The Death of Amethyst 1

Amethyst. Last Photograph in life. 7-20-2009

Amethyst the cat died sometime between 3 o’clock and 5:30 o’clock in the morning, Central Daylight Savings Time, July 23^rd, 2009. She was born sometime between 1986 and 1988, making her something like 22 or 24 years old at the time of her death. I am on somewhat firmer footing when it comes to identifying her breed: she was a traditional, or “Applehead” Siamese, with tortie points. She had a kinked tail, which might take some points off if she were a show cat. She wasn’t a show cat. She used her kinked tail to great expressive effect. Like many Siamese cats, she had a full voice and a large vocabulary, which she also used to great effect. No matter how you add it up, she lived a good, long life. For this reason, show or no show, I’m giving her all the points I’ve got. She was an extraordinary, amoral being.

Given her advanced age, my wife, DeLann, and I knew she was going to die. Eventually. Del would not infrequently say, “I don’t know what we’re gonna do without that cat”! We knew, towards the end, that it was, in fact, getting towards the end. I did not keep track, as the end unfolded, of the series of ‘lasts’. The last time she went up the stairs, the last time she called out after eating or using the litter, these events were not noted at the time. They were not significant until her death made them so, and by then it was impossible to fix them in time and make a fetish of them. Certain events were more clearly markers of decline, if only in retrospect. I notice she took to spending time in a room she rarely ventured into, not hiding exactly, but staying out of the usual path.

In her last year or so, her normal paths were well established. She spent most of her day in a front room. Most of that time, she slept on her own bed. She always was up when we were around in the mornings and evenings, and she always wanted a taste of what ever it was we were eating. She always made the trip from her front room to the litter box in the bathroom. From the box, it was usually to the TV room next. That was where the humans hung out. Amethyst always liked her human company. She always purred when petted. It was a clear sign of decline when these routines were altered in any way. After she took to ‘hiding’, I started observing her more carefully. She had difficulty getting into the elaborate cat box, which featured a ramp and an enclosure. Her urine ended up pooling in the ramp. The first time this happened, it was right before I was going out of town. I mopped up the spill, cleaned the box and took my trip. Amethyst straightened up and flew right for the few days that I was gone, and for most of the few weeks of her life that remained. But the cat box manner deteriorated rapidly in that last three days. I noticed that she was not eating as much as she usually did. Next, she refused her nutritional supplement.

So I took her to the vet. The vet was outside waiting for us. “There’s not much left of her”, I said. “No. There’s not much left of her”, he echoed. I took her in to the little room and placed her on the metal table. She didn’t like the vet. She gave me a pitiful look. He said she was “Cachexic”. “It’s from the Greek, I think”. He had to look the word up in a dictionary. He decided that, although he “did not have a magic wand”, he would give her “something to prime the pump”. He thought if she could be made to eat again on her own, she might bounce back as she had done before. When we put her on the floor while I paid the bill, she made a beeline for the door to the clinic. She sat looking out at the world beyond the door while I asked about euthanasia, cremation and such. He embarked on a lengthy description of the medical process of pet euthanasia, describing in his customary detail the location of the injection into the pleural cavity. He explained the rationale. He described the location of the pleural cavity, the space around the lungs, drawing the shape of a small animal’s chest cavity in the air with his fingers. He said that he ‘often ended up serving as funeral director.’  He showed me the little wooden box that the cremains would be returned in. The things I liked this man for in earlier visits had now somehow become sketchy in my mind. I did my damnedest to hold my composure together. All the while, Amethyst sat patiently, looking out the door. She did not lie down on the doormat. She was on alert. It was the last time she looked out at the world through a door.

Home from the vet, Amethyst conked out on her bed in the front room. Not too long after I returned home from his office, the vet called to say he’d been looking over her charts, and had some ideas about how to proceed. He wondered if I could bring her in at the same time, next morning. I made the appointment. 10 AM. Somehow, the endgame had been set in motion.

The Death of Amethyst 2

 In the late afternoon, she came into the TV room. She was on her usual path, but stopped in the middle of the carpet. She put her head down onto the rug, but her haunches were still raised, a curious gesture. I was to see this gesture twice more. I went to the cat, scooped her up and brought her to the couch and set her beside me. I did not detect a purr. Her face was matted from the broth she had been drinking. Was that a good sign?

I was watching the battle of Gettysburg, the movie, on DVD, with Jeff Daniels, the actor. It was a very loud soundtrack. There was music, guns and cannons. As I had at Appomattox, when I went and stood on the spot where “the Union was saved”, I wept as had the soldiers that had given so much and gained so little, laying down their arms. I’m not sure what I think, or whether I still care much, that “the Union was saved”, but my cat was dying. People (and cats, and everything else) die. It is a burden on the psyche. Sanity complains in the face of the relentlessness of it. (And yet, we still indulge in killing each other.) Eventually, Amethyst wanted down. She hated certain sounds, and most loud noises, and I was surprised that she stayed as long as she did. She made the gesture, and I did the work of putting her on the carpet from the couch. I was prepared to do this for a while longer, as long as necessary. Then the distress pours into the divided mind; the necessity cannot, of course, continue for very long.

