Life After Death for a Cat

Every morning I wake up and say, “What do I want to write about today?”

Sometimes the answer is clear & direct, but most days I skitter from one idea to the next until I might land on something. That’s why my Mom and I write from prompts each morning in our writing group. Same reason my friend Bobbi and I use prompts too. Without them, we’d just sit around, talk, laugh, and drink lots of wine together. Nothing wrong with that, but a writing group without the writing…well, that’s an abomination.

Today, over my second cup of coffee, when I asked myself that question, my brain answered with a business article. But I don’t really want to write another business article. I hate when my brain jumps in and answers for my soul. It can be a real bully sometimes. So I went to the prompt my Mom posted this morning: Find a photograph taken shortly before your life turned. Describe what everyone in the photograph does not know yet.

This got my wheels turning, of course. I love a good rabbit hole. And after an hour of strolling down memory lane, thinking of significant life events, and then searching the corresponding year’s worth of photos in my cloud, I found five I could write about with joy and pleasure.

At least for today, I ruled out the heartbreaking move from the Washington island of my dreams to Montana, and the farewell to a friend the day before I nearly died from a pulmonary embolism. And I decided to hold off on the final breakup during a trip to Kauai. And I’ll wait on the stories of how life changed for my parents the minute I was born.

Today, I’m writing about my cat, Elle. That was short for her full name, Ellerina Beaverhausen, a black kitty, gifted to me for my birthday in September 2001. Two weeks after 9/11 and one day before I left Phoenix for a 7-day cruise. I was in love with her, and also pissed because my partner of the time would get that critical bonding time with her.

 

It didn’t end up mattering though. Cats choose their people, and Elle chose me. I dragged her with me everywhere I moved, which was a lot. I moved at least once every year, sometimes two or three times depending on relationships, finances, and whims. I thrive on change and moving is an adventure for me.

A typical cat, she ruled whatever roost she happened to be in and oscillated between warm & cuddly, and mean and bitchy. A few of my friends still have scars from her unprovoked attacks. Elle reached up and sliced Jennie’s foot open for the fun of it as she changed a light bulb. She’s turned viscous on the hands of many others. And one male friend felt her wrath on his you-know-what after an unfortunately-timed flop under the sheets one morning. I’m sure she thought it was a critter. Now it’s a critter with a scar.

One of those many moves was to a small town ranch about an hour north of Denver, Colorado. The lovely couple we moved and lived with had six dogs, two horses, and a couple of inside cats (with lots of barn cats outside too).

Elle was Queen of all.

Whether they liked it or not, Elle was boss. She didn’t appear to be afraid of anything. When we first moved to the ranch, I had decided to turn her into an “indoor cat.” I failed to mention that to her and for the first 30 days, she just cried and cried all day, insistent to be set free to roam. Just like her father.

Like many times before this, I had to come to terms with the idea that although she may end up coyote-food, to her, life wasn’t worth living if she was imprisoned indoors. So I set her free. Inside, outside, whatever she wanted. And she quickly established dominance over all the land.

Barn cats knew their place. Fuck around and find out.

The dogs would sit at attention when she entered the house.

And the coyotes? Never saw ‘em again.

She ran a tight ship out there, and with an iron fist that animals feared, but at night, she was my cuddle-bug. That’s what I miss the most, and that’s why here we are eight years since she died in my arms, and I still miss her and cry at the memory of her.

She was always there for me through the hardest eighteen years of my life. These were the times when I was still figuring myself out, experimenting, failing, wasting. I was hurting others, and being hurt so much by others. To many I was joyful & carefree on the outside, but destroyed on the inside, and on the edge of oblivion.

And there was Elle, Ms. Beaverhausen. She knew when I needed her most. In my darkest hours she’d curl up on my chest and purr away the pain. I don’t know how she knew, but she did. She could be out gallivanting, hunting her prey all day, shucking-off human attention as cats often do, and if I was down & out, she’d be there.

No living being knew me as well as that cat. She knew things about me that I’ll likely never share, not even when I write. That’s what made the loss so hard, and the grief so deep. A piece of me died with her that night.

And yet…

I still feel her, and sometimes think I see her out of the corner of my eye, darting through the house and behind the furniture. I was so certain I saw her in our Washington house that I actually followed and went looking for her.

Another day, long after she had died, I leapt from my desk because I felt her rubbing against my legs, just like she used to do as I was building my business. But nothing was there. And just the other night, I swear I felt her land on the bed and curl up at my feet. She’s still here. Still taking care of me.

My partner asks all the time why I don’t get another cat. Because I already have one.