Feline Ethical Hedonist

My cat Lewis died today.  We got him six years ago, a blind, rotund creature who wandered about bumping into everything.  We worried that he would struggle to settle in, find his litterbox, figure out the layout, but Lewis managed wonderfully right from the start.

He was an utter failure as a majestic predator.  He loved to go outside and sit on the lawn at the cottage sniffing the air while birds and squirrels wandered 50 cm away from him.  I don't think he understood that they were there at all, but I can't quite say why the wild creatures were so willing to hang out near him.  I suppose they sensed his inability and disinterest in chasing them down.  Most cats like to hang out on high perches trying to look fierce and independent.  Lewis liked to do this:

His favourite thing was to lie on his back in a sunbeam with his paws in the air, begging for a belly rub.  Unlike other cats it wasn't a trap - he loved attention and would chirp and purr happily if you stopped by to get some cat tummy time.  This cat knew how to be an ethical hedonist, no doubt.  He loved snuggles and would happily fall asleep on your chest, snoring very softly away.  He trusted everyone right away, and would happily sit in the middle of busy rooms with people walking all about, even those he didn't know.

This fall he got deadly sick and we found out that his kidneys were failing.  There is no cure, but after the vet got him stabilized we brought him home and began giving him daily injections of fluids because he stopped drinking water entirely.  We knew we were just buying time against the inevitable, but we wanted to give him all of the good days he could have.

This weekend he ran out of good days.

The looming prospect of euthanasia was a tremendous struggle for me emotionally.  I see myself as my family's protector, a physical shield against all the dangers of the world.  To take him to a place where stranger would kill him is a terrible thing to face, and it was made much worse by the fact that due to covid only one of us could be with him at the end.

Normally this sort of thing Wendy would do.  She was the one who was there when Pinkie Pie came out of surgery and only one of us could be there... but I needed this.

I needed to be with him because even though I can no longer protect him from death, I will still protect him from suffering.  I needed to be there so he would know, as he died, that he was not abandoned, and that he was loved.  When he died I fell apart for awhile, and his wonderful soft fur soaked up my tears.

Now Lewis is dead.  Not gone entirely, of course, so long as we remember.  I will remember him as being the worst of the deadly hunters... and the best of the cats.

I wish I was wrong

This past fall Pinkie Pie decided to try high school.  She missed what would have been her grade 9 year with the pandemic, but she wanted to try again.  I had thought it wouldn't work at all, but it is now almost four months in and it looks like she will get full credits for the term.  My parents set high standards for my marks and results in school, but Pinkie Pie has struggles that I never did - we will be happy if she passes.  

One thing that has been making school more challenging is an educational assessment.  It is a process where psychologists and learning experts evaluate kids for all kinds of things including behavioural problems, learning disabilities, etc.  It costs a few thousand dollars, which is the barrier for many people, but with some family help on that front we decided to try it as school started.

I was quite sure what the result would be.  Pinkie Pie has been through the mental health system for years now, and I knew this educational assessment would result in them saying "Pinkie Pie is a clever kid with high anxiety and executive function problems.  She needs extra help, flexibility, and time to complete her work."  However, we decided to go for it anyway in the hopes that I was somehow wrong.

The process was much more of a struggle than we had thought.  It involved numerous sessions of tough academics and doing it caused Pinkie Pie to miss a whole week of school due to exhausion.  Making school even worse is not was I was hoping for out of this.

Still, just maybe I will be wrong?

I was not wrong.

After several months of appointments they sat us down and told us in big words that my kid is bright but has big struggles with anxiety, energy, and organization.  They recommended doing exactly what the school was already doing anyway.

I was ready to write it off as a perfect prediction, but they added one thing at the end.  They told us we could go for parent coaching to try to help with this process.  If there is one thing I need at the end of paying people hundreds of dollars an hour to tell me stuff I already know it is a recommendation to pay someone else hundreds of dollars an hour to tell me *different* stuff I already know!  It would be great - I would describe my situation to them, and they would tell me that Pinkie Pie needs a good sleep schedule, healthy food, and for us to tell her to go to school in a firm voice.  Somehow they would imagine that I didn't get this advice from one thousand other sources.

It isn't as though I think these people are all incompetent.  Probably parent coaches mostly give good advice, and I am sure the people evaluating Pinkie Pie knew their stuff.  They just had absolutely nothing of value to give us at the end.

What I know for sure though is that I have read and listened to endless parenting advice when Pinkie Pie struggled and it was not helpful.  It was always stuff I already knew, had already tried, and which totally failed.  When I got this advice I always responded that I had tried that exact thing and it did not work.  Mostly they would give me blank stares, no doubt being sure that the advice was good, so clearly I had screwed it up.  

Fact is, you can be as good a parent as you want, and there are some things you can't fix.  No strategy will suffice, no route to victory can be found.

I wanted so much to be wrong, for them to find something, anything, that would give her an edge to deal with her current struggles.  Unfortunately I was right, and we will just have to continue to muddle through.