onset of a urinary tract infection - something that needed attention right away, but something manageable.

After dropping him off it was a few hours before we got the first call from the doctor. His abdomen was “doughy,” she said, and he had a high fever. He was laying on cooling mats for his comfort and an ultrasound had indicated he had fluid in his belly. It could be a lot of things, she said, and none of them were good. She asked to test the fluid and his blood and said she would call back.

Around 1am she called and the news was about as bad as it could be. The fluid in his abdomen was full of white blood cells fighting off septic peritonitis. She suspected some kind of GI tract rupture (“Did he eat something?”) but we couldn’t think of anything that could have caused such a thing. He hadn’t been a very nosy cat at all and mostly seemed to gravitate towards the best sunbeams the could find in the rooms we’d given him access to (the two brown chairs by the back living room windows were perfect). Whatever the cause, our options were to put him through an uncertain and dangerous exploratory surgery (one that would end at best with an abdominal drain, the ICU, and resected intestine or stomach) or to say goodbye.

Just a week. Just a day for things to turn south. Given that we’re only talking about a very short length of time, I almost feel silly about how much it hurt to hear the doctor say this and know what the right answer was. We hung up. My wife and I talked it over, and then we went to our daughter’s room to tell her what was going on. We all made the decision to go say goodbye and piled in the car after telling the doctor we were ready to let Hal go.

I don’t have much to say about his actual passing save that the staff was very kind, Hal was very sick, and I held him and did my best to tell him how much we loved him right up to the end. I’m someone who tries to deal with a lot of the problems I run into in my life by finding ways to communicate and that makes situations like these where you aren’t sure how much you can get across very hard. I thanked him for being my friend and told him I was so sorry we didn’t get more time.

Now, here I am (and here is the rest of my family) feeling terribly sad and trying to work out where to put that sadness. I’m writing to put some of it here, but I’m also writing because I think that Hal’s life deserves some kind of record or memorial, as short as it was. I knew him for about 9 days and he still made enough of an impression on me that I find myself grieving on a beautiful autumn morning, wondering what it was about this little cat that keeps making me cry.

I think it is as simple as this. I have owned cats since I was in college and while I do enjoy their company a great deal, I have to admit that I am also something of a selfish owner. I gripe if my cat keeps me up at night. I get annoyed when my cat stands up in front of the television to paw at the screen while I’m trying to watch something. Often, I wish that Clementine the cat was more inclined to snuggling than she is and I get frustrated that she always seems to prefer darting off my lap to chase a dust mote or a bit of light on the wall. Maybe this is all ordinary, but when I see people who dote on their cats to a higher degree than I am generally willing, I worry that I am not the best cat owner.

For whatever reason, however, Hal came home and absolutely delighted me. He was scared and lonely his first night and sitting up with him was the only thing I wanted to do. He was a little uneven with his litter box aim, but I felt deep reserves of patience about this even while cleaning up after him. I left work a little early during the week so I could get home to play with him and thought about books he might like to read with me. Something about this little guy made we want to be a better owner to him and to Clementine and I was having such a good time making him happy. What I think Hal reminded me of very powerfully is how nice it is to be kind and how the work of kindness hardly feels like work at all once you decide to do it.

Maybe that sounds like a lot for a little cat to do. It may be, but I say that he did do these things and I would know because he was my friend. We hung out, we chased the ribbon toy, we read books, and we appreciated sunbeams together. For that, thank you, Hal the cat. I wish we could have been friends a lot longer.

My buddy Hal, curled up with me on his first night at home.

Hal speaking his mind. Not a loud man, but one with clarity of expression.