 In the evening, still on her routine, she spent some time on the rug outside the bathroom where her cat box was. At long last, she was making the move to use the box. Now, though, she clearly could not get into the box, with its ramp and hood. Climbing its ramp was too much. I took off the hood and lifted her in. She stayed in the box. She had to be hoisted out. This was not at all the robust cat we had enjoyed. This was a new, moribund animal.  The old flat pan was retrieved and set up. As is our custom, when the alcohol has taken its toll, and the chores are half done, my wife and I make our way up to the bedroom on the second floor. In the summers, Amethyst, not needing warmth, always remains on the first floor. It was July. We went up, fell asleep, and we can only surmise that our beloved pet, alone on her floor, with all sorts of treats arrayed in a sort of smorgasbord of bowls, some with broth, some with yogurt, some with cat foods, some with water, passed the night of her penultimate day of this life in her own way. Who are we humans to claim that, alone among the species, we are privy to our own mortality? Do we have a gesture of resignation to match the Siamese cat? Does our vaunted lack of instinct and surfeit of learning better prepare us for fate? I’m sure this line of thinking was not in my conscious mind at the time, and did not disturb my dreams.

On the morning of the 22^rd, bright, warm, and clear, I puttered away most of the morning. Amethyst had eaten a little of this and that, but left behind anything that had been part of her official feline diet. I prepared the car for that final ride by parking out of the sun and opening the car windows. When the time came, I lifted the cat and worked my way out the door and put her on the passenger’s seat. She behaved as if she were still inside, exerting no energy at all. She had a minute alone in the car, with the windows down, as I went back to the house to lock the door. Amethyst had always liked the car, any car, and would willingly enter a vehicle by any opening available. In earlier adventures in cars, windows would indeed be rolled up or closed. Now this was so clearly unnecessary.

This time the vet had visiting grandchildren. Amethyst hated children. The vet introduced her to the children. I put her down on the steel table. I got the same look from the cat that I had seen the day before on this spot, followed this time by a deep yowl. She had not used her voice in awhile. Her voice cracked a bit at the apogee of the sound, but I knew what she was saying. (It was the last time she used her voice.) Another injection of a different sort of ‘pump primer’ was administered. As I went out to pay the bill, Amethyst remained in the examination room, on the floor, surrounded by children, all out of my view. This could not have been the highpoint of her last day. I asked if the vet would perform euthanasia as a house call. He nodded. I took her from the child who was bringing her down the short hallway, getting her away from that well meaning but naïve and aggressive grasp.

Home again, Amethyst made several more journeys in the house. Two were on her usual rounds, but ended, shy of their destinations, in that beautiful gesture of surrender: head down, on the floor, turned to one side; haunches up in the air, preparing to spring or take that next step. The animal expresses submission to all other beings. I was the only other being present. I responded by getting down on my hands and knees, getting a cheek down on the floor next to my pet’s with a free hand on her back, letting my breath fall on her neck. She held her pose, completely relaxed, alert, exerting no energy. I brought my hands under her raised belly, and lifted her to what I knew by experience her destinations were. I cannot remember any of my destinations on that afternoon: I had lost the bearings of my being. I had no place on earth.

When Del got home, Amethyst was on the carpet remnant she’d barfed on for the past year and a half, outside the bathroom, on the way to the litter box.  I put her in the box, she urinated, and then I lifted her out. Del was in there, shedding her work clothes. In the telling of the days’ stories, human time passed quickly for about an hour. Then we noticed that Amethyst had urinated outside the box. I mopped it up. It was tinged with red. Not a good sign. We moved the cat box into the pantry, much nearer the front room and the cat bed and bowl array. More conversation. Amethyst’s rug was moved to be in this narrowing territory of the house. A pair of doorways, a favorite rug, a soft blanket…these became the six square feet that remained of all her roaming. She soon decorated it with another puddle, just shy of the litter box, of bloody urine. So Del put some litter on top of a spread of plastic bag, directly on the floor. (It was never used.)

Del scooped her up and held her lengthwise, like a human baby. She was purring, faintly. She was thus brought into the living room. She spent some time by Del’s side, and then by mine. After a period of time, Del scooped her up again and we took her outside to sit in the grass. She was again acquiescent, but alert. Her nose was working the breeze. When she finally put her head down, perhaps yielding to the comfort of the cool grass, I scooped her back up and carried her back inside. “Amethyst, say farewell to the ‘outside world’.” It was now about 9:30 in the evening. The sunset was passed. We humans were tired. We went up the stairs to bed. I expected that the next morning I would again assess the possibility of having the vet come and put an end to Amethyst’s suffering. The dilemma was that, other than having lost any ability to function normally, Amethyst was not exhibiting any signs of suffering. She bore her final indignities with absolute neutrality of affect. Her expressive nature was simply very muted. Was this excessive suffering? What was the sign I was waiting for? We left Amethyst lying down amidst her bowls, on the green comforter, spread out over what had been her favorite patch of carpet to play on. Her litter, no longer boxed, was a mere five feet away. It seemed that everything that could have been done had been done.

