This is so hard to write.
I composed fragments and bits driving in the car, on the way home from the vet. There's something cathartic about driving for me, and I’m rambling, not touching the thing I came here to write about.
Today I’m writing about a feline. A smaller, dilute calico, green eyed spitfire who was present and loving to the end. Trying her best to live, to love, to be who she was at the core of herself.
Follow me over the void to hear her amazing story.
I’ll start at the beginning.
It was January of 1993, I was a freshman in college in Boston, a far cry from the tiny Kansas town I grew up in. Talk about culture shock! And in my own country. I felt a bit out of place in the city, hadn’t made a lot of friends yet, and missed the animals I grew up with.
At the time, I was dating a really mellow jazz pianist, and we were planning to live together. The network at my school had just started a "free stuff" email distribution list, and I’d signed up hoping for a chalk board, shelves, something practical.
One snowy afternoon, I was sitting in the student center computer cluster, and a note popped up on the list about a kitten. A kitten who had been found ouside of one of the main buildings on Massachusetts Avenue, cowering in the bushes. The writer couldn’t keep her, as he lived in a dorm. Would any one take her?
I’ll admit a few moments hesitation, then I sent an instant message (zephyr, back in the day on UNIX) to my boyfriend asking him about adopting the kitten. We were both a little trepid, but decided yes, so I wrote the guy. No one had claimed her yet, so we converged on Bexley Hall.
And there she was. A young teenybopper, scrawny, gawky, and full of energy. Her body was mostly white, with a few large spots, and her head and tail were mosly mottled orange/gray. We gathered the buck-a-box cat chow, cheap litterbox and cheaper litter, and I think some treats into our backpacks. As we were doing this, a strange guy showed up saying he was there to "pick up the kitten". He arrived minutes after us, and the dude who had found the kitten didn’t know who he was. It felt creepy, but somehow I knew that if we hadn’t gotten there first, she’d have gone to creepy guy. How little things change history in huge ways for us.
After creepy guy left, we discovered that there was no bin or box to carry the explosive kitten herself in. So I tucked her into my army surplus greatcoat and carried her home in my arms. Walking about a mile. In a blowing snowstorm. In Boston. Across the Harvard Bridge.
She did not struggle or try to get away. I didn’t have a scratch. Not until we got home. Then she exploded out of my coat, and we couldn’t touch her for two or three days.
She was utterly wild in the beginning. She’d claw and nip. There is a photo of her (only in hard copy, sadly), where she’s standing on my lap and I’m leaning back, holding my hands to my chest to not incite her. She’s clearly in control, very alive and aware.
Slowly, she warmed up to us. There is another photo I dearly wish I could share of my boyfriend curled up asleep on a loveseat, and she’s curled up in the little space in the center of his curl. But she’s not asleep. She’s very much awake, looking dangerously at the camera.
It was during this brief period, where I was living in an undergrad co-op and she was staying in my room, that she got her name. We were slow to name her, making lists, waiting for her to tell us what was right. I was flipping through a complete works of Shakespeare and found Thisbe. And that was right. So Thisbe she was.
The boyfriend and I moved in together shortly after that. It was an unbelievably crappy (read: cheap) apartment in Inmann Square, and she slept under the futon when it was hot and on it when she wanted warmth. She jumped from the floor to tops of doors and balanced there, sometimes descending via our bodies with her claws as brakes. We had a harness and leash for her, and would take her out in the patch of weeds and dirt behind the building while we barbequed on a cheap hibachi.
Living here was one of the only times she peed outside the box. Somehow she knew instinctively about the box, and was fastidious about it. I’d gotten some potting soil and the open bag had tipped over. She stuck her head in it, and instinctively squatted and peed. Afterwards, she was so embarrassed and consternated. We tried not to laugh, and cleaned it up without even thinking of punishing her.
After that summer, the boyfriend and I broke up. We moved into different co-ops, and he took her for a term. She was allowed to escape from a skylight and roam Boston rooftops. Something that was probably quite exciting for her, but scared the living daylights out of me. So, the next term I took her back. From then on she was mine and I was hers.
