In September 2010, I’d been dating my future wife for a while and had successfully turned her from a dog person into a cat person. OK, I don’t know that I so much “turned” her as I exposed her to cats and made her realize how cool they are. Living in apartments at the time helped as well, since dogs weren’t an option.
For her birthday that year, I bought her a kitten from the Baltimore animal shelter. We named him Ringo because we’re Beatles fans and it suited him. I also call him “Buddy,” as in “Little Buddy,” because he spent a lot of time with me and my cats in Baltimore, adapting to his new family, and would follow me around, weaving in and out of my feet, before we’d settled on a name. To me, he is “LB” from that time.
I’m typing this downstairs as Ringo is upstairs dying. Cancer is a b***h, a b***h that doesn’t just impact humans. After 15 years, today is my boy’s last day. A veterinarian will be coming to the house this evening to end his suffering. He’d been “fading” for a while, showing his age, and getting some treatments to hopefully slow the inevitable. But the inevitable always wins, as it is inevitable.
He was barely eating or drinking the last five days, having to be “encouraged” to do so by me every few hours, along with a steroid and anti-nausea medicine. After a couple of better days, as the doctor said was possible, it all stopped working yesterday. The fluid build-up in his chest from the cancer went from just impacting his breathing some to something worse. He started vomiting last night, which isn’t all that odd for any cat owner to see, but he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, so it was just bile and saliva. About a dozen times.
Disoriented and wiped out, I told my wife it was time. She didn’t want to make the call – we’re suckers for hoping for a miracle in this family – but it has become clear that the miracle was the 15 incredible years and all the joy this little fur ball gave to us, and now God wants him back. I can’t blame Him.
I realize there are bigger problems in the world than a cat living out its life expectancy, but just like all politics being local, so is life. Sadly, far too many people in this country, and on this planet, have completely lost sight of that.
I watched a clip of Jimmy Kimmel’s wife talking about how she has cut people out of her life because they voted differently from her, even family members. You really have to wonder what broke her to not only do that, but think it’s perfectly normal and even good. It makes you think she has no concept of what love actually is if it can be contingent on voting, or anything, for that matter.
But we all know someone like that, don’t we? It used to be you’d lose friends because of betrayal (back in the dating days) or just time, age, and distance, as well as through making new friends. Now, “ride or die” friends are choosing “die” over politics.
I’m not immune. One of my oldest friends will have nothing to do with me because of politics. Random, angry, accusatory texts about irrelevant things in the news are pretty much what our relationship has become. I don’t know for a fact that he wouldn’t be there if I needed to talk (which I have, about the cat, a sick kid, or just life in general), but I have stopped myself from trying because, deep down, I already know the answer. Better to just pretend you don’t need them than to confirm the idea that they wouldn’t be there for you.
I don’t know how people got so broken.
I did not like the Clinton, Obama, or Biden administrations, but it never occurred to me to demand answers for their actions from friends or family simply because they voted for them. Somehow, people who are seemingly intelligent otherwise began to believe Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” because they were told that lie 1,000 times on MSNBC.
How could anyone smart believe anything Rachel Maddow says when she claimed she feared a second Trump administration could end up with her being thrown into an internment camp? How does the fact that she has not fled the country with her millions and family not tip people off to the fact that she’s a manipulative pile of garbage? Why have none of the people who swore Trump would “destroy democracy” and be another Hitler actually saved themselves by fleeing the country? They have the money to do it, yet they don’t. And what about the Democrats who swore that if Trump won, it would likely be the last election ever because he’s a totalitarian? Why are those people raising money for the midterms rather than packing their bags?
Lies have always been a part of politics, and people used to know it. A grain of salt and some hip boots were always needed when any politician gave a speech. But now, far too many people live for that crap. Their lives are politics, and politics dictate their lives – it’s enough to make me want to look for the hidden pods under their beds.
I do news and politics for a living, but my family and friends are my life. There’s a big difference between the two, and the sooner people snap back to reality and remember that, the better off everyone will be.
It should not take the death of my boy Ringo, or of anyone or anything, to remember that. Sadly, it now apparently does for some.
Rest in peace, LB. You are loved and will be missed and remembered every day until we meet again.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F**king Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.