Eulogy

[clevermanka]

I didn't adopt Fetish out of the options at the pound. I didn't choose her out of a neighbor's accidental litter. I didn't see her roaming lost in the alley and decide to take her in. When Fetish came into my life, it was of her own choice and I didn't have much say in the matter.

A few days before Halloween, 1995, I took the trash out to the alley dumpster behind my house at 1011 Tennessee. As I returned to the back door, I heard a squeak and felt something fall across my foot. There she was, a tiny kitten sprawled across the top of my shoe. I don't know how she managed to maneuver around my steps to fall on my foot before it rose again. I picked her up with one hand. When I closed my hand around her middle, the only things that protruded were her back legs and a pinky-finger-joint-sized tail at one end and a wee head with still-folded ear nubs and blue eyes at the other.

My landlord had a no pets policy, although he'd been lax about it with my previous roommate and her obnoxious potbelly pig. But I had no desire for a pet, much less a cat--about which I had no experience. My father is allergic to cats, and I'd never been around one for more than a few minutes at a time, my nana's cat being notoriously shy and absent whenever non-immediate family was present. It being so close to Halloween, though, I couldn't leave her in the alley. A helpless black kitten, Halloween, and horrible children aren't a combination that provides peace of mind. I brought her inside.

I was a vegetarian at the time, and had nothing appropriate to feed her. I certainly wasn't going to purchase any food for this animal that was going to the humane society the very next day, so I tried to get her to eat a tofu pup. She wasn't thrilled about that, so when my upstairs neighbor Smirl got home, I begged from him a little can of tuna. She much preferred that to the tofu. Smart kitten.

With a square emesis tray and some torn up newspaper, I made her a litter box and when she finished eating, I put her in the tray and somehow, miraculously, she understood what to do. I barricaded her in the kitchen with boxes piled as high as my waist, closed my bedroom door, and went to bed. Not twenty minutes later, I felt something lie down across my neck. She'd wormed her way under the door, crawled up the bedclothes, and found me a desirable sleeping place. I returned her to the kitchen, checked the sturdiness of the barricade, and returned to bed.

We repeated this process three times before I gave up and let her sleep with me.

By morning, there was no way I could take her to the shelter. She was mine.

After work and classes the next day, I went to the store for food and supplies, and the library to check out some books on cats as pets. I had no idea what I was doing and figured I'd better educate myself fast. Between the two of us and those books (some helpful, some ridiculous, most a combination), we did pretty well. I might be a tad biased, but I think she was one of the best-behaved and well-adjusted cats ever to walk the earth.

Her health and personality flourished quickly. She got her name within the first few days. One, of course, my own affection for fetishes and fetish life in general. But she also had a crazy affinity for toes under sheets, which she would attack with great ferocity. She wasn't allowed to play with naked human hands, but hands and feet masked under cover of blankets were sublime and ripe for attack. Since she never lost the desire to get under one's feet, I took to carrying her around the house on my shoulder. In a couple weeks, she was big enough that one shoulder wasn't enough and she draped herself across the back of my neck, her chin resting on one shoulder, back legs straddling the other.

She ate my houseplants--all of them, in the first week. Gladys the Hawaiian Ti plant. Agatha the aloe. Agnes the mother-in-law's tongue. And Eunice the crown-of-thorns. How she managed without choking or perishing is a mystery.

I didn't know Kevin, my landlord, decided to install a new garbage disposal one day while I was on campus. I didn't even notice the disposal when I got home. That evening I got a phone call. My landlord's drawl came through the earpiece.

"I installed a...new disposal under your...kitchen sink today."

My heart started to race. "Oh. Yeah? Um. Everything go okay?"

"...That's...quite a cat you've...got there."

While Kevin crouched under the sink, Fetish jumped onto his back. Never one to be surprised or angered by anything in the eight years I knew him, Kevin didn't straighten or jump out from under the sink. Fetish walked up his back and settled around his neck and shoulders. She stayed there, purring, until he was finished with the install.

There was never any mention of getting rid of the cat, or a request for a pet deposit.

She got big. Then she got bigger. Eventually, she was the largest female cat I'd ever met. She was also the most gracious, sympathetic, and devoted cat I could imagine. She was almost dog-like in her affections. She ran to meet me at the door when I got home, obeyed me most of the time, and submitted to discipline with resignation but respect.