My mother came to visit, and Thisbe demonstrated how skilled she was as chasing pencils as they were being used to write. An issue I always had while trying to do problem sets.
Some time in here, she learned to sleep under the covers. I had just had some college disaster (boy? Class? Huge zit?), and needed her. I trapped her under the sheet with me, and we cuddled in a little sheet tent. It freaked her out at first, but then she fell asleep, and after that she loved to sleep part of the night under covers with me.
I traveled with her, taking her home every time I flew back to Kansas. She lived with me there for a summer, and even stayed with the dubious rebound guy after the jazz pianist.
Eventually I hooked up with the guy who would become my husband. Thisbe and I moved into a series of Boston apartments with him and his cat, a larger brown tabby. Thisbe didn’t care for the other cat much. It took her years to get to the point where they’d sleep together.
She had a penchant for curling up in spaces that were only just big enough for her, or perhaps a little smaller. In the Boston apartments, she liked to sleep in the sink. I also have a photo of her in a flower pot. Clearly, I was paying too much attention to the dirt and she needed to be part of the action.
She was with me through the really rough parts of college. The weeks at the end where I hardly slept and didn’t know if I’d graduate. I did, and we made it through that.
After graduation, the four of us (Thisbe, myself, my to-be-husband, his tabby) moved to Kansas. We packed all of our cheap college stuff into a U-Haul and drove from Boston to Topeka. We set up a litter box, food, and water in the front of the truck, and let the cats roam in the front of the truck with us. It worked surprisingly well. The tabby liked to sit on the passenger’s lap, and Thisbe took the depression in the dash in front of the passenger, surveying her domain and taking in the smells from the air circulator. This was a great position until it started to rain and the windshield wipers were turned on. Startle! She settled back in soon enough, but kept an eye on the wipers from then on.
Neither of the humans had found a job, so we moved in with my mother for a couple of months. That was a rough time. Thisbe was an unbelievable comfort to me then. She could make me smile, lent me her fur to cry in when I felt like a failure, loved me for exactly who I was, no judgments.
Eventually a job was found in Wichita, so we moved again. The cats stayed with my mother for about a month until we found a permanent place, and that was very hard. My mother said Thisbe sat at the door when I left, and stayed in the hall watching for my return until I got back. We were both so happy when we could live together again.
She was with me through Wichita when we had no money and were both really struggling. There were two apartments, one of which had a tornado jump over it while she was home and I was not. Coming home to that was terrifying. I didn’t care about the stuff, just the cats.
I was married at the end of the time in Wichita. She was there while we made all the invitations, all the plans. She stayed with my mother again for the honeymoon.
And then we moved to Texas. The husband had gotten a job, and they did the bulk of the moving, so this time Thisbe rode down in the car with us. I managed to slice open my left foot within a month of moving. Sixteen stitches I think? And I couldn’t walk for months. She was with me through those lean times.
After recovering, I got my dream job, working on the space program. She slept with me when I couldn’t sleep, worrying about how I’d do my job, how I’d get everything done and soothe all the egos. She always loved me, never judged me, never demanded, always just loved. Her fur has absorbed so many tears over the years.
And it absorbed a lot of them when I got sick, when the husband failed to be there for me, when I decided to leave him even though I wasn’t entirely well. I kicked him out, then got a new place, and she came with me. I don’t know how I would have survived that without her to come home to.
As a final end to that era of my life, I got a job in Seattle. I drove her (and the ex’s tabby) up to the pacific northwest. While I was living in temporary housing, I got appendicitis, and she was with me through that recovery, always the amazing nurse.
She was with me in the stupidly large place I rented outside of the city, a place that was incredibly lonely and cold. For a brief period, she stayed with my ex and his tabby. I was too destroyed and stressed to take care of myself, let alone her. But I missed her too much, and fighting to get her back was an integral part of my recovery.
I moved into the city, and it was just her and me again. It felt good, just her and me. We could do anything together.
