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My Cats and Me: A Story of Companionships [1]

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Date: 2023-10-29  

With apologies for length and poor formatting, this is a long story about my life with cats. I’m getting older and have to share it. Read and enjoy.

I’ve lived with cats for many years, but the first cat that was actually mine was Squeakers, who showed up at my Austin, Texas, apartment door in 1985. I didn’t want the cat, but my spouse at the time did, so we took him in. He grew on me quickly. Little did I know that he would become the most important living thing in my life for the next 20 years.

We called him Squeakers because he didn’t (and never did) have an actual “meow.” He squeaked: “meek, eek,” something like that. He was a tuxedo cat: white blaze on his chest, white paw tips (so cute!), and white whiskers. Otherwise, all black with yellow eyes. When he showed up at our door he was maybe a year old, a dirty, scrawny thing but endearing just the same.

My family had lived with cats (and the occasional dog) for many years. In Albany, New York, there was Simon and Mathias (my father, an Episcopal priest [and later Army chaplain] had a thing for biblical names). Mathias allowed my first sister to pull on his ears and tail, and would actually get in the bathtub with her. Neither of them moved with us to New Jersey, and I don’t know what happened to them. Two years later in San Bernardino, California, my mother took in an all-white cat whose name now escapes me. She had a single kitten that was almost literally eaten alive by fleas which covered the poor thing’s body ‘til it died. The mother traveled with us as we moved to El Paso, Texas, but died of heat-stroke in Arizona while I watched in the back of our Nash Rambler station wagon. My father had to make a quick detour to find a vet in Tucson where we left the body. I can still remember this poor cat’s last moments like it was yesterday.

After several years in El Paso, we lived in Germany, Colorado, New York, Missouri, and then back to New York upon my father’s early retirement in 1972. Although I did have a desert reptile collection in Texas, we had no pets of any kind until the last move. Sometime around then my mother took in two cats whose owner had passed away: Patsy and Mike. The latter had been struck by a car and lived to tell the tale, but his jaw got broken and healed incorrectly. Hence, one of his bottom fangs permanently stuck out of his mouth, making him look like some kind of feline gangster. His companion was an odd one. Very skittish around everyone except my mother; hid much of the time, and avoided any touch of any kind.

During the next ten years I went to college in West Virginia, moved to Washington DC, then went back to the Mountain State where I got married, and later moved to Texas with my spouse. During this time there were no cats. But then there was Squeakers, and I’ve been a cat-fancier ever since. That’s not to say Squeakers didn’t cause me distress. When we first got him he got into fights with neighboring cats, rolled around in the dirt, marked territory on our furniture despite being neutered, bit me hard enough for an ER visit (twice), and had fleas which I battled with mediocre results.

In spite of all that, what endeared me to Squeakers was his adaptability. He moved twice while in Texas, then to Kentucky where he lived at six separate addresses. I could take him for walks around the block, and he’d dutifully follow me with only an occasional (and brief) distraction. He enjoyed riding in the car and liked to put his front paws up on one of the door handles and watch as we passed other cars (other motorists were usually surprised, but they always waved at him). On several occasions he traveled with me via airplane, during which he calmly and quietly rested in an under-seat carrier. He particularly enjoyed taking naps with me, and would curl up on one side of my chest against the sofa, inevitably cutting off the circulation in my arm. At night, he’d always sleep at my feet, but only after climbing on my chest and sticking his face in mine to make sure I was breathing.

My marriage ended in 1999 and I moved to Iowa a few years later, where Squeakers was happy to be let outside on a regular basis to prowl around (always chaperoned!). Unbeknownst to me, however, and despite regular vet visits, his kidneys had been slowly failing. That finally caught up with him in 2004, when I found him curled up in a closet. I knew this meant trouble, and he died at the vet’s clinic three days later. I was horrified and distraught, and the news of his death hit me like a fist. I cried constantly and called out his name in bed at night, trying to make him to come back. To say this was heart-rending is a gigantic understatement. And while time diminishes this sort of pain, it doesn’t do so very quickly or completely. If I think about it, I can still get very emotional over my departed friend, and just writing this raises those tearful memories to the surface. It is astonishing to me the degree of attachment we can have for our animal friends.