At three in the morning or so, I went downstairs for a drink of ersatz juice. I saw Amethyst in the dark, still where we had left her.  She responded, lifting her head up. I did not go to her. I made the instant calculation that she should be left alone. Had I read somewhere that sick cats do not like to be fussed over? We had fussed over her all evening. If there is a regret, it is this: that in this moment, the last time I had the opportunity to commune with my living companion animal, I let the opportunity pass. I could have said “goodbye” to a still breathing creature. This mechanism must be hardwired into the experience of grief. No matter how it happens, when the loss is made manifest at last, there must be such regret. In fact, had I ‘communed with my living companion’, I likely would not have thought it would really be ‘the last time’. It would have been just another time. It would not be in keeping with my deeper understating of reality to think that Amethyst had specific knowledge of her approaching end. She had already expressed her general sense of defeat. She had a sophisticated relationship with her environment, but she did not have to cope with ethics. She was sentient, not sentimental. I went back to bed.

I was awakened at about 5:00 AM by Del. She came into the bedroom and said, “I think Amethyst is dead.” I went down to discover for myself the truth of this statement. Indeed, Amethyst was dead. She was on her side, legs outstretched, eyes wide open, pupils dilated, mouth open as if panting. I put a hand on her side. Her fur was still warm, but she was stiff with rigor mortis. I went for the camera and took some photographs of the corpse. Not knowing what else to do at that instant, I covered her corpse up with the green comforter.

Time must have passed. The heat of the day had begun.

I got an empty cardboard box of an appropriate size. I unwrapped the corpse and put it in the box. It was stiff as a board. I put the box in the basement, where it was cooler. I called the vet to see about those cremation arrangements. He said that he was very sorry, and that I should call back at 1 in the afternoon, when the technician would be in, and that I could deliver the remains at that time. I judged that to be too long. I was too antsy. I called a friend who had horses, and cats. She gave me the number of a vet down her way, about a half hours drive to the south. I made the call. I put the box in the car. I took the ride. I greeted. I explained. I paid the money. I opened the box and took one last look at my corpse. I said, “rest in peace, girlie.” On the way home, I stopped by a car dealership. I had the notion I’d buy a used pickup truck. This was an elaborate way of keeping a stiff upper lip. It was no sale, though. The road home seemed curiously up hill. I stopped by Shelley’s and left a note in the door about Amethyst’s passing. Shelley had been Amethyst’s original owner. Home again, there were cat things to put away, the bowls, the litter boxes. It was activity entered into in a strange, numb, automatic way.

I did call the vet’s technician that afternoon to cancel my appointments and let her know that I had “made other arrangements.” She said some of the usual stuff: that she was SO sorry, that now Amethyst was at peace, with God. Not being a believer, and sure that if Amethyst could have understood the nuances of human abstract thinking, she would have hissed, I could only say ‘thank you’ or ‘yes’.

Then Shelley called. She thanked me for keeping Amethyst for the past seven years. I could barely say, “It was a pleasure, really.” “I can hear the grief in your voice,” she said. Yes. I was beginning to feel it in my bones.

Amethyst is finished. There is only one direction to go with her story: back into the past.

Shelley's Odd Cat

Amethyst right after I got her, 2002

I started going over to Shelley’s ramshackle house on the edge of downtown Urbana in the summer of 1998. Shelley was writing a column in a local paper called “The Octopus.” Her column was called “In the Doghouse.” Come to find out, the title’s double meaning referred not just to the fact of Shelley’s ownership of three German Shepherd dogs, but also to her notions about herself and her relationship to her community. She was, or at least saw herself as, or maybe it was that she perceived herself as being seen as, a troublemaker. The dogs were certainly a large and noisy presence at Shelley’s, but she also had a cat. My first encounter with Amethyst is lost in the chaos of the place. I remember her, at first, as a shadowy figure, hopping off the battered couch and ducking out of sight. Then she stayed in one place long enough to afford a good look. I had seen a few Siamese cats before, up close and personal. I knew about seal points, blue points, lilac points and points in general. I had never seen the likes of this cat.

“What is wrong with that cat?”

“Nothing.”

“Her markings. That’s some sort of a mixed breed.”

“She’s a tortie.”

I let it go at that for a little while. She had the Siamese black face, but her ears, fur, paws, and belly were mottled with browns and grays. She had the big blue eyes. As noted, her tail had a prominent kink near the tip. She swished the kink at a different tempo than she swished the rest of the tail.

            “What’s the cat’s name?”

            “Ammy.”

            “Amy?”

            “No. Ammy. Or we just call her “Am”. That’s the sound she makes all the time. She’s always saying her name.”

I persisted, for a while, in calling the cat “Amy” (as in ‘aim me’). Every time, I was corrected. “It’s ‘Am-me’.” (As in ‘I am me’.) Finally, in exasperation, it was explained to me that the eldest daughter had named the cat for the amethyst, the precious stone. In certain lights, indeed, the cat’s fur had a faintly purple tinge. In addition to the eldest daughter, the household consisted of the son, and the twins. The twins and Amethyst the cat came into the world at roughly the same time. Knowing the age of the twins puts a start date on the life of the cat. Supposedly. Shelley is the “unreliable narrator” of her own life. The mystery about Amethyst’s actual age returns again and again. It was thought by the household that she was an old cat, even in 1998. Indeed, for most cats, fifteen years would be a ripe old age. Amethyst was not an ordinary cat. You could see that, even in the extraordinary world that she survived in. In fact, remarking about Am’s breed and provenance, Shelley once declared that she was ‘an expensive cat’.

