Eclipse: The Cat That Changed My Life Forever

It has been 14 years today since Eclipse, my first cat died. He was only in my life for three full days but has totally altered the course of my life ever since.



He certainly knew how to make an entrance. By jumping out of a moving car! I was on my lunch hour when I still worked for Peter Gutkin, driving around in the industrial section of the bayshore highway area here in SF. While driving behind an old car that was being towed away I saw this black object fall out of the back passenger window(all the windows were busted out and broken). Suddenly the the black object got up and walked over to the curb! What I had thought was a piece of trash was actually a very tiny little black kitten, probably a few days past opening his eyes. I immediately pulled my car over and rushed out to see that he was, unbelievably, not only not hurt but seemingly just a little dazed. I was in shock. If I had done what this kitten had just done I'd probably be a bag of broken bones. There was this little kitten sitting there on the sidewalk with me just hanging out and meowing. As a feral cat he was probably malnurished and obviously without a mommy cat to take care of him.

I immediately did what all animal lovers do and picked him up and brought him to my car. I found a towel in the trunk and wrapped him in it as it was a cold spring morning. He sort of snuggled in and as quick as you could say cute he was asleep. I quickly drove to a corner store and bought some milk and a can of tuna and went back to work. I found a cardboard box in the shop and made a little bed with the towel. I put a peanut butter jar lid full of milk and a little bit of the tuna on a napkin(chopped up in very tiny bits)on a napkin-he immediately went after both. I put a bottle of warm water under the towel and put the kitty and everything else in my trunk. I was afraid to leave him in the car because he might get hurt but the trunk was clean and flat with no way to climb too much. I closed the trunk and hoped he would be okay for at least a few hours while I went back to work. Of course I checked on him every 30 minutes anyway. Other than a little diarrhea which I assumed was from the milk, he seemed fine and spent most of the time sleeping next to the bottle.

Later at home he seemed fine. Curious and wandering about. Cute as a button. He mostly slept in the box I made and drank water. I figured I would take good care of him over the weekend and then on Monday take him to the vet for a check up. Sunday night rolled around and I returned from a school function to find him wandering around the living room looking what seemed like shaky. As I continued to watch him he fell flat on his face like his feet has suddenly given out. If he had been sprightly and bounding I would have thought it cute but it wasn't. And He wasn't. As I rushed over to pick him up he fell down twice more. I picked him up gently and he began to cry out. Oh no....



Well, I freaked. I knew something was wrong and told Lee to get the fucking the car NOW while I got his box and stuffed him into a towel. We FLEW through town-me in tears, he continuing to cry-over to Pet's Unlimited. As we sat there in the waiting room his cries got louder and louder he started to shake and I got more and more upset. Finally I went to the front counter and said "can't somebody PLEASE do something, he sounds like he's in a lot of pain.!" They got a vet tech to come out and take him from me in nothing but a towel. I didn't realize it then but he was dying. What I didn't know then but is quite common in feral and older immune compromised cats is that fleas, when they bite, release a tiny amount of chemical which helps them numb the surface for the bite so the host isn't aware they have been bitten. What can happen if the biting is severe is the chemical can build up in the blood and lead to septisemia in cats. IN the close up picture you can already see his eyes are yellowed from his renal system being under seige. It was really only a matter of time before he would have died either from that or the number of other ailments he also tested positive for. In all likelihood they chose to put him down(at least I HOPE thats what they did)so at least he didn't suffer any more. I told myself that he might have died in the back of that car but he got to experience love, good food and a warm bed before he went off to the great beyond-and maybe one day we'll meet again. I see him all the time in every stray black cat darting away. He certainly made me very happy for the brief time he was here.

I was devastated and numb because I didn't know what to feel but I was very sad too. It was like a whirlwind experience-love and loss in this incredibly compact time. I didn't know what to do. I just cried and cried. Lee paid the bill while I spent the next couple of days in a fog. Then in the mail I got a card from the Pets Unlimited people. It was the most gothic looking card I have ever seen-like an Edward Gorey drawing but with animals. It was a condolence card! I couldn't believe it. I had grown up with animals that came and went and though always traumatic, I had never gotten a card for it-or one as touching. I thought to myself "Damn, THESE people really give a damn, not just about my animals but about my relationship WITH my animals". I knew now that I had gotten a taste of what having an animal again and realized that I really couldn't bear to live without them anymore. I vowed to go back and adopt a cat. I did get two cats eventually but I decided then I would give this cat a name because he deserved one-he radically altered my whole week and he was(almost) all black. I decided to name him "Eclipse" because he eclipsed everything else that was going on in my life-all the chaos of school and my horrible job-and brought a calm focus to my life that has remained in my relationship with my current awesome kitty duo and ever since.

I think of him all the time. When people ask me how many cats I have had I always say "three". I couldn't have made it through the last 14 years without him. Every so often I catch a glimpse of a black kitten and I imagine little Eclipse bounding and meowing and making someone else happy. I miss him terribly still.