When Cats Retire

We all get old, it's a fact that most people would agree on even if you think the earth is flat. It follows that if you live long enough and are inclined that way you might just manage to retire. It's a fairly odd concept in many ways but is a reality for older folks; folks like me. In parallel to my own aging our cats are aging. I'm unable to explain retirement to them as they've never really been employed apart from a ten or twelve year slot they had catching mice, birds and bees and presenting them to us as gifts in exchange for bed and board, supermarket chicken pieces and various types of sachets of slimy cat food. That's the extent of their careers I suppose. Mind you they've provided a good detail of company and emotional support and some periods of light entertainment too. I should add these in for good measure so they've got some pension credits to cash in. It's a love thing.

So their hunting season has stopped, they're way too slow and inflexible and they sleep for about 20 hours a day. They don't know it but they've retired and their once wild and wide ranging habitat has shrunk to the confines of our leafy garden landscape and, most of the time, the inside of the house. They are firmly in the "care home" stage and we've become their twitchy carers. We always were but now it's a more acute relationship. Meds twice a day administered in Liki-Lix, seriously long naps with bodily functions and moods under close observation, puzzled meow interpretations and the occasional visitor they can either sniff, cuddle or avoid. 

Social activities are rare as are the once spontaneous playful moments. No more chasing feathers on sticks, laser pointers, climbing up the curtains or clawing at tapping fingers. They like to sit on the arm of the couch or on the table (as above) and just stare into space. I often wonder what memories they might be reflecting upon or be reliving. The chases, the hunts, the take downs and stake outs, the rooftop walks and their nightly safaris deep into the undergrowth. Their first puzzling frog encounters, crunchy warm mice, snow carpeted all across the garden, hiding from rampant toddlers and from their own capture prior to a vet visit or even worse a fortnight in the cattery when we were off to Florida or somewhere that you can never quite describe to a cat. 

In cat years they're heading well into their 80s but they don't actually look too bad. It's the high protein diet and the lack of economic and cultural pressures coupled with any awareness of mortality. If they were human they might be considering running for American President, completing all the Munros or playing the main stage at Glastonbury right now. Well that's not going to happen, to them or us. Retired is retired but it's also something of a non-specific and abstract state of being. All a bit "do not go gentle into that good night."