Lumby

*First posted on Dec. 19, 2009 on my WordPress blog

I was three years old and I wanted a cat. I had wanted one for months. I begged my parents to buy me a kitten. “If you got a cat what would you name it?” my mum once asked me. I thought for a minute. “Lumby,” I finally answered. While everyone thought I was adorable for coming up with that name, nobody was quite sure where I had heard the name of a small town an hour north of my hometown. They finally concluded that I must have heard my dad, the owner of a kitchen cabinet company, talk about delivering cabinets to Lumby. When my fourth birthday finally came, my parents took me to ChowTown, a local pet store, to pick out my new kitten. I stood in front of the glass window separating me from the cats inside the pen and watched the lively kittens skitter around the room. One kitten with unusual markings stood out to me among all the other kittens. I knew that cream and tan kitten was Lumby. When I pointed her out, the man helping us went around to the back door and scooped her up. I was overjoyed. Finally I had my own cat! As my parents paid for Lumby and all the extra kitten supplies, my dad asked the man if the cat was male or female. I was surprised. Didn’t my dad know that? Even I knew that cats were girls and dogs were boys. But before I could reveal my knowledge to my father, the man grasped Lumby around the middle and tipped her upside-down. “Male,” he said. A boy?! I couldn’t believe my ears. I tried to wrap my brain around the idea that cats could be both girls and boys during the ride home while Lumby meowed loudly from his small cardboard box on the floor of the car. I wanted to pull open the flaps and stroke his head or maybe even hold him on my lap, but my parents wouldn’t allow it. “He’ll be better off in the box until we get home,” my mum said. So I waited until my dad parked in the driveway and helped me carry the box into our living room. Finally I let Lumby free to explore his new home. My parents got to work setting up his living area in the garage. Then I cuddled Lumby to my chest as they taught me how to give him food and water and showed me where his litter box was. I’m sure I was the happiest four year old alive!

Lumby, four-year-old-me and my older sister Becky playing in the snow

Lumby was my friend and most loyal confidant for seven years until he was suddenly injured. We had moved to Alberta two years before and the weather wasn’t too terribly cold for that time of year, but the morning we found out Lumby was hurt, he was curled up right outside our back door, visibly shivering despite his thick coat of fur. My dad took time off work to take Lumby to the vet on Dec. 19, 1995 (14 years ago today) while I had to sit through my Gr. 5 morning classes while worrying about my cat. Just before noon my dad appeared at the doors of the school gym as I was practicing a Christmas musical with my class. He talked to my music teacher and she called me away from my fellow shepherds gathered on the stage. Dad led me just outside the gym doors and bent down to look me in the eyes. “Ali.” His voice was somber, his eyes flecked with sorrow and pain. “I took Lumby to the vet.” “How is he?” I asked in a small voice, hoping for good news, but slowly realizing I might not be granted a Christmas miracle. “He’s pretty sick. The vet . . .” he broke off and paused, then licked his lips and continued. “The vet doesn’t think he’ll be strong enough to get better. She says the kindest thing for us to do would be to let her put Lumby to sleep.” A lump the size of the rocks surrounding our fake shepherd fire lodged in my throat. I swallowed hard, but it stayed put. An eternity of waiting, of trying to claw myself awake from the nightmare I was having, of grasping for any hope of saving my best and closest friend. Then I said it, past the rock nearly blocking my throat. “I don’t want him to hurt. If he’s too sick to get well, I guess we should let him go.” I couldn’t believe the words were coming from my mouth. Dad pulled me into a strong hug. My hands stayed tight to my side, but I let him rock me gently back and forth. Then he let me go and stood up. “Do you want to say good-bye?” I nodded. He went back into the gym to let my teacher know where I would be and then he stopped at the front office to inform the secretary, too, while I went to the shoe shelves in the entryway, yanked off my indoor shoes, threw them onto the shelf and shoved my feet into my Sorel boots.