She was starting to get older. Her kidneys got weak and I started giving her massive doses of potassium with each meal. Our vet was amazing; I’d have lost Thisbe three or four years ago if Faith wasn’t as skilled as she is. And Thisbe looked good, and she was still full of love, if a little more given to sleeping and less to tearing around.
I felt that she was lonely when I was at work all day. So I looked long and hard and got her a companion cat. One that would love her as much as I did and not terrorize her. And that sort of worked out.
I hesitate to mention Pete, since I’m not sure I can handle keeping him. Please don’t tell me to take comfort in him. That will be counterproductive. He was her cat, and that is that.
He came into the house and immediately decided to love her. And the way he decided to show this was to lick her on the head. The first time that happened, she totally freaked out. I’ve never seen a cat do the teenaged girl version of quivering, wiggling hands, and saying "ewwwwww! He licked me! Did you see that? EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" And he persevered. For a month he followed her around, trying to groom her forehead. At first she growled, swatted, ran away. But eventually he wore her down, convinced her he was harmless, and within three months they were sleeping on each other. It was amazing.
When I went to Egypt last year, I left her with a pet sitter. One who left my fourth floor balcony door open, and I found her after an 18-hour flight on the concrete below my apartment. Amazingly, she was mostly unhurt. Three of her previously perfect fangs were broken, a tendon in her back leg was ruptured, and she had to be in an oxygen cage for a day, but otherwise she was the amazing flying cat. Worse was the operation just afterwards to remove the wad of papertowels she’d eaten. The cat sitter had used them to wipe out the food cans and not secured the garbage. She also survived that operation, along with treatment for hypothyroidism.
When I got Pete, I stopped sleeping with the cats, since they’d squabble on me at night and wake me up. I regret this now. I shut them out of the bedroom, and I missed sleeping with her, and she with me.
But we were still together, still the pair, the duo, she was my girl Friday, my Rose (for all you Dr. Who folks).
Over the past month she’d really been slowing down, and it seemed like her joints were aching. She had trouble squatting low in the litter box, so would go over the edge. This upset her, and I was a little grumpy at first, though once I understood that she was uncomfortable I tried to clean it up immediately so she didn’t have to step in it or feel guilty or sad.
Over the last few weeks, she started eating less, which wasn’t totally abnormal as she didn’t like the potassium in her food and demanded food flavor changes every couple months or so. I figured that’s what it was, and was experimenting to keep her eating. Then in the last few days her breathing became labored.
I knew something was wrong on a gut level. I made an appointment, and last night I slept with her in a sleeping bag on the livingroom floor. It is where I sleep when I have guests, and she loves curling up on the rug with me. She pawed a bit to go inside the bag, but either she was too weak or it was too warm. She spent much of the night in the crook of my arm beside the sleeping bag.
This morning, I took Thisbe in to the vet. The vet found a mass in her abdomen, fluid in her chest, and an extremely elevated heartbeat. The fluid in her chest was pink and thick, high protein. The problem was very likely a fast progressing cancer, combined with heart failure. The vet drained Thisbe’s chest and put her in an oxygen cage.
I sat with her in the ICU, sometimes just there, other times with my hand on the clear plastic door, letting her know I was there and loved her. The noises of other cats where stressful to both of us, and I wanted so much to take her home, protect her. I knew it was the end, but I had hoped to take her home and hold her in a familiar environment when the end came.
My wonderful vet let me sit in the ICU while we were watched to see if her breathing improved enough, but instead Thisbe got worse. She started breathing through her mouth. She was gasping and a little scared, so this afternoon, at the vet’s office, I held her on my lap as she was euthanized.
She went gently, purring, in my arms. I told her over and over that I love her, thanked her for being such a wonderful cat. Told the vet about her lovely spots, the big orange one that I called "the great red spot, an unexplained feline phenomena that persists despite science’s efforts to discover its origin", about how if you connect the three major spots on her body, that you get a triangle, and in the middle of the triangle is a virtual spot that only has gray on the tips of the hair. It is a triangle that planes have flown into never to be seen again.
