In which a cat can change the world.
Our cat Louise died this week. In the grand scheme of things, in the face of wars and global warming and whatever horror clings to the morning's front page, it doesn't seem like a big deal.
But it was big for us.
I've had Louise for 12 years-- the decade of Robin's and my marriage and two years on my own before that. We think he had three mystery years prior to meeting us, making him about 15 or maybe 16.
He was kind of a ridiculous little thing when you got right down to it. When I found him he was a filthy little scavenger begging for scraps at my aunt and uncle's back porch. I took him home with me and he promptly vomited on my floor.
He was dirty, uncouth and-- thanks to the previous owner who'd declawed and neutered him-- of indeterminate gender. I named him Louise after a favorite watering hole in college, a place that was also dirty, uncouth and much beloved.
Without any finger nails to catch his food or warn his enemies, the messy thing communicated in kitty wet. He used more than one overnight guest's suitcase as a litter box and when Robin moved in with her cursed dogs, he doused their bedding. And I myself have been both urinated on (in protest of a pill) and pooped upon (in protest of the vet).
The latter I got to wear for a good hour while I waited for the vet to finish with him.
Louise would wrestle you for a piece of chicken. He loved nothing more than to make a nest of Robin's hair in the middle of the night and, if you weren't petting him, he would lift your hand with his paws and put his head underneath. At his happiest and most relaxed, he would drool buckets and this could sometimes prove disconcerting as he loved to sleep on my head and would sometimes wake me by drooling into my open mouth.
And as disgusting and cantankerous as he was, we loved him.
Now that he's gone, we sit up at night and miss him and I find myself thinking about the profound impact a creature as small as a 15-year old cat can have.
Before Louise, I was a stalwart dog lover-- as was Robin and as were her parents. Now we have Toonces and they have Meow and cats are as fundamental to us as puppies.
Louise was the first pet I owned by myself, the first long-term commitment I made as an adult. I can't help but think that learning to feed and shelter and care for another living thing is the first step on the path that lead me to marriage and even to bringing Owen home from Kazakhstan.
Louise certainly prepared me for diapers.
I may be waxing nostalgic. My vision still blurs when I think how thin he was, how I could feel all the bones of his ribs and hips as the cancer ate him away. I still remember his breathing coming in great wheezes.
But I can also remember him swatting me if I disturbed his sleep and how he used to pull my face close to his so he could nuzzle my cheek. I remember worrying about him being lonely when I left for trips and arranging visitors to check on him.
He was just a cat, but he certainly changed who I was.
And now I find myself thinking of the legacy he left me and new legacies being created. We've met with our lawyer, Uncle Crabtree, to start an estate plan for Owen. We've Baptized Owen and begun a legacy with the Christian faith. We've been to the Parker Family reunion and met my mother's cousins and their children and their children's children and shown Owen the enormity of a family legacy.
At home, the rest of the pets tussle and fight. Betty got carried away running from Murray the other night and tore her knee. Two days of surgery later and she's hobbling around the house now on three legs.
Owen watches her and Murray. He demands a hug and kiss from them each day and he's learning to pet them gently.
Already they're having an effect on him. I think of silly Louise and the effect she had on Robin and me and I wonder about how we're shaping our son.
Louise was just a cat.
We're just people.
