The Ravens Nest

Bub’s Saga

The Year is 2012, March, to be exact

Physically, I’m a wreck. I’d just rolled both hips forward about a month before. My cats at the time, Maggie and Jessie had passed a month to the day apart. Physically, mentally, hell, in every which way I could be, I was fucked up. The hits just kept coming. I was in PetSmart with a friend and there was the adoption center. I had stopped only for a moment and looked in. The lady saw me looking at the little kennels and said, “It’s okay if you want to go in, they’re all about to have dinner soon.”

I’d asked for a chair, my IT bands down the sides of my legs were screaming at me. She happily provided one. I took a seat at one end of the place and she poured the food and opened the kennels. There was a multi-colored storm of fur suddenly exploding out like cannons firing in rapid succession. Before you knew it, all you heard was “puuurrrrrnomnomnommnom” like a choir doing their best at una voce.

One cat didn’t join them.

He’d leapt from a kennel with the name “Heath” on it. He hit the ground, started to walk to the food and stopped, looking back at me.

I looked at him with a lot of curiosity. Wild horses couldn’t keep most cats from food and I was looking at the proof right in front of me. At the time, I was wearing a back brace, trying to keep pressure off of discs. Last thing I needed was a disc rupture or something to that effect. He turned and approached and took a seat, still staring at me. Finally, he wiggled his ass end and leapt into my lap. His front paws were up on my chest and he was nose to nose with me, sniffing at me.

If you’ve ever seen my live-streams on YouTube when I was doing that channel, you’ve seen him do something similar because before I could say a single word, he climbed up on me and rested his head on my shoulder. One of his arms had gone around my neck while the other rested next to his head.

I just held him.

When I tell this story, most people don’t believe me but, I have witnesses who can attest to the very things I’m describing. He rested there for about fifteen minutes and then hopped down.

I still didn’t have any plans on adopting any of them. I knew the time wasn’t right. I knew I shouldn’t but that’s when he surprised me again. He didn’t go to the food bowl with the rest of them. He brought out a little ball and dropped it at my feet and gave me this little sigh like “Look, you’re gonna have to throw it, I can’t, okay?”

I slowly reached down and grunted. The pain was subsiding but the aching…ouch.

I gently overarmed it and he did the Scooby Doo Skeedaddle trying to run for it. He pounced on it before another cat could and growled his disapproval of “junior” going for what was thrown for him. This time, he dropped it in my lap.

I figured, stay and play with the kid until we were ready to go.

When he was done with that, he jumped into my lap again and just sat there. He wouldn’t move. I’m still not sure how much time had passed but the lady came back in, put every cat away except this one named Heath…who was sitting in my lap. She leans over, starts giving him scratches behind both ears and says “We’ve Found Your Forever Hooooooome, Buddy!” then looks at me and says with the biggest grin on her face, “Can you just keep him entertained?” and I nodded. Sure, okay, I need to piss like a race horse, but sure, why not?

She came back with a soft-side cat carrier and ushered him inside and secured it, placing it back on my lap with, “Meet your new furbaby!”

Wait…whoa…what?

I looked out through the glass to see my friend waving back at me and approaching. As she came through the door, I looked at her.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, clearly confused, “Did you adopt this cat?”

“Yeah,” she said before correcting herself, “Okay well, no. He clearly adopted you.”

I could hear him inside, the purr like the engine of a finely-tuned Harley-Davidson Fatboy with loud pipes just rumbling. I had paperwork being presented to me. Heath was only two years old. When my friend saw what had happened, she thought it best he come home with me. He did.

I was the one that named him Bub. It started when I was watching one of the X-Men movies and noticed, every time Hugh Jackman would utter the word “bub” he would immediately look at the screen. I said it and it always got his attention. My own dad had given me the nickname “Bubba” as a kid and I thought it best to pass it on to him and then, I called him Mr. Bub, because we show him that respect.

He had personality quirks.

He jumped up on my desk, knocking things off and causing chaos.

I tried to train him. On days he did that and I got a rude awakening, I’d make him stand before I put the scoop of food in his bowl. If he didn’t, food went into bowl immediately. That backfired. He started doing it by default and then adding the little gesticulation as a method of begging. If I didn’t comply, he’d start trying to scratch things up. He’s been on video hopping up on the coffee table while I do tarot readings, he’s inserted himself into photos

To say that he wanted to be held only when he desired, isn’t true. He knew when I needed it or when a friend who would come over needed it.

