Question:
After reading a recent column, I was prompted to write to you about changes in animals when someone is about to die or has passed on.
My mother passed away at home last April from cancer. During her final days, she had two Siamese cats that had been with her their entire lives -- one is a sweet 21-year-old chocolate-point male, and the other, a 10-year-old chocolate-point female.
Several hospice nurses and I cared for my mother during the last two weeks of her life. During the entire time, both cats refused to leave my mother's side. They would both curl up next to her, physically touching her at all times, whether she was sitting on the sofa, sleeping or just resting on a chair. In fact, one of them always wanted to snuggle up right next to my mother at the site of her primary tumor on her left side (she had a rare form of intestinal cancer). The other would often want to be on her chest near her heart.
This snuggling became uncomfortable for my mother at a certain point, but if a nurse or I tried to remove the cats, they came right back. We finally convinced the cats to lie next to my mother in places that were not uncomfortable. The cats left only to eat and use the litter box. When my mother drifted off to sleep (and eventually into a coma), the older cat would periodically go up to her face and sniff or hover over her mouth and nose, as if to check on her breathing.
When my mother passed in her bed and the funeral home came to take her body away, I was fascinated to see that the cats were still lying beside her on the bed. The moment of death had not made them budge. The kind gentleman who came from the funeral home noted this when he went up to survey the situation. I asked him if he had seen this sort of thing before. He lit up when I asked, as if he was able to unburden himself of something he had always wanted to share. He replied, "All the time." He had seen both cats and dogs hold vigil for their departed owners. I asked him if he had any suggestions on how to handle this. He suggested that I be the one to remove the cats from my mother's body, but to make sure that they could see that her body was being taken away so they could know that she was gone -- all of which I did.
The next morning when I awoke and entered my mother's now empty bedroom, the two cats were still in the room but they were sleeping on a chair beside my mother's bed for the first time. It's as if they knew she was gone but were not yet ready to leave the last vestiges of her presence. They remained there for the day.
Witnessing these two cats' tender devotion and sensitivity to my mother during her final days was incredibly touching and beautiful, something I was totally unprepared for. The hospice nurses and I marveled at it. These two cats remained steadfastly available at all times to my mother -- watching, comforting and caring. I have no doubt they knew she was ill and dying. They helped ease my mother's transition as well as my own grief. They were truly a blessing.
A.P., Washington, DC Mar 28, 2010
Answer:
Thank you for an important letter that helps put to rest the unfounded belief that only humans have any concept of death and dying. Many animal species and individual members thereof seem to be quite aware, and the devoted attention of your mother's two cats is deeply moving.
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