Pookie, Perfect and Ironic, 1999-2004
Pookie the cat arrived and left in irony. In between she was perfect.
In 1999, my wife said that if she had to go through the pain and hard work of pregnancy then she wanted me to buy her a cat: not just any cat, but a carefully selected elegant purebred, a special prize companion. A deal's a deal, say I, and fair to all; and as the baby who became the light of our life grew inside her, I drove 300 miles to pick up a few tiny ounces of kitten.
Ironically, the cat bonded to me and became "Daddy's personal pet".
As a pet, she was perfect. She was sunshiny and outgoing. If you called her, she'd come running -- and yelling, as though to say "here I am! here I am! you called!". She enthusiastically pursued her two goals in life: to befriend every visitor to the house, and to be the happiest pet ever. In response to the odd annoyances of humans -- nail trimming, closed doors, veterinary vists, and other nonsense -- she managed to accept the impositions and keep peace, without ever letting go of that confident cattitude. She was never a doormat, never used a claw, and never passed up a chance to snuggle up to a fellow mammal.
The elder Siamese in the house had never had a non-human friend, and for years lived in a sort of cold catly loneliness. She barged straight into his life … in this age of grand illusion she walked into his life out of his dreams … he loved her madly from the moment he saw her.
She reached, as they say in politics, across the aisle to befriend the dogs in the house. The last to be won over was the collie. On one occasion, he tried to startle her, hoping she'd run so he could give chase. All his enormous mass came rushing up suddenly behind her. She turned, came to a full stop, and fixed him with a blue-eyed gaze that said, clear as though spoken in English, "Will you WATCH it? You nearly stepped on me." -- and that was the end of cat-chasing in the household, forever.
Some cats have problems when the human baby arrives; Pookie simply continued her agenda of Friendship To All. Whatever it takes, she seemed to say, I will make this strange clumsy thing my friend. By six months she had taught the baby to play cat games. By ten months they were full-fledged co-conspirators:
http://home.austin.rr.com/witthoft/morningplay2277c.jpg
A family friend, marvelling at the good cheer of the animal, said, "The thing about Pookie? Nothing bad ever happened to her."
People who do pet rescue sometimes swap gruesome stories about abuse, indifference, neglect. A friend of mine, who has saved hundreds of dogs' lives, let it be known that frankly he'd heard enough horrifying rescue stories and didn't need to hear another. So I told him I had the pet story to top all:
Pookie was born in a household where she was loved and pampered. She was sold to a family that took good care of her, where she had food, comfort, and love; everybody got along with her and she stayed there forever! The end!
In the midst of the Nothing Bad, and the Happy Pet Story, came the vomiting.
Cats vomit. They eat houseplants. They heave hairballs. It's part of being a cat. So it kind of snuck up on us that Pookie was really vomiting too much; the nasty messes of half-digested kibble appearing (of course on the rug, or on an expensive appliance) too often. The vet shrugged: maybe a food allergy? So we tried a couple different brands of kibble, which didn't help; then switched her to a people-food diet, which did help. A little fresh chicken, a little tuna, and no more messes.
Still she lost weight.
One night last week, the vomiting came back with a vengeance. She heaved what looked like a whole days' food. I made a mental note that it was time to go back to the vet, first thing next morning, and try to get a better diagnosis. She rested awhile, then threw up again. Then she quietly went upstairs, hid in a small box under the piano bench, and died. The pet to whom nothing bad ever happened only lived five years.
Pookie the cat arrived and left in irony. In between she was perfect.
