A LESSON BEFORE DYING
Dylan Thomas, a Cat, and Lethal Injections
Nothing, they say, is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying.
-- Thomas Paine
I found her in a ditch near the front of my house, a frightened little kitten, on the day before Halloween one long-ago October. My family promptly dubbed her "Spooky." She gratefully accepted her new home and became part of the family. A small cat, she was a hit at parties doing what I called the box trick. I would take a succession of boxes and place them on the floor. Spooky would jump into them even as each box grew smaller in size. The grand finale was a matchbox where she would enthusiastically place just one paw into. Cue applause and laughter.
Tragedy struck one evening when I left for the movies not realizing she was perched up on the top of my open garage door. She got her foot trapped in the door as it was closing, and the ensuing accident caused her to suffer a broken neck. Returning home that night, I found her profoundly in distress and quickly ascertained she was completely paralyzed from the neck down. A frantic visit with my veterinarian the next morning verified my worst fears: Complete break, no hope of repair, no hope of life. The vet explained that complete organ failure would commence immediately, and it would be painful. Making the news harder was that Spooky was completely alert and, from the neck up anyway, seemed her old self. Lethal injection was the most humane way, the vet further explained, and it was best to do it quickly before she started to suffer. Reluctantly agreeing, I ask to be present with Spooky while she was, as my vet described it, put to sleep. That is not what happened.
After a tender farewell, I gently stroked Spooky's nose then nodded to the vet who swiftly administered the injection. Several minutes later, Spooky is still enjoying her nose rub, and the vet looks worried. "Very unusual," he whispered, and without explanation, administered a second injection, and again, nothing. Ten minutes had now gone by, and sweat began appearing on his brow. "I am going to give her a shot directly into her heart that will put her right under," he stated while preparing injection number three. It was distressful to watch, but because Spooky had no feeling below her neck, I assumed there would be no pain. Five more minutes go by, and now Spooky is panting heavily but otherwise quite alive. My vet is now completely unnerved. More time goes by. Spooky is now clearly in extreme distress but clinging to life. Frantically, my vet says, "Let me check her pulse," and he put his thumb and fore finger around her throat. We make a tacit agreement in the silence. I put my mouth to Spooky's ear and tell her she is loved. Her head finally drops. Death did not come gently to my brave little cat.
Reading the newspaper this week is what got me thinking again about the tragic and sad death of my beloved cat Spooky more than a decade ago. Arkansas' plans to carry out six executions over the next two weeks, using its soon to expire supply of three lethal injections drugs. Temporarily, the courts have blocked the executions over concerns that the prison's "execution protocol and policies fail to contain adequate safeguards that mitigate some of the risk" presented by using the planned drug combination. I thought about how, if it were a human being I was watching die in such affliction, would it mitigate my feelings if they were a convicted murderer?
"Trap. Horrible trap," wrote the novelist George Saunders on dying, "At one's birth it is sprung. Some last day must arrive. When you will need to get out of this body."
But must it be that hard to do that? It should not be surprising, that for many, they will fight and cling to their last breaths to stay in their bodies, even if they are paralyzed and broken from the neck down, even if they reside in death row in Arkansas. And while we can debate the death penalty, there is no debating, that for many people, and one small cat, some of us will rage, rage against the dying light.
NAN Our Town on 04/20/2017