On one of these early visits to Shelley’s, I reached down and picked Amethyst up. She was, after all, underfoot. I flipped her upside down and looked at her eyes looking up at me, uncertainly. This is the way I always picked up the huge seal point Ace-kitty, another Siamese cat that I had known. With Acer, you could make him talk by giving him a little squeeze. He was like a feline bagpipe. Amethyst did not play this game.

            “Oooo. She likes you.”

            “Ya think?”

            “Sure. She hates to be picked up. See, she’s purring even.”

I didn’t detect purring, but it might have been true. Amethyst was capable of all sorts of levels of expression. She could purr like a locomotive, or sub-audibly. At this moment, a perceived bond had been formed between Amethyst and me in the mind of Shelley.

The Cat - A Rough Guide

Sealpoint Meezer. Not Amethyst.

Here are a few words about cats, Siamese cats, and ‘torties’ in particular. Unless one is newly arrived from another planet, one knows what is generally meant by the term ‘cat’. Many people like cats. A large number keep them in their homes, on their premises, or both. There are people, at the other end of the spectrum of opinion, who care very much about what cats look like, and into which categories they are organized.

The small, furred animal we humans commonly call a ‘cat’, or the equivalent common term in any of the terrestrial languages, is formally known by the ‘universal’ system of species classification as “felis catus.” According to the current free encyclopedia, the “Wikipedia”, the cat is a “skilled predator.” Cats are the natural nemesis of over 1,000 other species. The cat communicates with vocalizations that include “meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, squeaking, chirping, clicking, and grunting.”[1] The animal also communicates with a variety of postures. A cat will arch its back, for example, when confronted or threatened. It will use its tail to express anything from annoyance to affection. “A study in 2007 found that the lines of descent of all house cats probably run through as few as five self-domesticating African Wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) circa 8000 BC, in the Near East. The earliest direct evidence of cat domestication is a kitten that was buried with its owner 9,500 years ago in Cyprus.”[2]

Cats exist in varied body sizes and types, fur lengths, with fur in a variety of colors and patterns. “Tortie”, for example, refers to a tortoise-like pattern in the animal’s fur color. The tortoiseshell pattern may be in any of several specific colors. The ‘pure’ form of this coloration features the colors black and dark red, in light and dark iterations.

As for the ‘cat fancy’, the simple idea of enjoying and keeping these animals has wrapped itself around one of the peculiarities of human nature. No sooner has a fancy to something taken root do those who crave an authority to support their strong feelings rally around those who purport to wield it. So long as the term ‘cat fancy’ is in lower case letters, I can timidly raise my hand as being among those included. I wouldn’t be writing a memorial devoted to a departed feline if I did not, at a fundamental level, appreciate cats. When speaking of the Cat Fancy in capital letters, the term refers to a number of eponymous organizations around the world, including a monthly magazine. These groups, and those like them, represent the arbiters of taste in matters feline. Despite the famous Latin injunction warning against disputing such matters, when it comes down to classifying and setting standards for the evaluation and judgment of cats, human controversy arches its back and hisses.

The various controversies include one that swirls around my prima vista take on Amethyst the cat: that she might not be rightly called a “Siamese.” Simply put: the Cat Fanciers Association  (CFA) in America recognizes only four point colors as Siamese. The CFA calls anything but a seal, blue, chocolate or lilac pointed cat a “Colorpoint Shorthair.” Other cat organizations are willing to include them with the Siamese breed. Turning to a book published in the United Kingdom that has been in my library for thirty years[3], I read a crystal clear discourse on the issue that, summarized, goes as follows: When a Siamese cat mates with a non-Siamese, the results are often a black cat. Every now and then, a kitten is born of such an unholy union with the colors of its non-Siamese parent deployed as its point colors. (The point pattern in Siamese cats manifests as the coloration of the ears, face, and paws.) Such a cat is genetically a mix. If this cat reproduces with another of its kind, there is only a small chance that it will reproduce the accident that produced its point colors. To raise the chances that it will do so, one must breed it with a “seal-pointed Siamese of outstanding quality. Where good tabby pointed kittens resulted from such unions they, in turn, were to be bred back to pure Siamese.” [4]  After ten such crosses, the genetic makeup of the resulting animals would be 99.9% pure Siamese.[5]  This is apparently pure enough for the United Kingdom’s Governing Council of the Cat Fancy, which recognizes the Tabby-Pointed Siamese as breed 32. The GCCF classifies the Tortie-Pointed Siamese as 32c. Amethyst, we can slip you in over the border.