We left the school and I slid my cold hand into my dad’s strong warm one as we walked to our car. The landscape passed my window in a blur of white and all too soon we drove up a hill and parked in front of a white building. My dad led the way inside and, after talking softly to the receptionist, took me to an examination room. Lumby lay on a thick wool blanket on the table. He was still shivering. A vet stood behind him, petting his head. She explained the process of putting cats to sleep to me, but I only caught some words. Circulatory. Can’t pump enough blood. Suffering. I kept up a slow steady rhythm as I petted my cat from the top of his brown-streaked head to the end of his ringed tail. I tried to talk to Lumby. You can’t die. You can’t leave me alone. But I couldn’t say the words. Finally one question chased all the other words from my mind. Why did this happen? Dad touched my shoulder. “Are you ready, Ali?” I scratched Lumby’s head slowly and then nodded, but my heart screamed, No! The vet had already prepared the needle. Now she gently pinched the fur on the back of Lumby’s neck and slid the needled through his skin. “Do you want to stay in the room while he dies?” she asked Dad, but looked at me. I kept scratching his head, not sure if I wanted to watch him die, but not wanting to leave. Dad looked down at my head bent over Lumby’s body and then said, “I think we should probably leave.” When he said it I knew that I didn’t want to be there when Lumby stopped breathing. I nodded and then ran my hand down Lumby’s body one last time before backing away from the table. I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to say good-bye. But I couldn’t form the words. I turned away from my cat and followed Dad from the room. As I walked through the door I looked back at my cat for the last time. He wasn’t shivering any more, just taking long, deep breaths, relaxing into the wool blanket. I tried once more to speak, but failed again. Good-bye my dearest pet. I’ll miss you. I thought, then turned and walked into the waiting room.

Minutes later the vet appeared and handed me Lumby’s collar across the front desk. She asked us if we wanted the body for a home burial. Dad looked at me, but I couldn’t imagine the idea of driving home with my dead cat in the car. I definitely didn’t want to see my favourite pet’s lifeless body. I shook my head slightly and Dad handed me the keys to the car. I walked outside while he arranged for the clinic to cremate Lumby. I didn’t want to hear about that. Dad joined me in the car and drove me back to school. My face felt like a mask. It had ever since Dad had first told me the bad news. We entered the school and Dad told the secretary I was back while I put my indoor shoes back on. Dad walked me down the hallway to my classroom and gave me one more hug and told me that he would tell my younger siblings, Bryna and Tyler. Then he opened the door and I moved to my desk at the back of the room. My classmates were eating lunch. The smells mixing in the air made my stomach turn. My teacher, Mr. Cheranpeski, came over to my desk, told me he was sorry about my loss and asked if I wanted to eat my lunch. I didn’t. He left me alone. The students around me glanced my way, then continued their happy conversations with their friends. I buried my head in my arms, smelling the pencil-lead-and-wood of my desktop. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry. The rock-lump wouldn’t let me. When school was over, I found my siblings and took them to the office. I called my mum and asked if she could drive us home. I didn’t want to spend an hour on the school bus with noisy kids yelling up and down the aisle. My mum came and picked me, my siblings and my cousins up and drove us home. By then my cousins knew about Lumby, too. My mum stopped at my Auntie Sandy’s house first to let off my older cousin Nathan and just then my sister asked, “Ali, aren’t you sad about Lumby?” The lump dislodged. My eyes burned with unshed tears and suddenly they cascaded down my cheeks. Sobs burst from my lips and I finally cried for Lumby. “Whoa,” my cousin Jeremy said. He and his brother Andrew and my siblings watched silently. Nathan froze in the sliding doorway of our van. My mum spoke quietly to the rest of the van while I cried and then Nathan got out and shut the door. We drove to my Auntie Judy’s house and let Jere and Andy off and then went home. By that time my sobs had nearly subsided. I ran to my room and stayed there until Mum called me for supper. Before I went downstairs I stood at my window looking out over the back yard that Lumby would never play in again. “Good-bye Lumby,” I whispered to the orange sun sinking toward the horizon.