Goodbye, Charlotte (2009-2016)

By David McElroy · August 18, 2016

I lost my friend Charlotte Thursday evening. She was only 7 years old.

When a young feral cat gave birth to four tiny kittens seven years ago, Charlotte looked different from the beginning. It was hard to decide what color to call her. But however you described her, one thing was clear. Among the four little sisters, she was the alpha girl.

Charlotte was tiny but she was fearless. When the other cats would run or hide from unfamiliar things, she would stand her ground, typically looking on with a bored indifference that seemed to be her way of indicating lack of fear. Her only real enemy was the vacuum cleaner.

Before we knew she was a girl, an ex-girlfriend decided this kitten’s facial markings made the eyebrows look like those of a Vulcan from Star Trek, so she was initially known as Mr. Spock.

One of her sisters died very early. In the picture at the bottom of this article, they were about 6 weeks old. The gray one which was second from the left in that photo died shortly after the picture was taken. There was never any warning and I never knew the reason. The vet said it sometimes happens that there is something genetic wrong and it just catches up with them shortly after birth.

The remaining three girls seemed to love books — mostly for sleeping — so they were named for the writing Brontë sisters. As the alpha, the former Mr. Spock became Charlotte, the oldest Brontë sister. The gray one on the right in the photo was named Emily. The black one became Anne.

Charlotte was a beautiful girl — with amazing green eyes and a unique golden-colored coat of fur — but her incredible confidence made her seem much bigger than the 4.5 pounds of her body. (She and her sisters were all tiny, just like their mother Molly.)

Emily died last year. She had always had a slightly lower weight than her two surviving sisters, but she started losing weight and continued to do so. The vet couldn’t identify the problem. She was tested for feline leukemia, parasites and all sorts of other possibilities, but the tests didn’t tell us anything.

Emily ate well while she was losing weight, but there was something in her body that stopped her from absorbing enough nutrients. The vet said it was as though her body was slowly losing the ability to convert her food to usable fuel. And during the eight months or so that she was going downhill, she had persistent diarrhea. She died in my arms 17 months ago.

Close to a year ago, Charlotte started to have the same persistent diarrhea. It was my first clue that there was something seriously wrong and I immediately remembered what Emily had gone through. The vet could find nothing specific wrong with her, either. The pattern was just like Emily’s.

Although I had used steroid pills with Emily in an attempt to lengthen her life, they didn’t seem to help and it was a constant struggle to get a pill into her each morning and evening. Charlotte was even more resistant to pills and I decided I wasn’t going to put her through something so upsetting twice a day if it wasn’t going to save her anyway.

Even though she’s acted healthy and normal for the most part, I knew Charlotte had been going downhill for months. She slowly lost body weight. She was still strong. She still ate well. She was still confident — some might say arrogant — but she couldn’t keep on any weight.

Last week, I could tell that her condition had taken a turn for the worse. She didn’t look quite like herself and she had reached the point of feeling like skin and bones. I knew I didn’t have much time left with her.

How do you say goodbye to an animal you love? Do they have any understanding of what’s happening to them? Or that you even care about them? Logically, I assume not, but emotionally, I somehow believe otherwise. Thursday evening, I told her I love her and I thanked her for sharing seven years with me.

I moved her to my bed, which was her favorite place to sleep. And then before I knew it, the last bit of life left her little body. Her shallow breathing ceased and she started turning cold. I kissed her head but she was gone. I had lost her.

Charlotte was special. I’m going to miss her very much.

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The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

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I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

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