This is not the end of the aesthetic tongue clucking, however. There is a kink in the tail. The face is not wedge shaped, as specified in the standard, either side of the Pond. The legs are not slim and tapered. The cat that Amethyst was is not pictured in the brochure for any modern cat show. She was what breeders call a “traditional”, or “applehead” Siamese. What is this tradition? What is known about the origins of this breed? A superficial examination of the numerous web sites that opine about the history of the pointed cat of Siam suggests that the record is a bit sketchy. All sites report the following tidbits: There is an illustrated book of poems about cats, written in what is now Thailand in the 14^th Century, called the “Tamra Maew.”  The traditional seal-point cat is among those featured in the work. A breeding pair of cats was imported into England by the British Counsel-General, Edward Blencowe Gould, in 1884, who gave the pair to his sister. She founded a Siamese cat club. In the United States, President Rutherford B. Hayes had received a cat, “Siam”, from the American Consul in Bangkok, in 1878. The cats made a huge impression with the fanciers and the general public. The pointed cats seen in historical photographs are clearly traditional-style seal points, with rounded heads and robust bodies. Some of the photos show a cat of a nearly solid color, with very subtle pointing. The early imported cats also had the kinked tail, as do many contemporary Asian specimens. There is a nearly parallel story of pointed cats being imported with a more wedge-shaped face and slender appendages. This suggests that the two strains of the breed have existed side-by-side going back into the past. In any event, the wedge shaped cats began to be favored by fanciers in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Selective breeding has exaggerated their features, and eliminated the kink in the tail. The extreme modern forms currently dominate the cat shows. One gets the impression from the sites of the applehead breeders that they are still popular with the more relaxed facet of the public. As the capital letters fall away, the cat fancy leans towards the less fancy. It certainly seems to be the consensus that the traditional Siamese cat is of the same breed as the cats that have been mousing in Asia for millennia. Amethyst, we’re going to grandfather you in. Let Shelley’s original estimation stand: you were a Tortie-Point Applehead Siamese Cat, breed 32c. “An expensive cat.” The beautiful animal staring back at me from memory did not care about any of this.

---

[1] Wikipedia, “Cat”, December 17, 2009.

[2] Op. Cit.

[3] Pet Library’s Complete Cat, Grace Pond, 1968, Pet Library Inc.

[4] Op. Cit., page 161.

[5] The writer is cited by Ms. Pond as Dr. Ivor Raleigh, writing in 1965.

How I Ended Up With Amethyst in the First Place

Amethyst, performing her opera, 7-2002

In the summer of 2002, I was busy preparing to travel from one end of the United States to the other by car. I was going to drive west, visiting old friends along the way. On this leg of the summer’s journey, I would end up in Oregon. I followed the route of the transcontinental railroad back, stopping in Utah at the Golden Spike National Historical Site. After a brief stop back in Champaign, I was scheduled to accompany dance classes at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston Maine. At the end of all of this unprecedented traveling, I had heard from Shelley that she needed me to keep Amethyst at my apartment for a few weeks. She had a house guest that would be visiting from Sweden, and he was highly allergic to cats. I was more than happy to oblige, with the understanding that there would be an exit strategy to this arrangement. So there I was, lounging around, reading about the places and history that I had just traversed, when I got a visit from Shelley and Amethyst. Amethyst came with her two stainless steel dog dishes, a hooded litter box, a bag of cat litter, a seven-pound bag of Little Friskies, and 25 pounds of the cheapest cat food that money could buy. I was warned not to change her food, or to do so gradually. She had a sensitive stomach. The downstairs door closed on Shelley, on the way to her vehicle, who waved buh-bye with a pair of fingers. I climbed the stairs to an apartment that was no longer solely mine. Ammy spent about fifteen minutes exploring the place. She knew where the food bowls were. She had sniffed the box. For a few brief minutes it seemed as though she were going to let this ‘naked aggression’ stand unchallenged. I sat down on the broken couch with no legs. It was hot. The window was open. Not much of a breeze. I made the ticking noise to attract the cat, but no cat appeared. I picked up my book.

I had not read more than one sentence when, from the other room, the one with the door to the hallway that led to the stairs and the outside world, came a full-throated feline yowl, and then another. And another. Etcetera. OK. Put down the book and have a look. Sitting on the little piece of carpet by the front door to our apartment, Amethyst the cat was on her haunches, almost all of her weight on her hind legs, staring at the closed door. Yelling. At the “top of her lungs.” This was not at all unexpected, of course. What took me by surprise was the voice itself. I had owned cats that had spoken up about their miseries before, but this was in an entirely different register. Even cats I had experienced “in heat” did not have this sort of operatic focus of pitch and tonal control. Welcome to the world of the “meezer.” In retrospect, and in view of the controversies noted above, there was nothing about this performance that suggested that Amethyst was anything but a purebred Siamese. Amethyst knew where the way back out was, and she never lost track of that information. She eventually died, with her eyes wide open, staring in the direction of the door to her world. She always expressed herself well, and in such a way that there was no mistaking her intentions. She would repeat the message as long as it took to get the point across, or until her desires were met, or until she became tired, bored, or distracted. She carried on in front of the front door of our apartment for most of three days, pausing only to eat, drink and use the cat box. In the end, she was not overtaken by boredom, fatigue, or distraction. She was overtaken by laryngitis.