I can’t tell you how many people have come and gone in my life in the past 12 years but Bub was the constant. Like a solid rock.

Then, September of last year, I noticed, when he went to the litter, his droppings were like he ate at an all-night buffet at Taco Bell and had Chipotle for dessert. I decided to get him checked out. To cut a long-story short, they did some scans and found that his lymph nodes were swollen and his digestive tract looked as if it could be Irritable Bowel Disease or Intestinal Lymphoma.

Judging from the results of his B12, he’d need those shots weekly and he was on an oral steroid that progressed from just once a day, to twice a day. He seemed alright. Active, alert but he absolutely detested being at the vet’s office. I had hoped it was just IBD, that didn’t sound so bad. I had to come out of pocket for a special type of food, thank goodness he liked it because I had couple bags that really cost and he didn’t care for them at all. I had to pay for a bottle of vitamin B-12 and give him injections weekly as well as his steroid. He hated medication time and he’d resist sometimes but not often. Once I had introduced kitty treats as a reward, he stopped trying to fight me. I carry scars on my hands from his claws that I genuinely hope never fade. Turns out, it’s likely it was the cancer.

Friday Night, I’d taken pictures of Arcanis: Runic Edition to show off some of my favorite parts of those books. Sometimes his territorial personality quirk kicks in. He doesn’t like it when I’m that low to the ground for what he deems is an extended period of time. I went beyond his extended period and he tried to take swipes at me. He attacked my ankles. That’s normal. That’s his way of…protecting my books, I dunno.

Anyway, he was making the begging gesture at me and I noticed, he wasn’t jumping up onto the bed these days. He wasn’t leaping into my lap unless it was something he really wanted. I had to pick up all twelve pounds of him and put him there sometimes.

Didn’t think anything of it. He still got the zoomies after going to the litter. He was active as hell. I didn’t see his activity in younger cats so I figured, he might be with us awhile yet. He was doing the same little begging motion the next morning and rubbing all over my leg. I made the trip to the dispensary on that Saturday for their one-year anniversary. When I came back, that’s when he started hiding from me.

That’s what struck me as a little odd. He’d only ever hidden under the bed one other time, back when he was constipated. I figured the sudden heat wave that has been like getting teabagged by Surtr in the heart of Muspielhemr was causing him to seek a cool dark place. The next day, I thought maybe he was backed up but he’d used the litter and he was eating and drinking and then, back up on the bed or hiding away somewhere.

Monday, I knew something was seriously wrong.

He didn’t seem as responsive as he normally was. He didn’t want to be at the animal hospital. He didn’t want to be in the carrier.

While everyone tells me I gave him peace, I can tell you, I don’t think I did. I know his final moments were filled with being in one of the most uncomfortable positions for him that he could have possibly been in. It’s no fault of the staff because they were operating clinically and professionally but Bub did not want to be there and did not like what was happening.

I came home with Bub in a box. I thought perhaps I could arrange a burial yesterday, just do it all immediately but there’s no safe place to put him. Thanks to the friends who stepped in to open up other options, Monday the 30th, Bub will take his journey and I’ll return with his remains in an urn.

I know I haven’t been very present lately but when my best friend and constant companion of 12 years needed me to be his best friend for a change, I would do it again and again every time and still make no apologies over it.

It was in no way fair for me to ask Bub to keep fighting when it was clear that he made the cancer work for it. We both gave it everything we had and, for my friend, I had to throw in the towel. He may have lost that fight but he still claims victory and may Freya greet him warmly.

I may not have been ready to take on another pet but that’s not what I took home. I took home a member of the family who helped me navigate all that and now, he’s not here for that. I know that he’s crossed over. I know he’s not in pain anymore and that’s all. That’s it. I raised a two-year-old cat into a furry little warrior and we fought our battles together. He deserved so much more than I could give him and what he did for me, I can’t ever hope to begin repaying that.

Of all the photos that I’ve ever taken of him, this one is still my favorite and it’s the only one I’ve ever had printed and framed. It’s my fondest memory of him. He’d always seem to pretend at times that my cameras were predators and he’d try to play a little game where he would try to hide and ambush the camera coming for him. It never worked out, of course. Sometimes he’d pose. This was the one time he wanted to play.

I know I didn’t thank everyone for the well-wishes and sympathies and offers of condolences individually but thank you because it means a lot to me but also to Bub. So for now, I’m just kinda doing the Funeral For A Friend thing. Believe me, when others wanted to be garbage human beings, it helped knowing there were more of you than there were of them.