This isn’t another diary about the vote on war funding. It isn’t about which candidate I like best. It isn’t about abortion or women’s rights or anything all that important.
Except to me.
Yesterday my husband yanked me out of bed at an ungodly hour because we had to get to the vet fast. Our goin’ on 18 pseudo-Russian Blue (he is one, but no papers to prove it) had a seizure. The vet agreed. Nothing can be done. He’s just an old kitty, and such things happen to old kitties. He’d had one in December, and since they’re spaced so far apart, and he seems fine for now, we’ll just let him live out his days.
But I have been steeling myself against this for months. I have known the day is coming –and soon-when we’ll lose him. I’ve been saying goodbye every night, in case he’s not there when I wake. I’ve been mourning in advance.
He’s a small gray-blue cat with a silver sheen to his thick coat, with green gold eyes and the quirkiest personality. He never walks when he can run, and has a certain air of neatness and dandyism about him—an unholy cross between Felix Unger and Niles Crane. Or maybe the Scarlet Pimpernel in cat form. I fell in love with him as soon as he was placed in my hands, an 8 week old "patio kitten" at a pet store. Illya was my 40th birthday present, and we literally found him on my birthday. Inamed him after the cutest Russian I know—Illya Kuryakin, the other Man From U.N.C.L.E, and he’s lived up to the name—eccentric and a cool cat in every way.
He’s a well-traveled cat. He’s made the journey from Florida to Maine and back twice. He’s an international traveler, having flown to and from Japan. Traveling with cats is always interesting but lugging 4 cats through Norita Airport was an amazing feet. Every ten feet, children and old ladies would descend upon us, crying "Nekkochan" which is Japanese for "Kitty Babies" or "Kitty Dear". Illya was in cat heaven, deigning to allow them to stroke his sleek gray fur. In Chicago, where we changed planes, the Delta staff went wild over him and his three partners in crime. One woman said, "If I’d known there’d be kitties today, I’d have brought cat treats!" We left them in good hands.
He’s been slowing in the years since we got home in 2001. But he can still tear through the house like pirates through a treasure ship, and he still calls his girl friend, Morgana, when he can’t locate her. Since he does this at 3 a.m., it is not an entirely endearing trait. He was rotten to her when my husband brought her home, a skinny mostly black 4 month old kitten, and would stand between her and the litter box or food dish, glaring as intimidatingly as a 10 pound cat can manage.
He resented her for may months—he thought we were replacing his best pal, Lamis, my mini-Maine Coon, who was dying from a spinal problem that left her occasionally incontinent and semi-paralyzed. We had to put her to sleep two years ago. He loved Lamis with a passion. He would find her and cuddle with her, and talk to her and clean her, even when she was unable to keep herself completely clean. And to him, Morgana was usurping her place. His loneliness after we lost Lamis helped him to get past his negative feelings about Morgana, and now they are buddies. If he cannot find her, he wanders the house, calling "ARRRROOOOWWW" a the top of his lungs (small cats can be VERY loud). They chase each other through the house like an L.A. cop goin’ after a speeder.
If you didn’t know his age, you’d never guess it. But he is that old, and, one day soon, there’ll be an Illya-sized hole in my heart. See, that’s the trouble with loving animals: they don’t live as long as we do, and you have your heart broken every 10-20 years.
But I am glad I have had the chance to know this little gray hellion who could give Antonio Banderas’ Puss a run for his money when it comes to swashbuckling. As a kitten, he’d tear up the stairs, skid around the corner, and jump 4 feet to the little ledge at the landing. Every time he did this, my heart was in my mouth, but he never missed. He would take flying leaps and land 5 feet up the curtains. That first Christmas, this little kitten knocked over the tree three times. But the best Illya Story was when I brought home a 2 foot long stuffed white tiger. Illya was highly offended by the arrival of a new cat in his house—stuffed or not, he had to show it who was the Alpha. He got a running start down the long hallway, crossed the living room, leaped onto the bed, grabbed that tiger by the neck and shook it. Then he rolled over with it, and rabbit kicked at it. Then he proceeded to bite off half its whiskers. Siegfried the Tiger has never been the same since. And Illya may not be Top Cat—but don’t tell him.
Like I said, this diary isn’t about anything terribly important to anyone but me. But I wanted to share him with the pootie lovers here, before I have to write the diary where I DO finally have to bid farewell. He’s a good friend, and a truly remarkable feline.
But aren’t they all?
So here’s a toast to pooties everywhere: tabbies, jellicles, torties, calicos, blacks, grays, purebred and mixed, long-haired and short. Every single one is beautiful and amazing.
When the time comes, I’ll talk him intot he light, where he’ll run to a green field. He’ll see familiar faces there: my Mom, who adored him; Corwin, the large black cat who was half Maine coon and at least ¼ Siamese with a basso profundo meow; and his best pal, Lamis, who is Big now, instead of being a mini Maine coon and who has both eyes. They will chase butterflies together (the butterflies think it’s fun when you cut them in half; they say it tickles and they grow right back together, or so Lamis claims). They’ll take him over to Callahan’s Place where he’ll get lots of whipped cream to get on his whiskers, and quite a few science fiction writers who knew him will be there to pet him—old friends of mine and his. And maybe to the Phoenix Tavern, where a certain black familiar named Svartalf (out of Poul Anderson’s Operation Chaos) rules the roost.
He’ll leave behind two grieving human friends. We’ll miss our Person in Fur. But we’ll be grateful to have known him and shared his life. I just hope that day doesn’t come too soon.