In the relative silence that followed, there were two favorite cat related entertainments that had to be explored. Fundamental to the exchange between ‘beast and man’ is the matter of feeding. It is a truism that companion animals give us unconditional love. Like many truisms, this one is false. They are affectionate in exchange for reasonable treatment and regular food and water. I have noticed that the more palatable the food, the less conditional the love. I set out to find out what this cat actually liked to eat. I started with commercial cat food. I went to the grocery and came back with a few cans of Fancy Feast, white fish flavor. I put some of this on a plate. Ammy wouldn’t do more than sniff and taste this stuff. Instead, she wanted whatever it was I was having. When I was in the kitchen “crinkling packages”, she was at my feet looking up with full attention. Swiss cheese was the absolute favorite with her, but she’d also eat a tomato. If the bread were buttered, she’d eat both the bread and the butter. In a few days, she learned the ways to get up onto the counter in the kitchen. She walked the counter trying to get the first crack at any of the following: cereal with milk, spaghetti, bologna, ham, hamburger, salad dressing and anything soaked in same, and any sort of tuna, whether salad or casserole. She would not pass up an opportunity to lick a bowl of mushroom or tomato soup. She never stopped perking up to the sound of a crinkling package. I worked my way through the varieties of Fancy Feast products. The winner was “Savory Salmon.” She loved that stuff from the moment she tried it in the summer of 2002, until the week that she finally expired. She loved that, and of course, the concept of “human food”, especially yogurt. But I’m not a big fan of yogurt.

The second thing one can do with any cat worth its salt is play with strings, toys on strings, and toys that move. Amethyst, according to Shelley, had been ignored for most of her life. Perhaps because of that, she was willing to play full out, like a kitten. She would kill whatever it was that was on the end of the string until it was nothing but a shredded remnant. She would twist on her back and swat at the air trying to catch the dangled shoelace. She chased, at full feline tilt, whatever ball was rolled across the floor. Wherever the object went, she was hard on its heels. This was to be our central entertainment for the two weeks of her visit. She was in and out and over all of the junk furniture that I, in my lengthening bachelorhood, enjoyed. She picked one sorry green chair to use as a scratching post. She turned it from tattered to shreds in a short time. She was, as near as we can guess, 15-17 years old.

In between bouts of playing, she was a queen in repose. She might have been a bit disheveled when Shelley delivered her, but after a week of Savory Salmon, tuna and Swiss cheese, she was developing a silky sheen. She liked to lounge with her feet in the air. Her tortie point colors were stunning, really. Her eyes were a clear, deep blue. She purred like a locomotive, and she purred readily.  In the sunlight that streamed in from the window, she took on the purple hue (from the dark red mingled with the tan in her colors) that had led to her name. The bonding between us was already under way.

Amethyst, after two weeks at my place. Gettin' to like it.

Then, as fate would have it, about the right time to start bugging Shelley about taking her back, Amethyst ran low on Friskies. I tried switching her, more or less gradually, to the cheap food, but she puked it up. In fact, she went on a regular puking bender. She became listless. I called Shelley, who gave me the name of the clinic that had been seeing Amethyst since her youth. I set up an appointment with the kindly Dr. Neitzel. On July 25, 2002, I carried Amethyst down to my Honda Civic Hatchback, and we drove to the vet. She had been listless, but in the car, she yowled. She stood on her hind legs and looked out the windows. She paced back and forth. She was shedding heavily, so that it seemed as though clouds of fur were blowing around in the hot car. The windows were almost completely up, preventing any sort of escape attempt. It was not that long a ride, really. In the waiting room, Amethyst was checked in. She got a good looking over by the DVM. He found nothing overtly wrong, but thought she might be feeling her age. He remarked that she had an extraordinary amount of tartar buildup on her teeth. He gave her a cortisone shot and sent us home. I paid my first vet bill in many years, about $50. Amethyst was the same going as she had been coming. She stood, she paced, she yelled. It did not immediately emerge from this outing that she was a good traveler. Back in the apartment, she went right back to lethargy. Three or four days passed and her condition seemed only to worsen. I called the vet and made a follow-up. This time, Nietzel found the trouble: she had a pronounced abscess behind her left shoulder blade. He would have to sedate her, shave her shoulder and clean the wound. He warned me that these senior citizens sometimes did not do well with anesthetic. He also said that action must be taken, since blood poisoning was surely the next phase. He would need to keep her over night. “Had she been out and in a fight?” No, but she had been chasing a ball under some rickety old furniture.

The next day, I picked her up and paid the second, much more substantial bill. Amethyst was very ready to get home. She came with some instructions, some oral antibiotics in solution with an eyedropper, and a topical antibiotic wash. I looked under the chairs and found the culprit: a loose upholstery nail jutting out from the fabric where it bunched up beneath the furniture, just perfect for wounding a fast moving cat in the heat of play. I sat back on the offending chair. I looked over at the snoozing cat, now sporting a shaved patch on her shoulder. It would be at least a week of daily regimen to heal the wound. There was no way I could press the case that Amethyst’s owner should now take her back. The environment at Shelley’s was, in my opinion, too chaotic. No one would attend to the convalescent. It began to sink in, gradually, inexorably, that I was now the owner of an ancient Siamese.

