Cindy, my beloved little grey friend, was helped to the Rainbow Bridge, Monday, Feb. 26, 2008, after a lengthy battle with chronic renal failure. She went peacefully, and, as much as I miss her, I feel better knowing that her suffering is over. Her last day, Sunday, was spent sampling her various sunny spots around the house. She even gave herself a catnip fit with the old catnip-filled sock in the spare room. I sat with her much of the day and evening and we enjoyed each other’s company one last time.
Cindy took the title “Companion Animal” very seriously. She disliked being held and didn’t even seem to particularly enjoy being petted. However, she always wanted to be with me. One of her favorite spots for years was on top of my computer monitor, usually with a leg or tail artfully draped so as to cause me the most possible difficultly viewing the screen. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t allowed her to spend so much time on that old monitor; it may have been the source of many of her health problems, but that is water under the bridge.
Cindy did not seem to believe that humans could do much at all without direct supervision. Typical Cindy exchange: “Hi! Whatcha doin’? Can I help? I’d really, really like to help. Would it help if I sat right in the middle of it? If I can’t sit there, can I sit right here? I really, really want to help!”
She “helped” me eat breakfast almost every morning of her life. Her most important duty was helping me with the newspaper. She preferred to sit right in the middle of it but I would always try to suggest that she lie on the left-hand pages so I could turn the pages over her as I read. Sometimes, though, she would sit, just out of reach on the table, always with her back to me. Almost like a sentry. I never knew quite how to take this. . . . Was it an insult or was it trust?
She used to enjoy sitting in meatloaf pose -- with all her legs tucked in neatly -- on top of the refrigerator, above my head, where she could look down disapprovingly on all of the action. I always got the impression she was thinking, “If I had opposable thumbs, I would be running this place and I would do a much better job than you, too!”
Cindy was an almost frighteningly intelligent cat. When you looked into her beautiful green eyes, there was a wise old soul looking back. I always had the feeling that I’d have had a real problem on my hands if she did have opposable thumbs; that cat had figured out how things work!
I used to have a kitty fishing pole which would keep her sister, Bonnie, busy for 30 minutes at a time: cast the lure, reel in the kitty, cast the lure, reel in the kitty. (I always got bored long before Bonnie did.) Cindy, though, would spoil the game by charging across the room, biting the line in two and then running off with the lure! I got so tired of fixing it that I finally put the toy away.
The most amazing thing I ever saw her do was the morning when she threw herself down across the stairs when I was making my way down to feed them. I had to squeeze against the wall to get by her and I chided her as I went by. “Who’s going to feed you if I fall down the stairs and break my neck?” When I went back upstairs after finishing my chores, I saw immediately why she’d done what she did: someone had thrown up a hairball on the stairs and she did that so I wouldn’t step in it!
Many years ago, I had been to a class up in Boston and had left the cats in the care of a sitter who was normally quite reliable. It started to snow on the way home, and by the time I left the Mass Pike, it was bad enough that I could hardly tell where the road was. It took me about 6 hours to get home and I felt like kissing the ground when I finally had my car safely in the garage.
I unlocked the back door and Cindy was there immediately. Both of my cats are normally almost mute, but Cindy was far from mute that evening! “Hey you! “ she commanded. “Come here! You’ve GOT to see this. I don’t care if you need to pee like a horse! You come here NOW and look at this!” And she led me down into the basement where their litterbox was.
I have to admit that she had a point. It was a mess. The sitter must have missed a day, or something. So I chuckled to myself as I cleaned it out while being ordered around and cussed out by a tiny grey kitty. There was no questioning her meaning that night!
Cindy was a little clown who seemed to enjoy doing cute things to make me laugh – just as long as she was in on the joke. Once, though, she was sitting on the dining table while I was reading the paper and eating my cereal. (Doesn’t everyone let their cats sit on the dining table??) I finished my cereal and set my bowl to the side where Cindy promptly phromphed her tail into the leftover milk. I started laughing when I saw what had happened but was immediately stilled when I saw the hurt in her eyes. She picked up her tail and started licking it, very casually. I could see her expression change, though, when she found the milk on her tail. “Damn it!” her eyes said, and she jumped down to take a more private (and more thorough) bath in the kitchen.
Cindy’s sister, Bonnie, and I used to like to play “chase” games when she was younger. She loved to stalk and be stalked. One of Bonnie’s favorite hiding places was under the shower curtain on the bathtub upstairs. She’d get between the tub and the curtain, and of course, her big grey kitty butt would be hanging out for all to see. I’d come up behind her, give her a nudge with my toe, and she’d take a swipe at me. We’d continue the game until she took off running for the next bout of hide and seek.
Once night, I came upstairs and saw a kitty butt under the shower curtain. I assumed it was Bonnie and gave it a little nudge. To my surprise, a little grey critter came flying out from under the curtain, whirled around in the hall, and glared at me accusingly. “You kicked me! I can’t believe you kicked me!” It would have been quite funny except for the obvious hurt in her eyes.
Cindy seemed to have a theory that human toenails are removable and she always jumped at a chance to test her theory. The first time it happened, she was just a kitten and I was standing in the kitchen, barefoot, preparing their breakfast. I looked down to see Cindy sitting on my foot. Aw, isn’t that cute, I thought. And then the little scoundrel reached down and tried to pull the nail off my big toe! Yeouch! She never outgrew that quirk, either. I’ve always gone barefoot at my peril around here. It seemed particularly nefarious to be attacked by a little grey shadow in the bathroom at 2 AM, while sitting on the throne, sans slippers.
Although she became a lapcat as she aged, during her early years, she NEVER sat in my lap, and in bed, she would snuggle under the covers only as long as there was at least a sheet between her and her human. Back in 1999, I spent several months in a halo brace to heal a crushed vertebra in my neck. The night I finally came home in a hard collar, sans halo, Cindy crawled into my lap, curled up and went to sleep, purring up a storm. I’ve always been very touched by that.
I have read that animal behaviorists say that cats interpret our petting as they would caresses from their mother’s tongue. So, I’ve always found it touching that, when being petted, Cindy preferred to have my free hand where she could reach it with her tongue, so she could groom me, ever so gently, while I was “grooming” her. That was one of her most endearing quirks, yet it is also one of the saddest. She could never quite bring herself to simply accept all the gifts, freely given: the tokens of an astonishingly deep and loving bond which formed between two disparate creatures, sharing neither language nor species, but who came to know and love each other well. I will miss you, my little grey piece of fluff.
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