Squeaker’s passing did allow me to take several long-distance vacations, and I also spent a year working and traveling in China. But, as I once mentioned to my sister, for a single person there’s a lot to be said for having the company of another living thing. Upon my return from China I made two attempts at cat adoption, neither of which was successful. The first was a 3-legged cat foisted upon me by a well-meaning colleague, but the cat was extremely skittish and aggressive, and needed to be outside. A friend agreed to take the cat to her farm after only a couple of weeks. The other cat appeared more promising: a very young female I adopted from the Humane Society. I named her Mia, and she stayed with me for perhaps a month, during which she bit me repeatedly and wouldn’t use the litter box. After Squeakers this was pretty annoying, and I returned her to the shelter. I began to think my cat-companion days were over.

In 2008 my mother died, and during the funeral proceedings I (and my sisters) had the opportunity to spend some time at my parents’ home in Colorado. I was already acquainted with their cat Athena, a small, gorgeous torbie with a light-colored spot over her right eye. My father thought this reminded him of Shiva, but he mistakenly named her after the Greek goddess Athena. Anyway, he wasn’t taking very good care of her; the litter box was full and there were feces lying around. When I saw this I instantly informed my dad I was taking Athena back to Iowa with me; he didn’t object. Fortunately Athena remembered me from previous visits, and during the long drive home she curled contentedly in my lap. She did, however, spend some time hiding under my bed when we got to Iowa.

Athena was a real sweetie. If I took a nap she’d jump up on my chest and would annoyingly knead my beard with her paws. (When my mother was alive, Athena would sit on her lap and suckle her ear lobe; fortunately she never did that with me.) In the winter she enjoyed lying next to a portable oil heater, placing her paws under it to get warm. She had a tendency to sleep on her back in a sunspot next to a big window and, like Squeakers, slept at my feet at night. She particularly liked to sit on my desk and bat wadded-up post-it notes while I tossed them toward her. When I remarried in 2010 she accepted my spouse instantly. She was just a good-natured, calm and affectionate cat.

In 2014 we began to notice something was odd with her left eye; it appeared permanently dilated. Our vet couldn’t explain it, so we took her to the veterinary school at Iowa State, where we learned this was a symptom of high blood pressure. She eventually became blind in that eye, and because of her blood pressure, later in her right. We were surprised that she continued to get around without difficulty in our very large apartment, knew exactly where her litter box was, and how high to jump to get on our bed.

In the spring of 2015 I was laid-off from my job, but fairly soon found a better one in a neighboring state. This meant yet another move, which Athena accomplished without trouble. We rented a two-storey duplex for a year, and Athena got around quite easily, but her appetite soon waned and she began losing weight. Visits to the vet didn’t resolve things, and she eventually lost control of her bowels. She was never a big cat, but now she was seriously thin, and I knew I had to intervene before she got worse. I held her in my lap and cried guilty tears before we drove to the vet. It was over quickly. She was a very good girl, and I miss her as much as I do Squeakers. I still feel shame and guilt for ending her life.

In a departure from the long interval between Squeakers and Athena, I almost immediately wanted another cat. After Christmas, we brought a new one home. We had visited the Humane Society several times, and the staff there was careful to let us interact with cats in which we had an interest, none of which were suitable for us. We were ready to give up but made a final visit, which also appeared to end in failure, when I turned and saw a big ginger alone in a cage. “Who’s that?” I asked. “That’s Jeremy,” was the reply. We asked to play with him, and he responded appropriately and inquisitively. He was very friendly and well-behaved, and we cheerfully adopted him.

Jeremy had been surrendered by his previous caretakers in a neighboring city, and for reasons

unknown he was transferred to our town about an hour away. (We later discovered he has a strong aversion to the sound plastic trash bags, suggesting a traumatic experience with them at some point.) When we brought him home there was the inevitable period of transition (an understatement, to say the least, as some ER visits will attest), but within a few months he had calmed down. We also disliked what he’d been named. We searched mightily for something appropriate to his personality, and finally decided on Baxter.

Upon my retirement my spouse (who is younger than me) found a job in Kansas, where we moved into a nice-sized townhouse. I built a cat condo for Baxter so he he could spend time outdoors safely unattended. That lasted a couple of years until my spouse found another position a short distance from our former home in Iowa, and not far from her ailing mother. We briefly lived in a small apartment , and then bought a house with an enormous backyard, which Baxter has quickly claimed as his personal territory. He demands to be let out every morning to scout the perimeter, after which he eats his favorite meal of shredded chicken. (And please be assured that Baxter is never left alone outdoors; we always walk around with him.)

Of all my cats, Baxter is undoubtedly the most affectionate and adventurous, although Squeakers will always be first among equals in my heart. Like Squeakers and Athena, he always sleeps with me, usually on my hip or stretched out next to me. I view his particular attachment to the fact that I’m at home most of the day and available to his designs more than my spouse is. Mind you, he does deign to recognize her place in the feline/human pecking order, and curls up in her lap when we watch television. Uncharacteristically for a cat, he will often (but certainly not predictably) come when I call him, even when he’s outside. He sheds a lot, so he thoroughly enjoys getting excess hair removed with a slicker brush. These are always moments of extreme pleasure, with a vocalization unique to the event. Almost better is getting smacked smartly where his tail meets his rump. I don’t know why he enjoys this, except that it’s a spot he can’t scratch. Indeed, Baxter is a genuine feline voluptuary and welcomes any stroking, scratching, or smoothing we give him any time, anywhere.

Baxter is also the most vocal among my cat friends. He talks constantly about everything, and never fails to inform us of his mood or inclinations. If he wants something, he’ll find me and voice his desire (usually food or a trip outside), lead me to his food dish or the door, and then look at me and ask. We have read that Orangies are very expressive, but weren’t prepared for just how much of a conversationalist our boy is. His repertoire is astonishing, and particular to individual moments, events, or desires. This isn’t always a good thing. Soon after we moved into that small apartment, Baxter began waking around 2:00 AM and issued mournful, pitiful howls that caused terrible distress and loss of sleep. We couldn’t figure it out; neither could our new vet, but we finally decided it was shingles. That’s right. The TV ad for the Zoster virus vaccine warns that “shingles doesn’t care” about the pain it causes. Likewise, Baxter didn’t seem to care that his nighttime howling caused us great distress. In these moments Baxter becomes Shingles the Terror Cat, who remains an unwelcome nightly guest, but our new house has an enclosed breezeway where he can be sequestered until dawn. With all that said, Baxter is still a very good boy who brings us frequent pleasure. Cat companions will be familiar with the silent meow or the purr-meow, and maybe the breathy meow that says “please let me out,” but more endearing for us is Baxter’s barely audible “mmm-caow,” which is reserved for special moments of quiet contentment.

I’ve lived in 14 states and two foreign countries and have moved an astonishing 40+ times over my life, so I’m hoping our most recent relocation is the last. Baxter’s about ten now, so we should have another 8-10 years with him. I’m 70, so he may well be my/our last cat companion. Cats are interesting creatures: aloof yet affectionate, wary yet accepting, independent yet needy. With a couple of exceptions (see above) my cats have brought a range of pleasures and exasperations one might expect from one’s partner. Squeakers, Athena, and Baxter were and are special family members who have enriched the daily lives of my spouse and me. Can you love and cherish an animal? I believe so. And if we can never be sure if that attachment is reciprocated as we know it, a cat’s quiet purr or soft meow while they doze on our laps is enough to suggest contentment and affection.

If heaven exists, I hope my cats will be there to greet me.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/10/29/2202387/-My-Cats-and-Me-A-Story-of-Companionships

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