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What follows is a tribute to one of my cats that passed away on Wednesday, September 3, 2008. This photoset is accompanied by an essay which I recommend reading before viewing the slideshow. The essay begins after the image below.
Click on the photo below to skip the essay and view the slideshow:
Ten years ago I met a seven-year-old little girl who would become an integral part of my life. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, all I knew was that I was meeting my girlfriend's cat for the first time. Her name was Poco.
I was warned before meeting Poco that she was not too keen on men and that I should prepare myself for immediate rejection. What ensued was nothing short of a love fest. Not me to her, mind you, but her to me. I liked cats just fine, in fact, at the time I had been considering getting a cat of my own. Of course, remembering that cats poop and puke, and that I have a natural gag reflex at the mere sight and slightly of smells of both, I decided that wasn't such a good idea.
For years I have explained to people that I married a cat and got the wife for free. That's right, a year after meeting Poco I was engaged to her owner, and another year later I was driving a blue Chevrolet Corsica through the mountains of New Hampshire en route to Chicago with wife, Alison, and cat in tow.
Poco's life began in a horse barn in Vermont sometime in May, 1991. Around that time, Alison, who was an event horse rider attending competitions around New England, discovered a teeny tiny calico kitten at the farm where she was boarding her horse during an event. Later that day, Alison was thrown by her horse mid-competition, resulting in a sprained ankle, some cuts and bruises and a mild concussion. Her parents, feeling sorry for her, decided the best way to cheer her up would be to bring Poco home.
Poco got her name, which means Small in Spanish, because she was the runt of her litter and the smallest kitty of them all.
Poco joined the family along with Critter, a barn cat whose head had been stepped on by a horse and was a little bit slow as a result, and Daisy, another rescued cat that Alison and her brother would dress up in doll clothes...just because.
We weren't more than a few miles from Poco's old home in New Hampshire when she decided it was time to get sick...in both directions. She proceeded to poop and puke in the back seat, which fortunately we had covered with a blanket in anticipation of this very event. Managing to keep the car under control despite my aforementioned gag reflexes that were in full swing by this time, I pulled the car to the side of the road and took a walk while Alison cleaned up the mess.
Back on the road, the mess cleaned up and the car aired out, Poco sat on the heap of luggage in the back frothing at the mouth for the next hour. No complaints, no more messes, just frothing at the mouth.
A few hours into the 16 hour ride, and after some much needed sleep, Poco decided it was time to roam around the car. She exhaustively explored the back, passed through Ali's lap, then the floorboard under my feet before coming to a rest in my lap where she remained for the majority of the rest of the trip. She may have hated men, but she loved me. This became an ongoing laughing point between me and Alison, and we'd occasionally joke that she might, in fact, love me more than Alison.
It was a challenge finding a hotel that would allow us to stay the night with a cat in tow. We finally found one that let us stay only on the account that we assured them cat would remain in the cage. Of course she did, if by cage we mean the hotel room. Upon release, she darted for the nearest covered hiding place which happened to be the radiator cover. A bit freaked out, we quickly learned that the cover was easy to remove, and thus, the cat was easy to retrieve in the morning. What we hadn't anticipated was Poco's propensity to sit in the window sill to enjoy the view. This we discovered when we returned to the room in the morning after breakfast. Fortunately, no one had seen her and we moved on without any issues.
During her lifetime, Poco moved three times, first from a house in New Hampshire to an apartment in the suburbs of Chicago, then to a house in the suburbs, and finally to an apartment in the city of Chicago.
At this point I could go on and on with stories of Poco and how she was an integral part of our lives. Instead, I'll just list some highlights and leave the rest for party conversations:
It dawned on me this week, as we sat with Poco in her last minutes with us, that I have not known life in the last 10 years without her. She has always been a component of my relationship with Alison.
Poco began losing weight this year. Concerned, we took her to the vet in May to make sure everything was as it should be. She was diagnosed as having hyperthyroidism. The vet recommended medication, a small pill that she would consume along with her meals, in hopes that her weight loss would slow or stop altogether. At first her body seemed to respond well to the medication, though while she didn't appear to be losing weight, she wasn't gaining it back, either.
A few weeks later, we noticed she was losing weight yet again, and since we didn't have a very good experience with the first vet, we decided to take her to a new vet for evaluation. They agreed with the hyperthyroidism diagnosis and recommended upping the dosage amount. This vet also found a lump below Poco's right rib cage. The lump was biopsied, but they were not able to determine if it was cancerous.
Poco continued to lose weight while seeming to maintain high spirits and spunk. Even in the weeks leading up to her passing she was still attempting to jump, and most often successfully so, from the bath tub edge to the bathroom sink - at a span of over 3 feet, this was no small achievement for our aging, feeble princess. During this time she did begin to use more areas around the house as her litter box, instead of just using her litter box. We took this as a sign that she was starting to lose it a bit. Meanwhile, her body betrayed her and continued to whither away until she was a mere bag of bones, almost too weak to walk.
One could argue that it was a difficult decision to take Poco to the vet on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 one last time. But she was 17 years and 3 months old, a good span of time for a cat, and she had lived a good life.
After a late night of staying up to keep any eye on her and take care of her, we were both exhausted in the morning. We both woke up to Poco at full attention by her food bowl, demanding to be fed and purring as loudly as possible. It was rather cute. But the fact is she had no fight left in her. She had done so well up until that week, but we knew that she needed to rest and she wasn't going to get it by staying with us. It was, however, a very sad moment as we picked her up to carry her to the car.
Her proper name was Poco, but she acquired a number of nicknames over the years. These included:
She often responded readily to her name. By calling out "PocoPocoPocoPoco" we could expect to see her padding our way, in hopes of nummies (food), lovin' or a special treat. Of course, being a cat, she didn't always respond, only when she thought there might be something in it for her.
I had no idea how attached I had become to this cat. And now, as we continue on without her, I can't help but turn my head when I hear a sound in the apartment, expecting to see Poco walking towards me. It will take some time to realize that I don't have to look out for two cats sprawled in the walkway as I make my way through the house in the dark. It will take some time to remember that I don't have to check who is making noise eating out of which food bowl. There is only one food bowl now.
We do still have Maxwell, and he's a good cat, too. But even he is aware that something has changed, that Poco is missing, and his behavior patterns are not quite regular.
And so, to help fill this void, I have assembled a series of photographs of Poco from when she was a kitten up until her last moments with us. She was beautiful and she will be missed.
Click on the photo below to view the slideshow:
