Little Kitty 1995 - 2009
Dec. 28th, 2009 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Little Kitty's real name was Shiyung. I'm not sure she knew that. I named her after one of the three sisters of the ruling Orsinate in Aestival Tide, which is Elizabeth Hand's sort of sequel to Winterlong. It's out of print, and it is fucked up.
Anyway, Little wasn't very good at being a cat. She played fetch when she was younger and liked to stand in the shower with me and never learned how to meow properly, making a sort of one syllable grunting noise that usually meant "I'm really enjoying biting this roll of duct tape/box of tampons/book."
I got her 14 years ago to the day. She and her sister-cat (who is not her sister), who had just had their shots and were sleepy and pissed. Little immediately became "the cat" while Pretty Kitty became "the other cat" mainly because Pretty hid all the time.
Some of you first met her at a New Year's party I had a few days later. If you were there, you'll remember that some drunk idiot tried to steal her.
Little was there for the aftermath of Greg, for Michael (whom she was excessively fond of and whose voice she still could recognize on the phone last time I spoke to him in her presence, years after she'd last seen him), and for all sorts of other crap too.
She was there when I was rich, when I was poor, when I had an abortion and when I worked in the sex industry. She was there for the dot.com bullshit, for dreams of Baz Luhrmann (when I went to Australia, my roommate would email to say "the cats think I have eaten you"), and for a stupid fire below our Avenue C apartment where she got drunk on the smoke and staggered around for a few hours after. "Don't worry," the firefighters said, "cats'll survive anything."
And she did. She always had weird medical problems the cause of which was never found. There was the uterine infection and the liver thing (prior to this liver thing just now). She puked a lot. She was messy. Her fur was so thick it turned into little clumps that I swear she should shoot off her body at people at will. She had such massive whiskers I always thought she looked like a sea-creature.
She adored Patty, and drove us crazy in the process, always worming her massive bulk between us on the couch, or trying to by standing on our ovaries first or something. Patty was amazing with her, and I'd laugh and laugh at grooming hilarity, when Patty would use the cat rake on her and the clouds of hair would spin around her like some sort of horrible cat-induced Wizard of Oz thing.
Whenever I was sick, you know, which is often, Little always tried to help by standing on my stomach; my celiac disease does not thank her. When I was sad or scared, I would nap with my head on Little's giant belly. She'd usually let me do it for twenty to thirty minutes at a time.
She was an awesome cat, even if she was stupid (and inventively so), grouchy and too fat to effectively clean herself. She owned every house she was ever in, and loved every person I ever had, just, it seems, on my say so. She was enthusiastic and smug.
She loved broccoli.
Like, a lot. I remember once letting her eat some when Kali was over, and I'll never understand how a cat managed to eat plain broccoli one minute and vomit up acres of cream sauce the next, but Megan was there too and we all saw it happen. It was the most disgusting thing ever and we were all laughing so hard.
Patty and I talk about how Little thunders across the plains of our apartment. Really. She galumphed, and sat on this scratcher we got her which we called her double-wide. If this cat had been human it would have loved Southern food and Elvis, which isn't all that much different from what she did as a cat.
Little could have told you my whole life story. What I look like in the mornings and all the people I ever pretended to be -- it's more than you know. She can't, and I'm sad, and I miss her, but man... dodged that bullet, yeah?
They loved her at the vet, and everyone was crying with me. They were rooting for her and thought she was hilarious.
This is about all I can do right now. I'm leaving comments on but am not having them emailed to me, because I'm not sure to what degree I can process your sympathy.
She was the best of beasties, and if kitty heaven lives up to cliches as advertised, she was so huge they may be having trouble keeping the thing airborne right now.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 05:18 am (UTC)My Benny and Joon are btother and sister - they are two chambers of my heart, and I have only had them since they were one week old in 2004 - someone brought them in to the vet, and I volunteered to foster them. And refused to ever let them go.
I have had other pets I have loved and lost, and all I can offer to you are some poems that helped ease my hurt when it was strongest.
"His Journey's Just Begun" by E. Brenneman
Don't think of him as gone away~
His journey's just begun.
Life holds so many facets~
This earth is only one.
Just think of him as resting
from the sorrows and the tears,
in a place of warmth and comfort
where there are no days and years.
Think how he must be wishing
that we could know today,
how nothing but our sadness
can really pass away.
And think of him as living
in the hearts of those he touched...
For nothing loved is ever lost~
and he was loved so much.
===
"What is Dying?" by Bishop Brent
A Ship sails and I stand watching
‘til she fades on the horizon,
and someone says, “She is gone”.
Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that’s all;
She’s just as large as when I saw her…
The diminished size and
total loss of sight is in me,
Not in her.
And just at that moment,
when someone says, “She is gone”,
There are others who are watching her coming
And their voices take up a glad shout,
“Here she comes!”
And that is dying.
========
You fought hard to stay alive, my friend.
In the end, though, you couldn’t conquer death.
But neither did death conquer you.
Death cures all diseases, mends all broken bones,
Breaks all chains
And made you free at last.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 06:06 am (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2009-12-29 06:06 am (UTC)She sounds like a fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.
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Date: 2009-12-29 06:44 am (UTC)Ekatarina
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Date: 2009-12-29 07:11 am (UTC)She sounds like one of the REALLY special ones ... what a loss ((hugs))
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Date: 2009-12-29 07:23 am (UTC)I’m so very sorry for your loss, but I’m also glad that you got to share so much love with her.
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Date: 2009-12-29 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 07:35 am (UTC)Little sat in my lap the night of the ill-fated Chinese food. We had a fairly good conversation and watched some TV together.
We, the cat owned. Bast keep and look after her, as we look after each other in her absence.
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Date: 2009-12-29 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 08:10 pm (UTC)Thank you for sharing her with us.
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Date: 2009-12-29 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 01:38 am (UTC)I avoided commenting on the earlier kitty posts because I didn't want to be a downer, but it sounded like the same out-of-nowhere liver thing that killed my Onyx last year.
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Date: 2009-12-30 01:40 am (UTC)I avoided commenting on the earlier posts, because it sounds like the same out-of-nowhere thing that killed my Onyx last year.
I'm sorry.
Date: 2009-12-30 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 08:51 am (UTC)