Loss of cat unleashes lifetime of grief
I never had a pet that was not taken away from me. When I was 6, I had a little puppy and that is when my parents found out I had terrible allergies to animals. I ended up in the emergency room getting shots whenever I pet one.
I used to sneak out into the alleys when we lived in the city and capture little stray kittens and put them in baby clothes. I would be found out and the cat would be set free.
After being widowed I met a man, Gary, who had a cat. He and the cat had a story. He told me he was a lonely bachelor working on a job site. A little black kitten kept tripping the alarm.
The cat was wild. He captured her and put her in a box with holes in it and took her home on the bus with him. At the time, he lived in an apartment.
A year into her adoption, the apartment house caught fire. Gary ran down the steps with the cat but she clawed at his jacket and ran back into the burning building. He thought she was a goner, but that night the firemen found her in the dryer, where she hid from the flames.
That was one of her nine lives. The second was when she got locked in a storage shed. Gary searched the neighborhood for a week. He eventually saw the dog next door barking at the shed and there she was, somewhat dehydrated but alive.
He named the cat Lucinda after singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, but she would only answer to "Kitty." so that was her name.
Kitty didn't like anyone but Gary. He fed her the gourmet food that he cooked and she had the run of his house. He even cut a hole in the sliding screen door so she could run in and out and chase birds and critters that she would drag in for his approval.
When we became an item, she would wake us by running over our heads in the bed in the mornings and sit in the open window making threats like little clicking sounds at the bird house in the tree outside.
When Gary finally sold his home and moved in with me, Kitty came with him. My two grown children were my baggage and Kitty was his. I figured it was a fair deal because my children were very spoiled like Kitty and were demanding of my total attention when they came home.
Kitty, as ornery as she could be, would not last that much longer, or so I thought.
I got allergy shots every week for five years, but I still could not pet her without itching.
When I first tried to ingratiate myself to her, I got her sushi grade tuna. From then on I was "in."
When she moved into my home she seemed to love it. I have a big yard that goes right into the woods. She liked to hide under the house and watch the birds and deer and wild turkeys and the occasional feral cat that wandered by.
A cat rescued in Fishtown had moved on up and had become quite the snob.