I'm about to describe something pretty horrible so brace yourselves.

It's not just that Shanti died today. It was how I found her, after getting home from a 6:00 SIFF movie I had gone to see this evening.

Shobhit worked 5-9 pm today, and before he left for work, he snuggled with Shanti with her next to him on the sofa as usual. He told me to spend some time with her too—at the vet last week she had gone down to 6.4 lbs; this morning he suggested I weigh her again, and she was down to 5.8 lbs. The vet had put her on three meds last week, to last eight days: two nausea suppressants and one appetite stimulant. She actually ate a little more than she had the previous few days when we brought her home. But, as of today, we hadn't actually seen her eat in probably three or four days. She has been very weak, barely able to jump onto the sofa next to Shobhit. She had three other spots she seemed to rotate as favorite places to lay down during the steady decline of the past week or so: on top of the bunny slippers we keep under the coffee table for her (she has long loved lying on top of them); under the white wire chair to the right of the entertainment center; and at the end of the hallway by the door to the stackable washer/dryer.

She was on the floor under the white wire chair when I left for my movie. Prior to that, when I was processing the 10 photos I took when taking myself to the U District Street Fair this afternoon, I lay on the floor with my laptop right next to her there. I pet her, she purred, she kneaded the carpet a bit with her claws. It was the last time I saw her alive.

I rode my bike to the movie, rode my bike home afterward. When I got home, Guru came up to me as usual. I went looking for Shanti, and did not find her in any of the aforementioned spots. I thought maybe for some reason she had come to the bedroom, but she wasn't there. I went back out into the living room again. In the past she sometimes lay in the sun on the carpet by the sofa next to the door to the balcony. Not there either. But then I found her.

The first glimpse I saw of her, under the dining table, as seen through the legs of one of the dining chairs, something was clearly very wrong. She was lifeless, and she sort of seemed to be laying on her head upside-down.

I went to pull the chair out to get a better look at her—and her body pulled out with it, sliding along the carpet. She had been hanging by one front leg, one claw caught in the fabric of the chair seat. It was stunningly, traumatically apparent that she was dead.

To say I was not prepared for this is a gross understatement. You have to understand, Shobhit and I both knew she would likely pass very soon, but I still assumed we would be taking her in to the vet to be put down, so she could be let go peacefully. What's more, Shobhit has been dreading this so much and for so long, and I still remember how devastated he was when we put Peng down, I was operating under the assumption that, like with Peng, I'd have to console Shobhit as much as deal with my own grief when the inevitable happened. This thing with Shanti today, I could never have imagined it, not in my worst nightmare scenario. I have truly never had such a traumatic moment with a pet in my life.

My initial reaction was a sort of grief stricken panic, and I kept saying her name: "Shanti! Shanti! Shanti, Shanti, oh my god. Shanti!" That sort of thing. I had been listening to Kesha in my AirPods and I pulled them out, set them on the dining table.

Also, I couldn't leave her hanging there like that. It was such an awful image, something that may haunt me for as long as I live. It almost looked like she had hung herself. I don't have any idea what could have happened, but it couldn't have been pleasant. Either she tried to jump onto the chair and didn't make it, or she reached up for some reason and got her claw stuck. Either way, she could not pry herself loose, and in her weakened state she could not hold her head up—for all I know, she suffocated to death, hanging awkwardly like that. A slightly more pleasant scenario actually occurred to me just as I was writing this, something that is also possible: maybe she was on the chair and passed away there, then slid off the chair and her claw snagged on the fabric as she fell, already dead. Unfortunately, she has been in such a weakened state the past few days that this is extremely unlikely. That said, it was also unlikely that she would even have tried jumping on the chair or even reaching for it, but somehow this happened.

Or, she could have tried jumping without even realizing she was too weak to do it. She had been often staring with kind of a dazed look in her eyes at certain times, and I have wondered if whatever was wrong with her was affecting her brain—she was roughly 80 in cat years after all, she could have been experiencing some kind of dementia. Her balance was also off, as she would wobble when walking, and sometimes veer to the side when trying to walk straight.

All I know for certain is she was dead when I got home, hanging in that horrible and awkward position with her one claw snagged on the chair. I wish so very much that I could forget that image. I can't stop thinking about it. I did, within moments, pull her claw free. I had a desperate hope, for a split second, that she could still be alive, maybe just barely. But, it was absolutely clear she was gone.

Once I could think straight again, the next question would be: what to do with her now? I haven't had a pet die at home since I was about 12 years old. I'm pretty sure Mom just put that cat in a sack and threw her away, which was something that certainly never occurred to me today. In my awful state, I thought about Alexia. With Shobhit at work, I needed to go to someone, and Alexie was right next door, presumably. I looked at my phone and she had recently texted me, which further suggested she was home.

I did not text or call her. I just went right over and knocked on her door. I didn't even lock my door. She answered quickly, saw me crying, and immediately knew Shanti must be dead. She immediately gave me a hug and I wept in her arms, heaving sobs.