I didn't know anything about cats when I found her, and I didn't realize how young she was. Knowing a little more now, I estimate she was between two and three weeks old when she found me. She never had the opportunity to be socialized as a cat. As a result, I think she percieved herself as some sort of tiny version of whatever I was, and she was my baby. She hated other animals, especially other cats, but loved people. There wasn't a person on this planet from whom she wouldn't accept attention and affection. I had to lock her up at big parties because she refused to hide under the bed. Instead, she desperately wanted to be a part of the festivities--which, for her, included lying on the floor amidst drunken hard-shoe'ed people while she waited for someone to stop and pet her.

Fetish always knew and understood when I was sick or sad. A physically present cat to begin with, she wouldn't leave my side when I was physically or emotionally distressed. She never refused me when I needed extra affection. She didn't like it when I kissed her face, but she allowed it. She was a frequent nose-toucher and a fan of loving head-butts--usually on my nose unless I could quickly deflect them to my chin or cheek.

This lasted until late summer of 2009. Her habits started to change, and she began to express less interest in some of her favorite things--watching squirrels and birds out the back window, playing with catnip toys. She stopped sleeping with me, except for occasional weekend afternoon naps. In September 2009, she was diagnosed with diabetes.

The roller-coaster of going in and out of diabetes, having to adjust medication, and, for several months in 2010, near-weekly trips to the vet, took a lot out of her. But for fourteen months, she wobbled through life, with more happiness than not. December of 2010 was not a happy or healthy month for her, though. Her muscles and joints continued to atrophy and late in the month she lost most control of her bladder and bowels.

She wasn't a happy kitty anymore.

Her last day, Friday, January 28, was warm and sunny. After much consultation with the vet techs, I gave her the first quarter-tablet of Acepromazine at noon. The changes caused by the sedative were amazing. For the first time in ages, she stretched out long. She'd been holding her achey joints so close that I'd forgotten her true size. Her still-sleek body stretched out nearly the length of my thigh. Instead of being tucked into her chest, her front legs stretched out even more and her toes flexed in relaxation. Although she was dizzy and unsteady on her feet, she walked without stiffness to her food bowl and, once, to the back door for a last look outside. Twenty minutes before the vet's arrival, she wasn't exhibiting any of the limp drowsiness the vet had described. I gave her the second quarter-tablet. That one knocked her out. She couldn't walk anymore, and her inner eyelid started to slide in toward her pupil.

When the vet and tech arrived at the house, she was lying soft and pliable on my chest, head pushed up against my face. We arranged her on a towel on the coffee table. The vet recommended we move her so her head faced me. Smelling the clinic office on his coat, Fetish gave out one last valiant hiss. He waited for her to settle down into our comforting whispers and strokes. When everyone was ready, he injected the medication into her back leg.

She was so quiet and peaceful, I couldn't tell when she died. I have no idea how much time passed--seconds? minutes?--before the vet put a stethescope under her and told us there was no heartbeat. She died in more physical comfort than she'd spent the last year of her life. I was so grateful for that, and that her last day had been one of her good days, one where she wasn't too achey and miserable. All cliches aside, it really was a good day to die.

I miss her more than I can describe. More than I can comprehend. I don't have moments where I forget she's no longer living here. I don't experience those reactions of "don't let the cat out the door" before I have to remind myself that she's gone. Instead, I have a constant ache of her absence, the pain of which comes in waves. I know those waves will eventually smooth down the sharp jags and ridges that cut and press into me so distressingly, but that time seems so long and far away. And the years with her seem like they were so short.

Thank you, everyone, who have offered kind words for the loss of this amazing cat. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and emotional generosity. Now, though, I would love it if, instead of words of sympathy, people would comment to this post with a memorable interaction you had with Fetish.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing.

Comments

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I have to add empathy to your post. I haven't cried this hard in ages, probably since Maybe-baby took her leave of us in front of a vehicle.

Fetish was the lovingist cat ever... and I remember first meeting her when she was still tiny. Tiny like she became in her demise. I'm so glad she had comfort and relaxation in her final hour.
"one last valiant hiss".. so much Fetish.. that hiss was one of my first memories of her, you'd brought her over to meet us, and not knowing she would hate other cats, she showed her displeasure at there being other cats in the house.

May your cat-shaped hole in your heart mend soon.

R.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I wish I had known her as a kitten. I bet she was exactly like a full-grown Fetish-Kitty, only tiny.