Well. I am alone again for a few days, while Simon is in England, and as usual experiencing the weirdness of the first few hours of solitude. Until I remember how to do ‘being alone’. But, as I sit here writing this, with a glass of red wine, a bowl of peanuts and a packet of digestive biscuits next to my laptop, in a room full of sleeping dogs, with all the animal chores for the day complete, it is beginning to come back to me. And suddenly I know that ‘dinner’ as such will not occur, and that bed-time will be very late, and that my inner teenager will be in charge (albeit with an unusually well-developed sense of responsibility for the welfare of the animals) until Simon returns.
It has been a very warm and sunny day, and I have just realised that only one of our four house cats (Blue) has checked in today. It is almost as if they knew that Simon was going away, and that the usual ‘routine’ would be out the window. They probably know that if they turn up here at midnight, having been gone all day, there is a good chance that I will let them stay in all night, so, hey, why worry? Well, we’ll see.
Max continues to be stubborn and contrary, and probably a bit genuinely incapable. He knows he has me wrapped around his little paw, and that he can get away with all sorts of nonsense in Simon’s absence. We have reached an arrangement where he just about agrees to be hoisted outside on to the grass, on the understanding that he can lie down to defecate. Fair enough. So long as he avoids emptying his bowels or bladder inside the house, I am content.
It’s a bit of a bugger though. He really has passed his sell-by date, and there doesn’t seem a lot of point to his continued existence. But he is not actually, really ill. He is just old and immobile. If Max was a person he would have a wheelchair, and a bell to summon his home help whenever he wanted a cup of tea, or felt the need to use the commode. And the idea of euthanasia would be unthinkable (unless, of course, you were the underpaid, overworked home help). And that’s about where we’re at. His front half is sort of normal (apart from his meagre appetite) but his back half is in another world already. And so long as his front half can lift its head and show willing, and his big brown eyes can register interest and curiosity, then I guess I can keep on with the hoisting up and down the steps and the keeping on with the keeping on.
But it does make me think. It makes me think about the point of existence and what exactly constitutes a life worth living. It reminds me of a little bug I noticed a few days ago, caught in an old (unmanned) spider’s web. When I first saw it, it was stuck in the web on the floor, on its back, struggling and wriggling its legs about in the air. And I ignored it, because, well, that stuff happens all the time, and it’s Nature. But the next day it was still there, and still struggling, and I couldn’t ignore it. So I got it out of the web, and set it upright and watched it limp away, knowing that it would almost certainly be dead in hardly any time at all. But its struggle to survive was impressive. Totally pointless, but impressive all the same.
It made me wonder why choosing to die had to be such a difficult option. There ought to be some sort of off-switch that is totally under the creature’s control, so that at the point when they realise that there is no hope, they can end it all – just like that. No suffering. No dragging out of the inevitable. No loss of dignity.
If suicide were as simple as flicking a switch – how many more people would do it?
Would Max? At what point would I? Ah…such questions…..
Well, I told you my inner teenager was in charge now. What did you expect?
