Clancy The Cat
My son was born into a home with four cats. The most recent addition was a black kitten named Clancy who had needed a home because the children in his house were allergic to him.
So unlike our other cats, he knew exactly how important human children are, and he adopted ours. Clancy would let the baby touch him, and even pull on his hair a limited amount. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he would sit just out of reach. As the boy grew, the two were inseparable.
Clancy liked to sit under the table when the baby was eating because he knew babies dropped food. As the baby became more competent at feeding himself, the treats stopped, so on occasion Clancy would nibble on toes to remind his human to share.
There was never any question that boy and cat belonged to each other.
This was before we became a leashed cat household. We actually tried to put a harness on Clancey when he was still a kitten, but when we did he went limp, making it very clear he found such restraint would make life unbearable.
As he got older, Clancy developed allergies, so he only liked going outside at night (when the pollen was less bothersome). We lived in a Brampton subdivision. You know the kind; a Knots Landing sort of place where commmunity consists of mostly single family dwellings huddled around a cul de sac. People travelling along the big thorough fares that surround these clumps of community only get a view of the lines of back fences.
This was a decades old neighborhood, so when I walked my son to school beside these fences, I kept my son well clear of the more rickety unkempt back fences that leaned alarmingly toward the sidewalk. I was never sure if my nervousness was reasonable or not.
Until the dark and stormy night Clancy never came home. We weren’t sure whether to be nervous at first. The next day was a school day, so I didn’t start getting concerned until the afternoon. I had not mentioned this to my son, who was busy playing with his best friend next door.
Next thing I knew, two very upset boys were bringing me out the front door to the bushes where they told me they had found Clancy. They were very upset because he was hurt. And the fluffy little cat was grievously hurt. Thankfully my husband was home, so we had one parent to drive and another to carry the cat and comfort the child. When the vet examined hum, she told us his back was broken. We would have done anything… but when the vet said she had never seen a live cat with such a low temperature we knew there was nothing that could be done.
My son was only six, but Clancy was his cat. He had to make the decision to euthenize his life long companion. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to face in his young life but he did it. We stayed with our son, comforting Clancy until the end.
And we grieved together as a family. We spent the rest of the day, and much of the next remembering Clancy, sharing stories, looking through photos. My son drew pictures and I made him this puppet Clancy. Love got us through the pain, to where only memories, good memories, remain.