Four Years Ago Today

February 19th, 2005, I had Thanta put to sleep. He had gastrointestinal cancer. The same disease that has been gnawing away Grizzley’s health and life.

Thanta was one of Grizzley’s litter mates. Grizzley was the second one to be born out of a litter of four and Thanta was the last to be born. Thanta was the runt of the litter, he was always left alone by himself, and my friends told me not to take him because they thought he would soon die. I took him home anyway along with Grizzley.

Thanta loved eating. He absolutely lived to eat. At first, he would spend 30 minutes  and upwards, several times a day, at the food dish making all kind of noise indicating he’s eating ravenously, accompanied by very loud purring. His paws would be in the food dish kneading the food while he’s sucking the juice out of it with his entire face buried in it. So after he’s done, all the food would still remain there. I attributed this to the fact that he was the runt and didn’t get to suck on his mommy’s teats as much. Whatever the reason, that was how he used to eat in the first couple of months with me, and after each meal, I would have to hurry up and wash his face clean because otherwise the juice from the food would dry up quickly and since his eyes were closed while his face was buried in the food, he would be very uncomfortable with his eyes looking like two slits no matter how hard he would paw at it.

Oh and did I mention he loved eating? He used to wake me up at four in the morning to be fed. First, he just sat down on my chest and stared at me, which used to wake me up for a short time, but I got used to it pretty fast. When that stopped working in getting his early breakfast, he started putting one paw on my face sitting on my chest. That worked a little longer than just sitting and staring. But I got used to it fast enough because don’t you know I love sleeping? But Thanta’s early breakfast would not be denied for long because he would sit on my chest, put his paw on my face, let his claws out and put a little pressure on them. Just some harmless threat. It took some time for me to get used to it and he employed this method for a while. But then my love for sleep finally overcame it, I called him on his bluff and was able to sleep through it. But Thanta was prepared. The next time he sat on my chest, put his paw on my face, let his claws out, put a little pressure and started running his claws down my face slowly. Oh, he didn’t scratch me. He was careful so that he didn’t scratch me. And he won. I never did get used to that. And I grudgingly but faithfully fed him at four in the morning every single day.

Once, when my friend was cat-sitting Grizzley and Thanta (I didn’t have my dogs back then), Thanta tried the same method to wake up my friend even though Thanta hated people other than myself and he avoided my friend all day everyday except to get fed. One day my friend did not want to get up, so he put the bed sheet over his face to prevent Thanta’s paw from reaching his face. A couple of minutes later, he saw a paw pushed underneath the sheet and then the paw started feeling around, just as he saw in the cartoons like Tom and Jerry or Silvester and Tweety. He started laughing so hard, he was wide awake in no time and Thanta was fed promptly.

I miss him. I miss his little paw on my face every morning.