I barely remember the first cat we had in the house; don't even remember if Nom-Poo was a boy cat or a girl cat and no one ever remembered where the heck that name came from. But Nom-Poo died around the time I was six and it wasn't until around age 8 that we got Baby.
She was a small grey (and some black)-and-white cat who'd been born in a warehouse, whereabouts unknown. She'd been one of several cats who lived there to keep the place mouse-free and when the warehouse closed down, she somehow found her way to a neighbor who thought — wrongly — that her dog and Baby would get along. Yeah, like dogs and cats. When it became obvious one animal had to go, we adopted Baby.
She was indeed a fabulous mouser. She caught one her first day with us and caught another her second day and thereafter, averaged about one a week. Sometimes, when there was no mouse around to be caught, she'd apply her skills to a lizard or sparrow. With either, it was not a matter of just catching the tiny beast. It was a game: You catch it, you release it, you catch it again, you play with it, you release it, you catch it again, etc. Eventually, when you tire of the game, you kill it. Then you try to bring the corpse into the house and present it to my mother as a gift.
My mother didn't especially like that part. She didn't like Baby catching lizards or birds, either. Often, I'd be in my room and hear my mother shriek, "Baby's got a lizard or a mouse or something!" I'd run out and see what it was. If it was a lizard or bird, I'd intervene and let it escape. Baby would then look at me as if to say, "Hey, I'm just trying to do my job here." If it was a mouse…well, I'd just stay out of it.
Once Baby caught on that she wasn't supposed to present her fresh kills to the lady of the house, she found something else to do with them. In the front patio, there was a small flowering bush about two feet high. Baby would take her dead mice and lizards and she'd somehow fling them into the bush. One time, we came home for a vacation (a neighbor had been feeding Baby) and in the patio, the bush had three dead mice and two dead lizards hanging from it like Christmas tree ornaments. My mother insisted I clear it out…which I did under protest because at that age, I kinda liked it.
Baby never ate her conquests. She would only eat two things: (1) whatever we were eating and (2) Kitty Queen Chopped Kidney cat food.
She would not eat any other brand of canned cat food…and believe me, we tried them all. When we couldn't get Kitty Queen Chopped Kidney, she would sniff the something else we put in her bowl, then look at us with an accusatory stare that screamed, "What are you doing to me?" She wouldn't even eat Kitty Queen Chopped Heart, which to me was the same, foul-smelling mess of mystery meat. So when we didn't have table scraps, we gave her K.Q.C.K. and when we didn't have K.Q.C.K., we went out and found a store — and it sometimes required hitting several — that had K.Q.C.K.
Despite her dietary demands, everyone loved Baby. She was the most affectionate cat. She spent most of her days outside, most of her evenings inside. If there was anyone seated in the living room, she'd jump up on their chair and curl up on their lap. At night, she'd find her way into my room. There were two doors that led into it and if I didn't leave one open, she'd scamper back and forth between them — which meant running all the way around the house each time — and scratch and cry until I woke up and let her in. Then she'd burrow under the covers with me and sleep near my feet or if I was on my side, up against the small of my back. About once a week, I'd roll over and kick or almost squash her and she'd howl and wake me up. But she never fled the bed. She'd just reposition herself.
My father, on whose lap she often spent the evening, especially loved her. Being (as I've explained) a persistent worrier, he thought constantly about when she'd die and how painful that would be for all of us.
He couched his worry in concern that I would be devastated. One day, he sat me down and with the heaviest of hearts, broke it to me that Baby was going to die someday. She was a wonderful cat and we all loved her…but wonderful, loved cats have a way of dying and you have to be prepared for that day of loss. He made it sound a lot worse than it could possibly ever be. Life as we know it would cease to exist whenever we lost Baby.
I wasn't looking forward to that day but I wasn't spending as much time as my father was thinking of its inevitability, nor did I think time would stop. Still, every few weeks, he'd sit me down and in a very serious, borderline-emotional manner, launch into the "You know, cats don't live forever" speech. He always made it sound like it could be any day now and I'd say, "I know cats don't live forever. We don't need to discuss it every three weeks." To which he'd sigh and say, "I just want you to be prepared for it."
And he was, after all, right. Baby did die — about nine years after the first time I heard the speech and about two weeks after the 107th time I heard it. And when she did, he said, "See? I told you it was coming."
Actually, her death was not a surprise because we induced it. What was a surprise was how one day, when she must have been close to eighteen, she suddenly got old. It happened over about three weeks as her movements unexpectedly grew slow and her walk became strained and uncertain. If a mouse had happened by, it could have waltzed right past her without a chase…but of course, there were no mice around. My mother didn't see a single mouse (or evidence thereof) in that house for twenty years after we lost Baby.
One evening, Baby tried to hop up on my father's lap and couldn't make the leap. She tumbled back to the ground and my mother lovingly picked her up and placed her where she wanted to be. She was trembling and that's when we knew it was time to do something. We took her to a vet who said, "She's old." Well, we knew that. He basically then said, "She doesn't have much time left and there's nothing we can do for her." The following Sunday evening, she lost the ability to walk without stumbling. It was like her paws were folding under her and there was this abrupt sadness about her that seemed to say, "Please…I can't go on like this."
My father, my mother and I decided unanimously it was time to end it; that it would be cruel to try and keep her around in that condition just so we could have her with us for a few more weeks. It was not as upsetting for me as my father had predicted…but it was for him. "I don't think I can do this," he said. We spared him any further action. I phoned up the nearest Animal Shelter and though it was after hours, reached someone who said, "Bring her over…we can take care of it." I gently put Baby in a box and held it and her in the back seat as my mother drove us over to the Animal Shelter. I took Baby in, said a few words to the attendant who took her, signed a paper and that was it.
At first, it seemed way too casual but I soon decided that was a good thing. "They do this every day," I thought. There's a real tragedy in how many cats have to be destroyed each year, never having been adopted and loved and allowed to live even one, let alone nine long lives. It is not a tragedy that a cat could have as good a life as Baby did…and have it end before the real suffering set in. I told another woman who assisted me at the shelter, "She's been a wonderful cat but she's so old now…" to which the lady said, "We get a lot of those. It's the only humane thing to do."
I remember feeling utterly convinced that we'd done the right thing and I distinctly remember not crying. Which makes me wonder why my eyes are so moist as I write this.
My father got over it. Took a while but he got over it. At first, it seemed insensitive to the memory of Baby to consider getting another cat…but after a few weeks, it was apparent that there was a void in the house that needed filling. My father didn't like sitting there in the evening with no cat on his lap. Also, we still had about eighty cans of Kitty Queen Chopped Kidney cat food and I sure as hell wasn't going to eat them. So we went out in search of a successor and I think I'll save that story for the next one of these.