I keep telling myself she was just a cat. Just a cat. But,
she wasn’t. She was our cat.
We have always joked about
how bad a cat she was. We could never have a dog bed for Echo because Nefertiti
would pee on them and ruin them. She did not like anyone but us and would hide
from everyone else. She decided at one point that our couch was actually the litter
box. The first time she met Andrew, she tried to tear his face off.
But, she was a
good cat. She loved us, and was loved by us. She used to hunt earthworms and
hide them in my shoes. One time, she stole someone’s feather duster and hid it
under our bed. She loved to be abused. The rougher the petting, the better she
liked it. She liked to be picked up by her tail. She loved catnip, and if she
was lying down and you scratched her butt, she would move in a circle like a
compass with her head as the pivot point. She had no meow, but she had a huge
purr.
When she didn’t come in on Tuesday, I was a little worried,
but she had made herself scarce before. When she showed up on Wednesday and was
breathing funny, I knew she was in trouble. Two nights at the vet—she seemed a
little better yesterday, but the call came in at three this morning. As the vet
told me, once you can tell that a cat is sick, it is often too late. Andrew and I laid in bet this morning after
the phone call, and cracked jokes about what a bad cat she was as tears dripped
into our ears.
I hate the idea that she died alone. There was no one there
to hold her and tell her that they loved her. I got to see her yesterday and
hold her and pet her, but Andrew did not. I wish we could have been there to
tell her goodbye, but her last gift to us was not forcing us to make a very
hard decision.
She was a cat. But she was not just a cat. She was our cat,
and that made her the perfect cat.
