Jude

Good-bye Little Jude

We said good-bye to Jude today. The loss hit me much harder than I expected. Afterall, we met late in her life and hadn’t known each other that long. Plus, she was a pain in the ass - something I told her often, usually after being on the receiving end of one of her loud and long complaints.

But as happens with housemates, we were affectionate and had our routines. At night, I’d lay on my side and bend one knee, making a little nest for her to sleep in. She was surprisingly tolerant of my nighttime movements, given her frequent and loud vocalizations during the day regarding the quality of food, or how promptly it appeared in her dish.

She also didn’t appreciate waking up and not knowing where I was. She was mostly deaf, and she was small, and had been mutilated by someone trying to declaw her. Her loud voice and kick ass attitude were her only defenses. And I suppose I was too.

Consequently, she liked to stay close to me when I was home. She wasn’t a confident jumper so she’d cry for me to pick her up so she could go to work with me. She slept on my laptop while I worked because it was warm and I was close. Zoom calls were her favorite.

She’d be at the door waiting for me when I went out. I could hear her cries as I got up to the door. I never knew if it was because she’d been waiting there or if she’d been alerted by the rumble of my car as I pulled up in the drive.

She famously hated the food I gave her. She only liked gravy, so I bought her all types of food with gravy. There was only one brand that she’d eat the meat, but only after getting hungry. Everything else was left in the dish. She didn’t like tuna or sardines. She loved salmon, and chicken, and recently I discovered that she loved carnitas. I shared those with her as often as I had them.

Every morning, she’d sit on the table, watching me while I made my morning coffee. She was waiting to collect a milk tax, and was very disappointed when I stopped eating Cheerios for breakfast. Since then, she’d occasionally enjoy the remains of my yogurt or raw egg left in a mixing bowl, but always hoped for milk.

Of course, she’d be loud in sharing her needs and opinions about all of it. I really was a continual disappointment to her.

Last night, she had a stroke. She got sick to her stomach around 12:30 AM, and was distressed after. She was pacing through the kitchen and living room and had a little cough. I thought it was from being sick, and I fell asleep.

About 4:30 AM I woke up to her stuck in a corner of my bedroom. She was circling and circling, and banging into the walls. She couldn’t move her right front leg. I picked her up and she said her last word to me, and then she relaxed right into my lap as if she knew never had to struggle again.

We moved to the couch and I covered her in her blanket and held her close to warm her up. How long had she been walking in tiny circles trying to find me?

All I could do was hold her and pet her and tell her how brave she was, and always had been. How brave she was to unfailingly declare what she needed. We never would have met if she didn’t come up to me in that alley, loudly telling me she needed someplace to live.

And now it was time for me to help her get home.

We stayed on the couch together until the veterinarian office opened. I wrapped her in her blanket and drove to Jane’s so she could take us to say good-bye.

Jude was exhausted but calm. I think at this point she was mostly unaware of what was going on around her, or to her. The people at the veterinarian’s office were kind and empathetic. I held her in her blanket as the doctor gave her the drugs to stop her heart. Jane and I stayed with Jude for a bit longer before heading back out into the world. A few raindrops appeared on the car windshield as we drove home.

I cried and cried some more. Little Jude. Little, demanding, complaining Jude is gone. I already miss that brave little girl.