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Last post about the kitty. Well, maybe one more when I get home and bury her.
*exhales*
I remember going to the RSPCA to get her. The woman who showed me around thought I was an overseas student looking for a pet while I was studying in Australia and it took nearly ten minutes to convince her that I was an Australian citizen who'd owned a cat before (well, my family) and knew that it was a lifetime committment (the cat's lifetime, not mine). She kept on asking what I'd do when I "went home". And since her meaning of "you're not white, so you're not Australian - never mind the complete lack of accent - and you're going to abandon this poor kitty as soon as you leave to go back to whatever country you originally came from" passed over my head for the first ten minutes, my answers of "I'll take her with me," was vastly inadequate. "Where's home?" "Sydney." "No, where's your home?" "Uh, Sydney. North Shore. Tur--" And then I realised that what she was saying was "No matter what you tell me, and no matter what proof is put before my eyes, you're not really an Australian to me."
Racism for the win. Only not.
But I remember seeing the kittens - there were two of them, sitting in the enclosure, one orange-pink tabby, one brown-and-grey tabby. Teeny-tiny little things, each perhaps as big as my two palms together and adorably squeaky. Now, I could have sworn I picked the orange-pink tabby. But when I came back a week later to pick up the cat, they had the brown-and-grey tabby for me. Which, eh. I wanted a cat and I wasn't particularly fussed about the colour.
I named her Nyara for the character in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar/Hawkbrother Winds trilogy, and took her home.
At first she had a cat pillow in the laundry, along with her food and litter box. Then I started letting her sleep on my bed. She was so small, the housemate (six foot two strapping guy) could sit her in his palm - and sometimes did. And when I slouched on the couch with the computer on my knees playing Civ II or with a book in my hands, she'd sit on my breastbone and staaaare into my face.
She liked the electric blanket I used to turn on a couple of hours before bed in the winter, and the fan heater that I used to heat my room when I first woke up in the cold. She liked crawling under the covers against me, but she would slip out as soon as you lifted them. She didn't meow, she squeaked. (The stepbrother called it a beep.)
She hated travelling in the cage - the journey from Wollongong to Sydney when I moved was a nightmare - all the more because she shat in the cage and I had to clean it out somewhere on King Georges road, buying a newspaper to try to clean it all up. Once I reached Sydney, she became an indoors cat, only allowed out once in a while.
She was insular and unfriendly to other cats, but curious about people - until they scared her. Then she became nervous and startled easily. When the parentals moved in with the other cats - younger, bigger, bolder cats, she hated having them around. In the end, she got the upstairs and the main living space, and they got the downstairs and the loungeroom where my stepdad was working, and it mostly sorted out. She was a grumpy old lady, but she held her age well and always stayed very petite.
There was this thing she did where she wouldn't meet your gaze. You'd angle your head to try to make eye contact and she'd move her head so you couldn't. 'Eye avoidance tactics' we called it, and kidded that she had self-esteem issues.
She loved being scratched under the chin and along her cheeks and on her forehead, and would lean into the flea comb when I groomed her. She'd sleep at the head of the bed, in the space where a second pillow would have been if I'd been sharing a bed, and sometimes at the foot of the bed when she felt like it. She purred like a trojan at the end, and was so small and thin and weak when she got sick earlier this year - until the medication started working. She almost got back to her old size and I thought she was out of the woods before she fell sick again, just at Easter.
The day I left, I got my bags out to the car and then went to find her in front of my bedroom heater, sprawled on the quilt I'd laid out for her to sleep on. I scratched her cheeks and groomed the top of her head and told her to try to survive until I got back. And she purred at me and closed her eyes as though to say, "Yes, yes, but I want to sleep right now."
There's a part of me that's afraid that she might have thought I'd deserted her when I went away, although B1 thinks that she'd been looking for a place to curl up and die for some time before she got sick. She always wanted to go outside, and our last cat crawled away into the bush out the back of the house when she was very old and was never seen again.
The night she died, I was in a bus on my way to the Loire Valley to see some old French castles. And I thought about her at the vet, on a drip, lying there in the darkness, nervous with all the other animals around, and I imagined patting her and telling her that it was going to be okay. Silly sentimentality, but I'd like to think that she knew that I was thinking of her then, and that she 'felt' me patting her before she died.
I understand why people go out and get a new pet shortly after their old one has died. I'm not sure if I want to do that. I guess I'll see how things go when I get back.
And now I'm crying again.