Up Close and Personal 2002

The Outside World

Am's World

 Amethyst most certainly did bounce back from this ordeal. She became a favorite subject of my casual photography. I got her on videotape playing the game with the string. She had already gotten bored with the ball chasing. I took her places other than the vet in the car. She had been an indoor/outdoor cat all of her life. Now, deprived of unsupervised access to the outside world, I felt that I owed her some entertainment along this line. We went to remote places where she could stroll and not get away. She never bolted. She loved to stand and work her nose in the breeze. My attention span on these outings was more limited than hers. I would invariably pick her up and bring her home before she was ready to pack it in.

The work year started back up in the fall, and I had less time to roam. I kept up the outside world entertainment by taking Amethyst down to sidewalk and letting her walk and sniff. There was also, by my building, on a side street with less traffic, a little grassy lot. The lot featured at this time a pile of abandoned cars. The cars were literally in a pile, shoved close to each other, and on top of one another. On one occasion, Amethyst tired of eating the grass (which she always later puked), and went off in the direction of the cars. A fence enclosed the cars. She found the fence easily permeable.  I did not. I found myself looking on as Amethyst squeezed under the fence, jumped up onto the hood of a rusty sedan, and from that perch, leaped to the hood of a van missing all of its windows. I wasn’t sure exactly what she was after, but I was already looking for a way to climb the fence myself. When I next got Amethyst in sight, she was on the roof of the van, trotting briskly towards the back of the vehicle. I realized now that there was no glass in the van’s many rear windows. No sooner had I had this thought than I watched my “senior citizen” do a very spry thing. Amethyst did a sort of a flip off the back of the roof, really a matter of stretching to get a footing from the roof to the lower part of the windowsill.  Then, in continuous motion and letting gravity do most of the work, she found the next foothold, which was inside the van. Vanished. I could not figure out how she was going to reverse this action. I knew that if she finally wanted to get back out, she probably could do it somehow. I knew that I had other things to do that afternoon, and waiting for Amethyst to emerge again was not on the agenda. I did not immediately see how I was going to get over the pile myself and get into the van.  I immediately set to frantic work doing just that, cursing my foolishness as a pet handler all the while. What made me think this cat was going to do what I expected every time I gave her even limited access the outside world and all of its opportunity for sin and adventure? Clearly, I had now been disabused of this idyllic notion. My concept of limits was strictly from my anthropoid point of view. Her view offered a wider range of possible moves. Now I had seen one of these moves. Incredible. Damn!

After some sweating, climbing, and yanking on rusted metal, I got access to the inside of the van. There was Amethyst, upside down, looking at me, but in the middle of having a nap on a warm, filthy cloth seat. I quickly scooped her up, and working carefully so that there would be no vet or doctor bills, got out of the van, back down to the ground, and back over the fence with her. She moved one notch closer to being a sequestered indoor cat.

The interior of my apartment building featured an adjoining warehouse space. It was only one door beyond mine. The fuse box for my apartment was contained in there, and so, with a screwdriver, I could gain access. (Amethyst and I had similar proclivities, come to think of it.) On one occasion when both the door to the warehouse and the door to our apartment were open, Amethyst naturally discovered the warehouse. This was a sort of feline paradise. It, after all, might contain an exit to the outside world. That had been the lay of the land at Shelley’s. No matter how many doors were closed or opened, there was always a way in and out. The warehouse did not have an exit, so far as I knew. (There was an elevator and shaft, but I really deemed that too much for even this Houdini cat.) In any case, the space was still paradise for Ammy. Birds had died in there. There might have been rodents. Not those boring rodents that had been vanquished at Shelley’s and then negotiated with when they reemerged, but real rat sized worthies. Even if this drool inducing prospect were proved false, there were so many nooks and crannies to explore that the cat imagination went wild.  Or so it seemed. It again took me awhile to locate the cat in this gloom. When she had been once again secured behind closed doors, she now knew about this world so near and yet so far. If permitted into the hallway, for many years after this experience, she would pace and sing a song of desire. It was the same song, repeated over and over. It sailed forth on a rising series of yells and the iterations concluded with a breathy snort. I recorded this song while trying out a new mini-disc recorder. It is among the best mementos of Amethyst that I possess.

As the cool weather settled in, some of my routines had to be adjusted to accommodate the cat. I liked to heat only a few rooms by keeping doors closed. Amethyst liked to roam from room to room. I put up blankets, weighted at the bottom so that they would fall to the floor when disturbed, and left the doors open. Amethyst loved the radiator-style electric heaters. She would jam her head between the fins and cook her brain. She also began joining me in my bed, becoming much more affectionate, wanting the warmth of another mammal. She had a different sleeping rhythm than I did. She would sleep close to my head, and when she felt it was time to be up and crinkling packages, she’d wap my head gently with a paw. I took to calling her the ‘four-legged alarm clock’.

