Losing the Pet You Left Behind for Your Peace Corps Service

When I made the decision to be a Peace Corps volunteer, I made a decision to give up almost all of my physical possessions.  That included my cat, Luca, who I got from a shelter in California 15 years ago.  To be honest, I thought it would be easy to say goodbye to Luca because, although we had spent 13 years living together, I’ve never been one of those people to include photos of my pets with me in my holiday cards or talk about them like they are children (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  Thus, imagine my surprise when I found myself profoundly missing her and crying when I took her to her new home.  

Luca as a teenager. 

Once mocked for being a big ol' fat cat (with my brother Amery in MN)..... 

... she was quite svelte in her later years. And then she got way too skinny.  

My dad and his family graciously offered to take her into their home during my service, which was incredibly kind and much better than my original idea of searching for someone in Seattle to take her.  I went to the vet a few days before our scheduled flight from Seattle down to So Cal in January 2016 to get her travel papers and the vet noted that she had lost a lot of weight since her last visit.  I thought it was just due to old age as she was still eating all the time, but the night before our flight the vet called to say nope – she had thyroid disease and would need medication every day for the rest of her life.  Craaaaaaaaaaap.

When I called my dad to inform him of this unexpected facet of their new cat’s life, my stepmom said “No problem – I’ll happily give her medicine 2x/day, every day.”  Luca had lived alone with just me for almost her entire life, so it was a wee bit stressful for her to arrive in a new home with another cat, two dogs and three people.  She spent months in self-induced isolation in the computer room at my dad’s house before slowly (and I mean slowly) starting to come out and explore the house. 

Luca as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed youngster.

Lounging on her favorite chair in Santa Barbara.

She also loved a good nap on the bed.  

Or a good nap on anything. 

After a year in California, I started getting really good reports from my dad about how she was finally entering the room with people present and becoming more social.  She was even hanging out calmly in the presence of the dogs!  I was really proud of her for finally acclimating, so when my dad called in September to say that something was wrong and that she had lost a lot of weight and was acting weird, it was kind of devastating.  After a few visits to the vet, we got confirmation that she had advanced kidney disease and likely something else that would be really difficult to diagnose and treat.  She pretty much stopped eating, spent weeks sitting under a bed, and then started moving around a bit, but in very uncharacteristic ways. 

I talked to the vet directly as my dad and stepmom kindly said they would do whatever I wanted, but I had to make the decision about her care.  The vet was brutally honest with me and told me what she would do as the advocate for my cat, so this past week I made a trip home to say goodbye and be with her for her passing which was awful, heartbreaking and soul crushing for me. 

I feel incredibly guilty for not being there for her during her final two years of life, but I know that Luca went to the very best possible house in the world during that time.  My dad and stepmom loved her as their own pet.  My stepmom went above and beyond, administering her thyroid medication 2x/day and then giving her frequent hydration injections during her final months.  I cannot say thank you enough for their loving and diligent care of my beloved cat.  

One time a cat-sitter was in a panic because she couldn't find Luca.  She eventually found her in a kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator. 

She would often pull down my bath towels for a nap. 

On the lookout for birds in St. Paul.

I wasn't a fan of dressing up my cat, but I sometimes grudgingly let my friends do it. 

Luca was originally named Janet and was part of a trio of shelter kittens named after characters from Three’s Company.  I gave her the name Luca from the Suzanne Vega song, and she ironically spent the majority of her life living on the second floor of apartment buildings.  As a kitten, she was precocious, jumping on the curtains and bending the rods, running all over my studio apartment at night, and doing this weird thing where she would essentially nurse on your earlobe.  As an adult, she liked to meow really loudly, hide from all visitors, and sleep in my lap or on the back of the couch.  She loved to go outside but not in the snow.  My dad joked that she saw more of the country than he did as she traveled with me from California to Washington, Arkansas and Minnesota, and then back to Washington, and finally home to California.

She was all the things that a cat should be: loving but only when she wanted to be, demanding and finicky, a fan of feathers, grass and laser pointers, a watcher of birds from the window, and a warm, purring snuggle companion.  She was a really good cat and I’m going to miss her so very, very much.