Mellie-cat on a blue blanket
Mellie on a blue blanket

Last year, I wrote about the blossoming of the Mellie-cat, and closed with this line: “Sixteen years is not long enough to get to know a cat.”

It turns out that neither is seventeen and a half years.

Mellie passed away today after a brief illness. She is the last of my first set of cats, daughter of Erasmus and LaZorra, sister of Sophia. In the last year of her life, she trained Freddie how to cat; while she perhaps did not have the most apt of pupils, I know that he will miss her too.

She was the bravest cat I have ever known. She was not inclined to pounce on the world and take it in full; she was reserved and cautious… and yet she always showed up to observe, no matter how unfamiliar the strangers or unusual the circumstances.

Amelia is a grand name for a cat, but perhaps too grand for daily use. She was Mellie most days, but like many cats had accumulated a number of names and sobriquets throughout her life. The Clown Princess. Senior Member of the Treat Committee. Inspector of the Feets. Her mother’s special daughter. The softest and fluffiest.

And so another cat joins the realm of story.

It never gets any easier to mark that transition.

A cat who has decided to take up more space in the world.
A cat who has decided to take up more space in the world.

Sixteen years is long enough, surely, to get to know a cat.

Nope.

Amelia had always been her mother’s child. She had father and sister too, but LaZorra was the one Mellie always cuddled up to and followed around. Humans were of dubious purpose, save for our feet: from the scent we trod back home Mellie seemed to learn all she needed of the outside world.

Her father, Erasmus, left us several years ago; while Mellie’s sister mourned, I’m not sure Rasi’s absence made much of an impression on our clown princess — after all, LaZorra remained, to provide orders and guidance and a mattress.

Where Zorri went, Mellie followed — and thus a cat who had little use for humans slept on our bed anyway.

Recently, we lost both LaZorra and Sophia, and we were afraid: afraid that Amelia’s world would close in on her. We were afraid that she would become a lost cat, waiting alone for comfort that would never return.

The first couple days after LaZorra’s passing seemed to bear our fears out. Amelia kept to her routine and food, but was isolated. Then, some things became evident.

Our bed was, in fact, hers. Hers to stretch out in, space for my legs be damned.

Our feet turned out not to suffice; our hands were required too. For that matter, for the first time in her life, she started letting us brush her.

And she enjoyed it!

Then she decided that we needed correction — so she began vocalizing, loudly and often.

And now we have a cat anew: talkative and demanding of our time and attention, confident in our love.

Sixteen years is not long enough to get to know a cat.

The tragedy of keeping house with cats is that their lives are so short in comparison to our own.

On Friday, Marlene and I put Sophie to rest; today, LaZorra. Four years ago, we lost Erasmus; before that, Scheherazade and Jennyfur. At the moment, we have just one, Amelia. It was a relief that she got a clean bill of health on Saturday… but she is nonetheless sixteen years old. The inexorability of time weighs heavily on me today.

I have no belief that there is any continuation of thought or spirt or soul after the cessation of life; the only persistence I know of for our cats is in the realm of story. And it is not enough: I am not good enough with words to capture and pin down the moment of a cat sleeping and purring on my chest or how the limbs of our little feline family would knot and jumble together.

Words are not nothing, however, so I shall share some stories about the latest to depart.

2016-03-11 07.54.55

LaZorra was named after the white “Z” on her back, as if some bravo had decided to mark her before she entered this world. LaZorra was a cat of great brain, while her brother Erasmus was not. We would joke that LaZorra had claimed not only her brain cells, but those of her daughters Sophia and Amelia. (Who were also Erasmsus’ children; suffice it to say that I thought I had more time to spay LaZorra than was actually the case).

Although she was a young mother, LaZorra was a good one. Scheherazade was alive at the time and also proved to be a good auntie-cat.

Very early on, a pattern was set: Sophie would cuddle with her father Rasi; Mellie with her mother Zorrie. LaZorra would cuddle with me; as would Erasmus; per the transitive property, I ended up squished.

But really, it took only one cat to train me. For a while LaZorra had a toy that she would drag to me when she wanted me to play with her. I always did; morning, afternoon, evening, at 2 in the morning…

“NO!”

Well, that was Marlene reminding me that once I taught a cat that I could be trained to play with her at two a.m. that there would be no end of it—nor any rest for us—so I did not end up being perfectly accommodating.

But I came close. LaZorra knew that she was due love and affection; that her remit included unlimited interference with keyboards and screens. And in the end, assistance when she could no longer make even the slight jump to the kitchen chair.

Sophia

When we lost Erasmus to cancer, Marlene and I were afraid that Sophie would inevitably follow. For her, Rasi was her sun, moon, and stars. We had Erasmus euthanized at home so that the others would know that unlike the many trips for chemo, that this time he was not coming back. Nonetheless, Sophie would often sit at the door, waiting for her daddy to come back home.

She never stopped doing that until we moved.

It was by brush and comb, little by little as she camped out on the back of the couch, that I showed her that humans might just possibly be good for something (though not as a substitute for her daddy-cat). It is such a little thing, but I hold it as one of my personal accomplishments that I helped her look outward again.

Eventually those little scritches on the back of the couch became her expected due: we learned that we were to pay the Sophie-toll every time we passed by her.

Both LaZorra and Sophie were full of personality—and thus, they were often the subjects of my “Dear Cat” tweets. I’ll close with a few of them.

Butter to LaZorra was as mushrooms to hobbits:

At times, she was a little too clever for her own good:

Sophie was the only cat I’ve known to like popping bubblewrap:

Sophie apparently enjoyed the taste of cables:

LaZorra was the suitcase-inspector-in-chief:

And, of course, they could be counted on to help with computation:

They both departed this world with pieces of our hearts in their claws.