Sparkle Peered Into Our Souls (08/13/2016 - 12/07/2024)
Content Warning: This post deals heavily with the loss of a beloved pet and friend; please take care of yourself if you choose to read.
Earlier this summer, Sparkle started losing weight in a somewhat concerning manner. His regular vet was booked up so we took him to a local urgent care where they were able to determine that the boy had developed diabetes. It's not entirely surprising, he's always been the most active eater of the colony (present at every human meal, begging or outright stealing) - and he comes from absolutely garbage feral street cat genes - so we started him on a course of insulin, a special diet and hoped for the best.
I first met Sparkle in late 2016. He and four littermates were 'hidden' by their feral mother into a bush in our yard. He was maybe a week or two old, and despite this being our fourth rodeo with finding feral kittens in our yard, he looked, well - different. Every kitten we'd found to that point had been shorthair - so the extra fluff coming off this creature blew our minds.
The insulin schedule started the ritual of HAM TIME™ in our house. To explain: twice a day I had to give him insulin shots, so to incentivize I would rip up some deli ham and feed it to him. Now when you live with infinite animals, you cannot possibly hope to feed a special treat to just one cat, so nearly every cat would show up every time Sparkle got his shot. Eventually I started announcing to all of the cats with a stupid little song, and by 'song' I mean I need you to imagine the most 'Trying intentionally to sound like a shitty Rob Thomas crossed with Scott Stapp' voice shouting
🎶HAM TAHYUM. TAYUM FOR HAYUMMMM🎶
He came running every time.
Until the time he didn’t come running - he came limping.
As much as people who kept happening upon animals and taking them in can be, we felt we knew (lol) that we couldn't keep all five kittens from this litter and needed to be reasonable so we started looking for homes for them - except the longhair beast. Obviously! He was such a little anomaly that we knew he'd be staying with us.
(His littermate Topaz the Magic Cat hid in a closet every time prospective adoption candidates came by so we ended up keeping him also because we're suckers)
His injury was odd; he'd just been seen with his regular vet before it manifested and he was responding well to the insulin (he'd already gained almost two pounds back) so it felt like there wasn't much cause for concern, especially when it appeared to have cleared itself up a few days later.
But it returned right around when Jon Snow was having his heart issues, had a follow-up check with his vet coming, wasn’t in any apparent pain; he was still doing everything the way he always had, just with a slight limp.
Shortly before he got fixed as a kitten, he got incredibly sick. High fever, some intense lethargy and I ended up taking him into an ER vet in the middle of the night. He had caught some kind of virus but it wasn't FIV, and he recovered pretty quickly.
Outside of that, he never had another medical thing wrong with him and lived a healthy life as not just one of our largest cats but as one of our more active ones. I mentioned previously - he never missed a meal. If the humans were eating something, he would find his way to involve himself - even if we didn't always share.
Photo by Della
The Wednesday after election day I took Sparkle in for the follow-up appointment; again, this was initially for his diabetes care but he'd seen so much improvement after upping his insulin dose that the limp was honestly more of the concern for us. We were apparently not as concerned as we should have been.
They did an X-ray which showed nothing was wrong with the paw itself, so they moved up the shoulder - and that’s when they found the mass.
Over the next few years and several moves (from the Bay Area to the Coachella Valley, from there to New England) Sparkle would thrive as a fixture in our house. We nicknamed him 'Sparkle barkle' because it's nonsense that rhymed, but then he started vocalizing a sound that was just meow-adjacent enough to still be cat, but definitely sounded more like a bark.
As I explored my photography, I found myself constantly taking pictures of his face as he would stare directly into the camera - at the time I had several twitter threads dedicated to our various cats - Snowapple Says Good Morning, No It's Cool Possum Make Yourself at Home Up There, etc - so I started one entitled [Sparkle Peers into your soul]. Here are a few of the highlights from over the years:
The vet staff were as shocked as we were. The initial prognosis was, given facilities available, a referral to orthopedics and oncology at the vet hospital where Jon Snow had been seen to assess options there. It wasn’t great - but it was a plan of action, and they warned we'd be likely looking at amputation and chemo. I prepared to take him home and get that scheduled when they decided to do one more precautionary scan, concerned by how quickly this mass had grown. Again, he had gone from completely fine to limping in a matter of days, and his previous checkups had not seen anything out of the ordinary in his bloodwork. The Vet wanted to be thorough with the tools she had available, and so she ran a chest X-ray as a precaution.
