Over the past few days it became clear that it was time for my cat, Jaromir, to be put to rest. His health has steadily deteriorated over the past 6 months, and it got to the point where it seemed more humane to have him euthanized than to keep him hanging on. This morning I made the appointment at the vets and at 1pm, I took him in.
I got Jaromir in 1990 when I was 12 years old. He was just a kitten and I picked him out because I liked his big feet. Jaromir had “extra” toes on each foot and his front paws looked like mittens. I named him after my favorite hockey player, Jaromir Jagr, who was then a rookie for the Pittsburgh Penguins. We’d had lots of cats before, but Jaromir was “my” cat. In the first year of his life he was always ill and the vets could never understand why. He seemed to be consistently on the brink of death. But as that first year went by he steadily got better and eventually all of his maladies went away.
Over the years, Jaromir was hit by a car, got into a fight with a stray cat and broke his tail (which lead to having it amputated), and had other various injuries. In the last year, he lost his hearing and went blind in his right eye. Despite it all, he was a loyal companion. I spent more years of my life (17) with him, than without him, and saying goodbye was very difficult. I like to keep my emotions in check, but I couldn’t do that today. I held Jaromir in my arms as the vet gave him the sedative and he purred away until he went to sleep.
Jaromir was always hard to photograph because he seldom held still. Yesterday, I knew what we had to do so I made a point of shooting some photos of him. With his ghostly, blind eye, his white fur yellowed with age, and his fading energy it was hard to get many good shots, but I wanted to share my favorite.
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