*exhales*
I remember going to the RSPCA to get her. The woman who showed me around thought I was an overseas student looking for a pet while I was studying in Australia and it took nearly ten minutes to convince her that I was an Australian citizen who'd owned a cat before (well, my family) and knew that it was a lifetime committment (the cat's lifetime, not mine). She kept on asking what I'd do when I "went home". And since her meaning of "you're not white, so you're not Australian - never mind the complete lack of accent - and you're going to abandon this poor kitty as soon as you leave to go back to whatever country you originally came from" passed over my head for the first ten minutes, my answers of "I'll take her with me," was vastly inadequate. "Where's home?" "Sydney." "No, where's your home?" "Uh, Sydney. North Shore. Tur--" And then I realised that what she was saying was "No matter what you tell me, and no matter what proof is put before my eyes, you're not really an Australian to me."
Racism for the win. Only not.
But I remember seeing the kittens - there were two of them, sitting in the enclosure, one orange-pink tabby, one brown-and-grey tabby. Teeny-tiny little things, each perhaps as big as my two palms together and adorably squeaky. Now, I could have sworn I picked the orange-pink tabby. But when I came back a week later to pick up the cat, they had the brown-and-grey tabby for me. Which, eh. I wanted a cat and I wasn't particularly fussed about the colour.
I named her Nyara for the character in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar/Hawkbrother Winds trilogy, and took her home.
At first she had a cat pillow in the laundry, along with her food and litter box. Then I started letting her sleep on my bed. She was so small, the housemate (six foot two strapping guy) could sit her in his palm - and sometimes did. And when I slouched on the couch with the computer on my knees playing Civ II or with a book in my hands, she'd sit on my breastbone and staaaare into my face.
She liked the electric blanket I used to turn on a couple of hours before bed in the winter, and the fan heater that I used to heat my room when I first woke up in the cold. She liked crawling under the covers against me, but she would slip out as soon as you lifted them. She didn't meow, she squeaked. (The stepbrother called it a beep.)
She hated travelling in the cage - the journey from Wollongong to Sydney when I moved was a nightmare - all the more because she shat in the cage and I had to clean it out somewhere on King Georges road, buying a newspaper to try to clean it all up. Once I reached Sydney, she became an indoors cat, only allowed out once in a while.
She was insular and unfriendly to other cats, but curious about people - until they scared her. Then she became nervous and startled easily. When the parentals moved in with the other cats - younger, bigger, bolder cats, she hated having them around. In the end, she got the upstairs and the main living space, and they got the downstairs and the loungeroom where my stepdad was working, and it mostly sorted out. She was a grumpy old lady, but she held her age well and always stayed very petite.
There was this thing she did where she wouldn't meet your gaze. You'd angle your head to try to make eye contact and she'd move her head so you couldn't. 'Eye avoidance tactics' we called it, and kidded that she had self-esteem issues.
She loved being scratched under the chin and along her cheeks and on her forehead, and would lean into the flea comb when I groomed her. She'd sleep at the head of the bed, in the space where a second pillow would have been if I'd been sharing a bed, and sometimes at the foot of the bed when she felt like it. She purred like a trojan at the end, and was so small and thin and weak when she got sick earlier this year - until the medication started working. She almost got back to her old size and I thought she was out of the woods before she fell sick again, just at Easter.
The day I left, I got my bags out to the car and then went to find her in front of my bedroom heater, sprawled on the quilt I'd laid out for her to sleep on. I scratched her cheeks and groomed the top of her head and told her to try to survive until I got back. And she purred at me and closed her eyes as though to say, "Yes, yes, but I want to sleep right now."
There's a part of me that's afraid that she might have thought I'd deserted her when I went away, although B1 thinks that she'd been looking for a place to curl up and die for some time before she got sick. She always wanted to go outside, and our last cat crawled away into the bush out the back of the house when she was very old and was never seen again.
The night she died, I was in a bus on my way to the Loire Valley to see some old French castles. And I thought about her at the vet, on a drip, lying there in the darkness, nervous with all the other animals around, and I imagined patting her and telling her that it was going to be okay. Silly sentimentality, but I'd like to think that she knew that I was thinking of her then, and that she 'felt' me patting her before she died.
I understand why people go out and get a new pet shortly after their old one has died. I'm not sure if I want to do that. I guess I'll see how things go when I get back.
And now I'm crying again.
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You delineate Nyara very clearly for us, and made her sound like the individual and unique being that she was.
Some years ago now, we had a very elderly cat of 21 who was clearly on death's door when we had to go away for the weekend. We would be gone less than 48 hours, but we doubted that she would be there when we got back, so we made a point of saying our goodbyes. Her littermate sister had died two years before, and there were new kittens in the house to keep her company. When we got back, she was gone, curled up in our bedroom. It was pretty clear that she had gone to find a place of privacy for her last moments, and our two other cats who have died have done the same. Even had you been there, Nyara might well have turned from you or hidden, because that is often the animal way.
Of course you are crying. If we don't feel the pain of loss when someone dies, then they were'nt really that important in our lives, and Nyara was a good and well-loved companion.
I wish her peace.
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