I was never allowed to have a cat. Except for one brief moment, when I was five years old. My mother and her boyfriend rented a farm house where we did not farm anything. We had a couple of dogs. One was black lab who played with me in the snow and stole my dolls to use for chew toys. I loved the dogs, but I wanted a cat so badly. I begged until Mom finally relented and let me get a kitty.
Kittens play non-stop and engage in feisty kitten activities like scratching couches, pouncing at curtains and making sneak attacks at shoe laces. My mom didn’t care much for that, so with each scratch or pounce, I watched in helpless horror as she shot my kitten with a pellet gun, shooting hard plastic pellets at my pet. It didn’t last long. One day, the kitten was gone. I was told it had gone to live in the barn that we never used or entered since we did not farm anything.
Then, one day, the dogs were gone, too.
Later, we lived in a different house, in a different state. Mom’s boyfriend was a different boyfriend. I still wanted a cat, but still wasn’t allowed to have one because my mother said she hated cats. But, we had dogs.
We had a lot of dogs.
Labradors. Miniature schnauzers. Dobermans and miniature dobermans. They had black dogs names: Shadow. Ebony. Blackie. Some had other names like Heidi and Mozart. Occasionally, one would have a litter of puppies. They were never allowed to come inside, no matter how cold it was. If you’ve never seen two schnauzers and a doberman pinscher huddled together in below freezing weather during a Colorado winter, I can tell you that it isn’t cute. It’s fucking horrible. They way they look at you as they shiver never leaves you.
After a while, the adults got bored of the dogs and got rid of them. I never knew where they ended up, or what became of them. A short time later, there was always a new dog to get tossed outside in the cold before it was discarded.
I would not smear the dog’s shit on their faces and beat them when they had an accident in the house, so it was my fault they had to live outside.
I fed them. I picked up their shit and was the only one who paid attention to them, aside from the neighborhood kids who would sometimes pet the dogs over our short fence on their way home from school. Until my mom’s boyfriend electrified the fence to stop the dogs from seeking human attention.
For a brief time, we also had bunnies. I fed them little bunny pellets and gave them each a name. One day, when I was outside feeding and petting them, my mother’s boyfriend took the one I had named Sammy from the hutch and chopped his head off with a hatchet while I stood there screaming, begging him to stop. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t protect Sammy, or make anyone listen to me. I cried at the dinner table, refusing to eat, trying to explain that their dinner had a name.
I never asked for any dogs or bunnies. When they finally stopped getting animals, I was relieved because it was obvious to me that these poor dogs were constantly being let down by rotten humans. The same humans who were constantly letting me down. I realized soon enough that these adults liked puppies and babies well enough, but were not interested in long-term, or forging a bond with a big kid or an old dog.
I decided that one day, I’d have my own pet that no one could discard. I’d protect it and never let it down. I would love it and it would love me back.
Then I got big and forgot all about my silly childhood promises.
For a while.
I first saw Cat somewhere in the beginning of 1997. She had her ass up in the air, pointing her butthole at me, screaming and yowling like nothing I’d ever heard before. I looked at my roommate, who had just brought this insane thing home.
“So, this is your new cat?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She won’t stop screaming.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I guess she’s in heat. He shrugged. “But I dunno… she’s weird.”
“Cool. Weird is cool. How old is she?”
“Three or four.”
“What kind is she?”
“A Russian Blue.”
“Damn,” I said, “I think she’s the cutest cat I’ve ever seen.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but I’d already fallen in love with my roommate’s cat.
A few months later, my roommate moved out to live in a dojo with a very large python. It wasn’t a good environment for a noisy feline. Or any feline, really, unless they can take a python in a fight.
He looked at her, sitting there on my lap, and asked if it would be okay to leave her with me. I looked at her. She looked at me. We looked at him and said that we’d do okay together.
And we did. We did okay together.
No, we did better than okay. For the next couple of decades, we stuck together through 2 failed relationships, 3 jobs, 6 moves (including 1 move abroad) countless births and deaths, 2 dogs, and the first 8 years of my marriage. We shared food and slept on the same pillow; traveled by plane, train and car together. We were homeless, cold and scared together, but we were also secure, happy and warm together. When something was wrong with one of us, we automatically sought the other one out for comfort.
The other one could always make everything better.
Until the morning she sought me out and I couldn’t make it better.
For an entire month, Olivier and I fought to keep her well. Some days, it seemed to work. Other days, we simply fought to keep her comfortable. Aside from a few very bad days, she kept trying to do her normal activities, so we didn’t give up.
I didn’t bullshit myself for a moment. I knew how old she was. She’d had two other health scares in the past. The older she got, I knew we were getting closer to the final health scare that we couldn’t come back from.
But, that’s no reason to give up.
Watching all of those animals come and go when I was growing up and seeing so many people I knew euthanizing their pets at the first sign of a possible health problem not only fed my deep-seated disdain for humanity, it fed my fierce devotion to Cat. She was my companion for half of my life. She was my familiar, my mother, daughter, sister, best friend and sidekick. She was my family and friend when I had no other.
Even when I knew it was the end, I worked tirelessly to keep her comfortable, to give her whatever she wanted and needed because even after 20 years, every moment we could spend snuggling on the couch with her was priceless.
Not only that, but when I was very young, I made a promise to her and to myself: that one day, I’d have my own pet that no one could discard. I’d protect it and never let it down. I would love it and it would love me back.
I was never allowed to have a cat. I never went looking for one, but one day, a little cat found me. We’d both been around a little bit with other humans and other animals before we met, until we finally ran into one another and said, “Yep. You’ll do. You’ll do just fine.”
And until those final moments when she was laying in my arms and quietly went where I could not follow, we did.
We did just fine.