Alexia was clearly assuming at first, understandably, that we had just had Shanti put down. Had that happened, I never would have come next door in such a desperate state—I was still in shock from what I had just seen. "I just found her," I said. "She was hanging by a claw from under a dining chair."

This was when Alexia truly stepped up, with Saint-level stuff, as far as I'm concerned. I had also said, "I don't know what to do," and she said we probably want to take Shanti to an emergency vet for dropping off for the cremation she correctly assumed we'd be wanting. I was like, "Do we put her in a box?" Alexia is in the middle of packing for a move and has boxes handy. She even offered to go over and put Shanti into a box for me, which was far beyond anything I would ever have expected from her. "Are you sure?' I said, almost unable to believe the offer. And then, that's what she did.

It was while I was next door at Alexia's, and she was in my condo dealing with Shanti, that I called Shobhit. It went to voicemail. I hung up and called again. Voicemail again. Within about a minute, he texted me,

What's up?
Everything okay?

I texted back, Shanti is gone

and he replied, Fuck

I said, I'm a fucking mess. It was horrible. Then I added, She was hanging by one claw under a chair

Shobhit was scheduled to get off work at 9:00 and that text exchange started at 8:38. By 8:44 he texted me that he was coming home.

Alexia came back while we were texting, and we passed some of the time distracting ourselves with discussion of other things in her life: her pending move, her 95-year-old dad passing away last week. Soon enough she suggested we go over to my place so we'd be there when Shobhit got home, so he wouldn't be confused by the sight of a cardboard box just inside the front entrance.

She also suggested we clean the carpet with Resolve in the area where Shanti's body had been. There wasn't anything visible there, but she said it was a little damp. Ugh. I sprayed a fairly wide area of the carpet there, both under the dining table and the spot on the carpet where I had pulled her out.

Shohit came in the door while I was about to wash my hands. It was not long at all before a pretty stark difference became apparent regarding his and my grief over Shanti's death. He kept opening the box, wanting to look at her. I couldn't handle seeing her. It might have been different under normal circumstances, but the way I found her had seriously fucked me up.

And on the one hand, I'm glad Shobhit didn't find her that way. On the other hand, there's some irony in the fact that, if he had been the one to find her, I don't think he would have reacted the same way at all. He would have had a shock and would have been sad, but the sort of desperate-shock reaction I had, I don't think he would have.

He commented on how her eyes had not closed. He wanted to pick her up, strangely mostly because he wanted to sort of offer her to Guru to smell—he was convinced this was all freaking out Guru too, even though it wasn't at all. Guru couldn't be bothered to give half a shit, really. By the time we were actually leaving for Timberline Veterinary in Lake City, Guru was eating food out of his dish as though nothing had happened. (This would be a very inappropriate time to joke that maybe he pushed her off that chair.)

I still have to back up though. Shobhit resisted taking Shanti to the vet at first, and I'm really glad Alexia was there to help me convince him. I had no interest in having Shanti's body just hanging out with us overnight. The truth is, contrary to some of Alexia's arguments ("The city is full of rats" she said, when Shobhit suggested we put the box out on the balcony overnight—we're on the fourth floor and we've never seen rats here), the body might very well have been okay that way. But "okay" and "ideal" are not the same thing, and I just couldn't handle it. I needed to get this done, and be rid of the body.

Of course, different people express grief in wildly different ways. I am remembering when Grandma Rhoda, Sherri's mom, died in 2011. She had an open casket funeral, and Sherri was all about spending time with the body. She even asked me to take a picture of it—something I immediately recalled when Shobhit asked me to take a picture of Shanti, after the guy at Timberline took her out of the box and lay her on blankets on an exam table or us, in a private room.

I actually gave my phone to Shobhit to take that picture. And as I might have expected, the picture gives me the creeps. Still, before that photo was taken, I did take a photo of Shobhit standing with her, from across the room. This was after I left the room to let Shobhit take some time with her while I filled out intake paperwork.

The guy told us the communal cremation, which gets mixed with other cats, was something like $180. The individual cremation, where we get Shanti back in an urn (and, apparently, a paw print), is $390. Somewhat to my surprise, Shobhit immediately said he wanted the individual cremation—even though he had also complained about how expensive it was going to me when we said at home that we needed to take her body in tonight.

In any event, I definitely did the most crying tonight. I cried a lot on Alexia's shoulder. Shobhit hugged me a couple of different times and that made me cry too. This included when the nurse came back into the exam room to, apparently for legal reasons, check to make sure Shanti actually was dead (she was). Given the time he had with her while I filled out the paperwork, we were done shortly after that. The nurse picked up Shanti in the blankets to take her out, and seeing her stiffening body roll slightly in his arms only fucked me up a little more.

I'm exhausted. I already sent in the calendar announcement at work that I'm taking the day off tomorrow. I need a day to recover from all of this. Noah very sweetly texted me shortly after saying to let him know if I need more than a day to grieve. I don't think I will but I still appreciateed it.

[posted 11:58 pm]