It is a striking classified ad - one that demands instant attention:
DIABETIC CAT LOST
in Maple Acres/Daniels School area. May have been shut in your garage or shed over
Holiday weekend. Very large (25-30 lbs.). Buff & white neutered male. Answers to
"Bentley" (but tag reads "Jasper") Must have insulin twice daily. Missing from Gemini Dr.
since 9/5. Please call (603) 352-7693 with ANY info.
There isn't a line in the ad that isn't riviting. The idea of a diabetic cat is suprising on first
thought, And everything that follows just gets odder and odder. It is startling, quirky and
more than a little bit funny. The idea of a cat that large on the loose in a school zone with
an alias and a drug habit lends itself almost irresistably to jokes. Almost everyone who
reads this ad gets an initial smile or laugh out of it.
Until they get to the last line, with its plaintive, capitalized plea for "ANY" information.
That's one of the curious things about humor; pain is funny in the abstract, but not so
much so when the reality of that pain is thrust in your face. Spend five minutes with
Patricia Hill and you won't be laughing. It is her cat that is missing.
She and her husband live in a neat, well-kept house on a residential street in West Keene.
Her children are grown and it is obvious that she is very attached to her cat. Upon
meeting her, the first thing you notice is how very tired she looks. She doesn't sleep much
at night lately; she gets up in the middle of the night and can't rest until she looks for
Bentley again. She spends a lot of time looking for him - at least two or three hours a day.
She and her family have been combing the neighborhood for him since the afternoon he
disapeared, two weeks ago. "You get to the point where you act in ways that wouldn't
normaly be rational", she says. "We get some strange looks from people after we climb
their fences and walk through their backyards, but when they find out what we're doing,
they are great." She has plastered the neighborhood with flyers and has called everybody
who might be able to help - from the Humane Society to the Police, but there have been no
leads. She even placed a call to the owner of another missing cat to see if he might have
any leads. "But his cat came home...", she says softly.
It seems odd that a person would get so worked up over the loss of a housecat, but it is
obvious that she is quite litterally grieving for him. She smiles when she tells stories about
him - how she found him as a kitten and about his quirks, but then almost breaks down
again. She talks very matter-of-factly about the day to day routine of caring for Bentley:
the feeding, the expense, the medical care - as if injecting a thirty pound cat with insulin
twice a day is something that everyone does. When asked what is so special about this cat,
that she should go to such trouble over him, she replies simply, "I don't know why he's so
special. I just love him."
In fact, his chances may not be as bad as you might think. Dr. Richard Righter, Bentlley's
veterinarian says that his insulin injections are used for general maintainance and that not
getting them would not be immediately life-threatening. In Benly's case, Dr. Righter says,
the main danger comes from ketoacidosis, a condition where his body, deprived of
carbohydrates, starts to break down the fat in his body. This lowers the PH of his blood -
makes it more acid. The body compensates by eliminating as much body fluid as possible
to rid itself of the acid in its system. "The main danger is from dehydration", he says. "As
long as he had plenty to drink, he might last quite a while."
All of which is not necessarily good new for Patricial Hill. She wants very much to be able
to get on with her life, but is tormented by the idea that her cat is out there somewhere, in
trouble and calling for her. "You don't get any sense of closure", she says continually
folding and unfolding a scrap of paper, her hands unable to stay still. Not knowing what
has happened to her cat is the hardest thing of all. He just disapeared one day and she is
left to try to deal with it. On one level, he may just be a cat, but it is easy to see that on
another, he represents a part of her life that she has invested an enormous amount of
herself in. And like anyone who has lost a big emotional investment - a job, a marriage, a
dream - she is left with a huge amount of pain. Who can laugh at that?
[Writer's note - When I called Mrs. Hill in late November, 3 months after Bentley disapeared, she broke down in tears and told me that he hadn't come home and that she was starting to lose hope.]
