On June 27th, two days after putting Chayya down, I woke up with a vet appointment scheduled for Po. Little did I know I would not come home with him that day.

For a period in late spring and early summer, I relished the idea that, despite Chayya and Shukriya moving on clear paths to demise, perhaps I would yet have Po- my late boarder, acquired after my aunt passed in 2020- to myself for a few more years.

A week of discontinued eating in early June, followed by an emergency vet visit that left Po in an Algodones clinic for two-and-a-half days, let me know that he had had an acute kidney incident, and that he suddenly was also a kitty in jeopardy. I denied it a bit, and when he came home with me after his emergency stay for medical treatment, I approached him as I had when he first came to me as a starving animal: I would find a way to get him going again. I brought home subcutaneous fluids and meds meant to help him eat for a few days, and I disregarded an instruction on the vet’s suggested to-do’s for his health care: “talk to your vet about euthanasia”. I, in fact, failed to read it for two weeks.

I took to hand feeding Po a sludge of soft foods via syringes several times a day, and also I waterboarded him daily to get fluids into him. I don’t think I gave him enough of either, really, and perhaps he was already on his way out. His weight continued to drop each, though he let me feed him and water him.

In the last week before that morning vet visit or so, it was clear he was uncomfortable. After I’d feed him, he’d sit still, front legs extended, in a sphinx pose for twenty minutes. I presume digestion was uncomfortable for him. A time or two during that period he went into an upstairs bedroom and hid his head under a bed.

I didn’t want to see the hard signs he was showing me because I wanted to keep him with me, for my own, for just a while longer- all for my own- because I realized he was different than the other cats, in personality and behavior.

He was so chill, and so patient, and affectionate in his quiet ways. I’d often wake to find him sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed, just staring at me, willing me to join the living.

And so I took him to the vet to have his kidney markers reviewed that morning of June 27th, expecting to get some helpful guidance on how to keep him alive for a while longer.

I did get some suggestions about how to keep him alive, but I also got the word that his kidney markers were worse now then than when he had gone to the emergency vet weeks earlier, and that his prognosis was poor. And I thought about his recent behavior at home, and realized he probably wasn’t enjoying his last days very much.

It was hard because he was my aunt’s beloved cat- my family’s living connection to her- and he had become my beloved cat because of his miracle recovery from the emaciated state we found him in, and the time I spent with him as we were trying to bring him back to life. He came back to life for four years, and I wanted to believe he could do it again at that time, but I realized he wasn’t. He was older and very sick, and despite his efforts to spend time in my proximity day-by-day, he never looked real comfortable very often.

In perhaps the second-hardest decision of my life, I shifted in moments from being an optimist about keeping him alive with me at home to being heartbroken, letting him depart in peace and in a sleep that morning in the vet’s office.

And afterwards, I cried pretty regularly off and for a few days- for losing the other two cats, and for losing all of my cats, and, mostly, for losing him.

I will miss Po post-poop launches down the stairs for victory laps into the kitchen; his silent sitting at the front door until I opened it so he could sit before the screen door and smell the morning and evening air (he loved to do that); his delight in sleeping in a pool of sunlight on a bed under a window in the afternoon; his random yelling in distant rooms of the house that countered his seemingly stoic presence (MOWW! MOWW! MOWW! MOWW!); his letting me hold him like a baby, head in my elbow, where he liked to be cradled and have his face and belly rubbed.

I loved the other two cats much from our long tenure together. I loved Po deeply for his delightful personality and presence.

In days since the cats all left, I have noticed a few things I miss about not having them. I miss the motion and company of having each of them with me, from the sound of one hopping up on furniture to rest to the sounds of the crunching of kibble, and lapping of water, a distant meow, the scrape of a paw on the inside of a litter box cave, and the tapping of claws on faux wood as one crosses the floor.

I had hoped for a family in life along the way, and as that hope faded, I fell in with these characters for a long stint and they gave me some community and some critters to care for- and they also cared for me as well.

On Facebook the day of Po’s departure, I jotted “I will not be getting any more pets any time soon.” Soon after that quip, I started looking online around the state in shelters for another seal point Siamese.

I talk to Po a lot each day.

Thank you, Po, for letting me have you for a little while. I love you, little boy.