Bob and Milo

I have had four cats in my lifetime. Molly was the first, and she was a gift from my then girlfriend Geraldine. Molly was a kitten when I got her, so she liked to sleep in my lap. I liked that, a “lap kitty.” Rodney was my second cat, and he took the place of Molly. Molly got hit by a car and died of cardio-thrombosis. The muscle around her heart hardened after she was hit. One of her claws was also torn out in the process. They set her claw, patched her up a best possible, and I watched her die over the next week or so. She couldn’t breathe, because her heart wasn’t pumping enough blood. That was painful to watch, her in distress sitting on my chair. A blood clot formed and moved through her arteries to her back leg. When I saw it go limp from under her, I knew the time was near. We had her euthanized at our neighborhood veterinarian. He was a nice, good-looking man with a curly black afro. He wore a biker’s jacket, and I think he drove a motorcycle. I cried a lot over Molly’s death. There was another cat living in his office among many they had saved. Rodney used to greet us from the lobby desk when we sent to see Molly. He was black and white and looked like a skunk. He too had been hit by a car as a kitten and his pelvis had been broken. He was slew-footed, so he walked or rather waddled around the room. He was a happy cat, but upon trying to get him home when we agreed to adopt him, out of fright he clawed the be-Jesus out of me. Rodney lived a long time, the latter part of his years as my parents cat, since I left Fayetteville to attend Ohio State. He lived over fifteen years in my parents home and died my parent’s upstairs bedroom of kidney failure. He was weak and couldn’t eat, but he wasn’t in pain. I suggested we let him die naturally, because the process with Molly and two of my dad’s other dogs was difficult. Baron had a tumorous bladder, and Maxine had heart worms. Both had to be put down, and Baron somehow became my responsibility. I took him to an emergency clinic while my parents attended a church dinner. I felt it fitting that my dad take care of Rodney’s death. He buried him out in the backyard. Bob was my third cat, and I acquired her from a set of twin kittens abandoned in a field beside a Suburban Lodge in Columbus, Ohio. I came home one night late after playing a gig. It was raining. As I tried to get into the lodge, I heard this quiet meowing. She was wet and miserable and looked like a drowned rat. The next day I bought food and fed what turned out to be almost identical twins everyday for a month and a half until I found a place to live. I named the twins Milo and Bob. Bob was the girl, and she was the less feral of the two. Milo was a madman and wouldn’t let you touch him. Bob on the other hand I enticed to crawl in my lap. I knew she would be the one I would take. I tried painstakingly for several months to ‘catch’ the two of them. I built traps out of cardboard boxes, string, and duct tape. The blustery March wind all but filibustered that process as my box trap was blown all over the parking lot. I drove up there everyday and fed the two kittens, even while I lived in another part of town. Finally I got smart enough and made a solid trap out of chicken wire. Upon entering it Milo freaked out and began hurtling himself against the sides of the cage. I had to let him go. It was sad, because I wanted to save both of them. I gently placed Bob in the car and covered the trap with a blanket. I drove extremely slowly on the interstate back to my townhouse, so she wouldn’t be upset. She meowed most of the way, but it wasn’t an alarming sound. I think instinctively she knew she was being saved. I carried the trap gingerly into the basement, put a plate of food and a bowl of water on the ground in front of her, turned off the light and left. After several days of boredom she reared her head at the door at the top of the steps. I let her in her own time find her way around and come to trust me. I didn’t force myself on her. She was still feral you see, and had been living in a field since her birth. That field was beautiful. It had a stream at the bottom of a gully and many pretty flowers. I don’t think the kittens were unhappy or lonely, because there was always activity in the parking lots adjacent to the field. Bob was also black and white. She only lived to be two years old, but I knew that would happen. Any kitten you rescue from the wild will never really become your lifelong pet. She was a chapter, a beautiful satisfying story of trust and love, that I saved from the wilderness. We had a bond, and Bob loved me. She often would sleep on my chest purring so loudly my neighbors could hear it. The only harsh moment we had, was when another cat, her first stranger, peeked into the picture window of my townhouse. She let out such an awful howl, I had to throw a shoe at her. She became afraid, but I think she knew I would never hurt her. I moved in with Melanie, and the house we had rented smelled like pets. I knew this would be hard for Bob, but this was my choice. I had a chance at a woman, so Bob would have to become second fiddle. I think she could have dealt with Melanie, but the smell of the other pets and move was too much for her. She disappeared for a few days, and we found her in the basement sitting on the couch with a piece of insulation stuck to her nose. She was almost comatose with fright. I did not realize she had a fever of almost 104. It was a holiday, and my veterinarian was closed. Help could not wait, so I had to take her to a strange place, another veterinarian at Mill Pond. I went in with a a live cat and came out with a dead one. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to feel, but I made the decision not to delay her euthanasia. She was in dire pain and never would recover. I did not want to watch her die, so I asked them to do it. That I think was a mistake, but there was no other choice. I was in a foreign place, Bob was dying, and I had to do something. I think it would have been okay had they simply just injected her in the neck without preparation. Instead they chose to shave her arm, which was a lengthy process and signaled to her there was something to come. I was not sure if she needed comfort or not, or if touching her would cause more pain. I did finally hold her, but it was a shallow effort. She died in a heap in my arms. I put her in the carrier I had brought her in alive, and drove her back to our home. Melanie was not home, so in emotional distress I buried her in the back yard in a plastic bag. After I came to my senses I decided I wanted Melanie to be able to say goodbye to her, so I dug her up. I took her out of the plastic bag, put her in a nice box with a towel lining, and found all of her play toy mice scattered widely in the house. I put them along with the remaining cans of her food in the box and waited for Melanie to come home. I made a nice cross out of broken branches in the yard and dug her a new grave nearer to the back door next to Mable’s grapevine. When Melanie arrived I explained to her that I had planned a respectful wake, let her look at Bob one last time, and placed her in the ground. Amongst a thousand tears I covered her up with dirt from the yard. That yard would be the yard in which Pedro would come to play.