The afternoon before my daughter came home from college for what would become the rest of the semester, I took a look at her cat, Bubbles, and realized that he didn’t look good. At all. He had lost a lot of the weight he’d regained after his dental surgery in the fall, and his fur looked… scraggly. He’s ten, so he’s not a young guy anymore, but he’s also not that old. Still: I knew this hollowed-out look. I’d seen it before in other cats I’d had over the years, in the last weeks of their lives. But those cats lived to be at least 16 or 18. Not ten. I kept a closer eye on him that day to see if he was still eating and drinking, and he was, but my gut told me that he was drinking too much water, which means kidney problems.

The trouble with trying to remain normal during an impending pandemic is that things like calling the vet before they close for the weekend can all too easily get pushed to the back of your mind. Especially when the cat in question is so quiet because he sleeps all the time. I continued to watch him all through the weekend, and then called for an appointment first thing Monday morning.

When we got to the vet, my immediate thought was: there are way too many people in this waiting room. And we’re all way too close to each other. We were in the very early days of trying to maintain social distance from people, though, and there was no getting around the fact that, pandemic or not, we, along with everyone else there, had pets that needed to see their doctors. I felt a little better when we got out of the reception area and into an exam room. They had all the windows open as if hoping that the fresh air would provide some protection.

Whatever the reason, the day was pleasant. A strong breeze was blowing outside, and the sun was early-spring warm. Cars droned by, and there was a constant snap and flap of an American flag paired with the gentle metallic ringing undertone of the flag’s pulley knocking on the pole. The vet came in and had a look at Bubbles, and then took him through another door to do blood work on him right away. We sat and waited and listened to the wind and the flag outside the window as well as murmurings and quiet words of praise and comfort given to unseen pets behind the door. A dog whined softly and was shushed, and then everyone laughed at some antics we couldn’t see.

I passed the time by googling things like cancer and kidney disease in cats, a sadly refreshing change of topic from the nonstop flow of coronavirus news, hoping I’d find some articles that talked about how cats often simply recovered from this sort of thing. I didn’t find anything like that, but I did see some people talking about how their cats had lived another four years with kidney problems.

The vet brought Bubbles back in after about fifteen minutes and showed me the lab results. “He’s in renal failure,” she said. “His numbers are off the charts.” Then after a pause where we all just stared at the cat, she said, “So, we can safely say that he’s at End of Life.”

More silence. The first of many quiet tears.

“Is he in pain?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t exactly say he’s in pain,” the vet said, “but he doesn’t feel well at all.”

Finally I asked, as gently and plainly as I could, while my daughter sat beside me crying, if we needed to euthanize him that day, and the vet said no, that there were things we could do to make Bubbles more comfortable, but that those measures would only be temporary. (Like: very temporary.) So they gave him a subcutaneous hydration treatment and sent us home with special foods and medicines, and these things have revived him fairly well. For now. He’s still too thin and scraggly looking, but he’s also his old self in many ways. I like to imagine that he’ll rally and live on for a few more years, but the truth is, we’ll most likely be back to vet’s in a week or two, and that will be the day. And I’m trying to imagine what the world will look like in a week or two, and wondering if the vet will even be keeping regular hours at the point. Surely they’ll stay available for cases such as this? Won’t they?

We’re all glad to have him around a little longer. He and my daughter have always had a strong bond, and they need this time together. She and I work as a team to give him his meds , and then she feeds him and sits with him. He curls up in her lap and sleeps deeply in a way that reminds me of my own childhood cat when she was at her own End of Life. If this cat has a bucket list, I know there’s only one thing on it: to sit with my daughter as much as possible for as long as he can.

And so, ironically, I find myself almost indebted to this looming pandemic. Without it, my daughter wouldn’t have been able to be home as much, and she wouldn’t have been able to spend all this time with Bubbles. I swear cats are just the weirdest little psychics. It’s almost as if he knew the pandemic was coming and that he picked the time when it seems that the entire world is temporarily cancelled to stage his exit.

Yesterday, the university emailed to say that any student who doesn’t absolutely need to live in the dorm is required to move out and hand in their keys. They’re going to a bare bones population now. We’re scheduled to drive to Denver and pack up my daughter’s room on Saturday. And if all that wasn’t enough to be going on with, tomorrow a blizzard is coming, so this morning I ventured down to Walmart to see what I could get before the snow comes. There’s no fresh chicken still, nor any toilet paper or bread, but I was able to buy a few days’ worth of groceries, plus some cat litter.

I had to call the vet again to get more special food for Bubbles, plus some medicine I can’t seem to find online since people started hoarding everything. In the two days that passed since taking the cat in on Monday, they had changed their office visit policy significantly. Most humans are no longer allowed in the building. Instead, I had to drive down there, call them to tell them I was in the parking lot, and wait for them to bring things out to me. A young man came out the door and approached my car and said, “Mrs. Eckhart?” and when I said no, he moved on to the next car. I watched with mixed alarm and amusement as Mrs. Eckhart (I presume) unrolled her car window and shook hands with the guy. All that social distancing effort: down the drain.

Clearly, we’re still learning how to do this, still trying to figure out a new normal that keeps shifting every day. And while we’re doing that, I’m watching my daughter and her cat say goodbye to each other, all the while making mental notes on my pantry and medicine cabinet, keeping one eye on the news, one on the darkening, pre-blizzard sky, and wondering how long all of this will last.