So it went until Christmas time. I had, surely, spoken to Shelley off and on about taking Amethyst back. She now replied to these requests by saying that “the missing cat signs were up again”, expressing the idea that some Satanic Cult in Urbana was killing household pets for ‘worship’.  Her permeable place was no place for “an old lady cat still with the grace of fire.” Now I wanted to travel home to DC for a week over the holidays, and I wanted Shelley to at least watch Amethyst for the duration. There was a new impediment: Shelley had gotten another, younger, cat. Mice overran her place. She needed a mouser. I insisted, and I got my reprieve. I returned Amethyst to Shelley, with bowls, litter box and food. The understanding was that I would take Amethyst back when I returned. (Did I think that I would get away with simply ignoring this deal, as Shelley had done with me? I might have thought so on one level, but on another, I had already become attached to Amethyst. I took my trip. When I returned, Shelley reported that she had had a fright, because Amethyst had disappeared. The kids had been asking how long that cat was going to stay, because she made ‘that noise’ all the time. It kept them awake at night. Amethyst had been found. She had escaped the territory of the new, aggressive, interloping cat and taken up residence in the unheated garage. It was not hard to see this turn of events in the paw prints that cluttered the snowy ground between the garage and the house. My recollection is that I said to Shelley, “it’s your cat, it’s time you took her back.” I can’t remember when this conversation took place. The response I got was, “then I will have her euthanized.” Whenever these words were actually exchanged between us, or whether I have concatenated several conversations, it eventually was clear that the roof over her original homestead was no longer Amethyst’s to enjoy. Not even for a visit. When I went to Shelley’s to bring her back to my apartment, I found her asleep on a second floor bed. She was comfortable there. She did not even look up at me when I entered the room. I don’t have a clear memory of bringing her back in the car with her box, bowls, and food.

11-21-02 (video still)

Regrets in Advance

5-23-03 Ever the Sun Seeker

As time passed, and Amethyst aged, I became used to the lingering wish that I had never said yes to taking her for the original two weeks. As the weeks became years, I absolutely did miss the ability to travel freely. I did not find her upkeep onerous, generally, but I knew I was becoming steadily more attached to her company. I nursed her through several illnesses. I occasionally paid some hefty vet bills, and I was always questioning the level of veterinary care she got. I said, from time to time, that she had lived a long life, and that she was on the Christian Science health plan. This was not born out by my actions. I could have exercised more alacrity in preventive maintenance. (That would have been true of my own attitude towards my own health care at that time.) I was mindful, with each year that passed, with each crisis that was survived, that I had taken over the care of a life that was finite. I was not looking forward to the endgame. In that fear, I was absolutely justified. I don’t think I would ever do what my friend Shelley had done. I consider it unethical to trick someone into taking an animal, whether or not they are amenable to the trickery. She has said that it was an act of love. If this is love, and it serves as a justification for reallocating a companion animal, it needs to be examined by a lawyer (or a shrink) for loopholes. Love is another one of those human experiences that results in attachment. It ends in either death or a certain amount of grief. To collapse the experience into a syllogism, to give someone an animal is to foment an attachment. Attachments, to the extent that they deepen, lead to that level of grief. I was not looking forward to the gift of grief. When it came, it felt like - and still feels, some nine months after the fact, like the same bruising experience that love (including the loving of Shelley) has been. Pet ownership might add years to one’s life. The loss of a companion, by the abrasive emotion of grief, takes those years back. Do the arithmetic, but let the story continue. Let the claws of attachment, relaxed for a moment where I paused in the winter of 2002 sink in deeper.

For me, 2003 dawned clear with conviction. It was lovely to be sleeping with Amethyst, but the nine-pound cat did not generate human warmth. She was not my species. As the year progressed, I developed the idea that I needed to be ‘more proactive’ about finding a human companion. It was not that I was setting out to find a wife. I had the idea that an intimate friendship would be good. I was not getting any younger. I had attempted to write some new pages for Shelley’s script, but she had torn them right back out again. None who observed this action were surprised in the least by this outcome. I had ended up with Amethyst as a significant consolation prize. I had also exhausted the very limited options in the circle of my colleagues and their acquaintances. I had a good email correspondence going with the sister of a colleague. She sent me books to read from her perch as a publisher’s reader in Connecticut. As winter gave way to spring, I signed up for Match dot com.

Meanwhile, Amethyst had by now completely settled in. She talked a lot, but in civilized tones. She did make the Siamese call - a loud yowl, which my powers of language are insufficient to describe, other than to say it sounded like she was being killed the hard way - after either eating or using the litter box. She always insisted on eating some of what I ate. I gradually started her on significantly better, geriatric-appropriate cat food. She continued to play, but also in a more age-appropriate manner. She quickly learned how to get me to do most of the work. She was the subject of a significant number of photographs. She charmed every visitor to my apartment. She continued to take short trips in my car to destinations where she could be outside on a carefully supervised ‘nature walk’. She sat in my lap while I wrote. She slept most of the day, sometimes with her legs up in the air, paws folded down towards her body. I called this pose the ‘pineapple upside down cat’.

6-30-07 Pineapple Upside Down Cat