She was in tears herself when she told me the results. The tumors had aggressively grown and completely pockmarked his lungs. In a case like his, they said he had likely days before his body shut down.
The thing about Sparkle is that he really, REALLY bonded with Della. I used to joke it's because she had the better food (and was more willing to share with him) but he truly loved her; if he got an upset stomach and needed to throw up, he'd do so and then find her immediately for snuggles. If she called him, he'd come running into the room. He'd follow her into the bathroom to get belly pets, he'd become UNHINGED when she got on her yoga mat and would make the practice way more difficult (and adorable) than it had any right to be.
He also developed a love for the piano that Della hand bedazzled. Here's a selection of him with it:
We brought him home. Our options were to put him down immediately or take him home with pain management. I've lost enough cats over the course of my life in horrific situations at a vet that the last thing I wanted was for him to die somewhere unfamiliar where he couldn't say goodbyes; to his other humans, to all of the cats he's lived with - and the vet agreed with this. They prescribed what he needed and gave us a list of local at-home services who could help us handle end of life in a familiar environment.
Again, it was supposed to be days - a week at most. Yet all of his motor functions were still there, he was eating, drinking, and using the litterbox regularly (though we had him in a cat diaper just in case and as ADORABLE as it is, I'm gonna be dignified here and not share photos of the poor guy). I know it's probably a result of the pain medication but it was easy to forget how sick he was because of how normal he was being.
I started writing this piece the night we got the news; while being unable to sleep from the pure stress of post-election insanity and then learning that one of our beloved friends had days to live - I started sorting photos I've taken of him over the years to put together a sort of tribute to his life. As time went on, I kept adding to it and before I realized - we were on week two. And then week three.
I am sad to say he passed in the night, early morning Saturday, December 7th. His final count from terminal diagnosis to him passing in his sleep was one month and three days.
I didn't take as many photos / videos during this end of life period as I probably could have - I think it's important that I remember him how he was before this happened. Maybe that's what this blog post will be for me.
For example - I could have taken a bunch of shots of him weak and skinny, but compared to say - a series of photos of him eating cat treats photographed from under a glass table? Why would you pick the former?
Photos of him limping vs him helping with music production as both a kitten...
...and as an adult? A no-brainer.
Photos of him getting insulin shots wearing a diaper or the time he posed for 3D photos - (seriously, if you have traditional red/blue 3D glasses lying around anywhere give this a shot) - why would you do that to yourself?
I originally had a worry that as I kept adding to this piece it would make the inevitable moment hurt more, while at the same time thinking that if I could just keep adding he'd last longer.
Every moment since he left I've thought how if we'd put him down per initial recommendation when the spread of the cancer was confirmed, we'd have missed out on an entire month of time with him where he was in no pain and surrounded by love.
A month of snuggles. A month of purrs. A month of 'last meals' we did for his benefit, including: Carne asada, crab, prime rib, tuna sashimi, caviar and (bafflingly) guacamole which he loved in a way I can't describe. We moved our thanksgiving feast to our bed so we could have it with him and he could have easy access to all of the foods. Hell, if the situation weren't so dire it'd seem like we've been hustled by how well he was doing at that point. A terminally ill cat doesn't steal tuna out of someone's hand!! I didn't think he'd even make it to Thanksgiving but by god he knew there was a feast coming and motherfucker wasn't gonna miss it.
We all got a month together of knowing he was loved before he finally went to sleep and didn't wake up.
Whatever happens next for him, I hope it's full of chasing mice and eating everything he wants without ever having to think about insulin shots.
I'm gonna miss you, man.