I held her body as the life went out of it. And I held it and kissed her until I knew she was really gone, some time after the heartbeat stopped. The vet gently took her, with so much respect and love, and touched Thisbe’s body, her spots, kissed her head once more before her body left me.
It was a surprisingly peaceful experience, the letting go. Not so easy now. I’m still in shock, and on the crest of a wave of grief, looking down on the process. Knowing that it will get better with time is both comforting and horrifying.
She has been with me through some of the strangest, maddest, best, worst, and wildest times in my life. And she taught me over and over the lessons of unconditional love, unswerving loyalty, and fierce independence. I would not be who I am today without the life and times I had with her.
I think it mostly feels better to not have made her suffer. To have been able to make the decision, rather than deciding on her fright and pain by not deciding. But there’s a small part of me that knows I made the decision to end the life of a being that was indescribably important to me, an integral part of my person. I do not wish to be reassured about this; I know it is as it is, and I am to it as I am.
And so she teaches me a final lesson in the end. Reminding me that not making a decision is, in fact, making a decision. And I feel somehow better (for some value of better) letting her pass peacefully than allowing her to smother while I waffle. So, a few unrelated things have suddenly come into focus, which can only be, I think, good.
I sound philosophical, but honestly, this is still so raw, and I’m in shock.
I’m writing this on the roof of my apartment building, letting some rare Seattle sun wash over me, letting it warm my heart. There are large pots on the roof, mostly filled with weeds. Some of them are flowering, and there is a part of this experience that makes these waxy yellow flowers stand out to me; little things are achingly beautiful. That is both lovely and cruel.
There’s part of me that still expects her to be there when I go downstairs, can’t really wrap my head around the fact that the being I’ve hardly been away from for the last 17 years won’t be there. That the life has really gone out of her body. That I’ll never again see her lovely green eyes, the soft pink pads, the fur that pokes out between them, the delicate vein that ran around the side of her ear. I’ll never scratch that special place that makes her foot flex and ears squinch up. I’ll never just feel the little furry loving body next to me on the couch.
And there’s the genuinely dark part, the part I’ll probably be face to face with once the sun goes down tonight. The part that tells me I wasn’t the best cat person for her. That replays every time I’ve pushed her aside for my own life, to do something else on my lap, to run off with a friend, to work, to leave her alone and lonely. The few weeks she spent alone in the bathroom while I put the house (and my life) back together after moving away from my ex. I couldn’t accept even her love, then, and that’s perhaps the worst of all. I feel the most guilt about the times I didn’t accept her love, because I suspect that was the most painful for her.
That, and a couple of nights ago she ventured into the bedroom. Something she knew she wasn’t supposed to do, just to be close to me. And I shoed her out. I should have taken her into the bed and slept with her like old times. My own life isn’t that important.
Yes, the guilt about not always accepting her love is worse than her not being here for me, I think. Because accepting love is really letting someone be part of something. It is saying, "I’ll take a chance and really listen to your most raw and exposed emotions." "I accept your need to love." And I was able to, some of the time. She always did for me. A few times she struggled and clawed, but mostly she cuddled and warmed up. Gave the comfort I needed when I asked for it.
Now the sun is starting to get low, and I need to go. I’m heading over to a friend’s for a while, be around other people. Then I’ll just take it as it comes.
Some time in the next week, Thisbe’s body will be cremated and her ashes will come back to me. Strangely I’ll love them just as much, I think.
Thanks to anyone who made it through all of this. For looking at her pictures. For maybe thinking a little bit about the loved ones in your lives. For smiling and maybe crying with me.
I’ll leave you with that last little thought, and it is a lovely one. I’m currently ditching my engineering career to go into the medical field. I owe all the skills and appreciation for nursing I have to Thisbe. She was always the best nurse, walking beside me through pain, grief, recovery, and happiness.
I loved her most of all.
Love and comfort to you all.