One upon a time early in the spring of 2014 in a cow barn on a farm in Minnesota a mama cat lay in her bed of straw. She was nursing a litter of kittens. As she looked at them she noticed that two of them looked almost identical. They were orange striped with white chests and white socks. One of them had prefect socks, the other had holes in the toes and one foot was missing the sock altogether. The little boy was shakily staggering around her nest mewing silent baby cat mews. She chirped to him to let him know he should turn around so he didn’t get hurt. His twin was nestled up to her side, snuggling into the warm fur of her belly. This one was a little girl. She was the one with the perfect socks, her brother had been too busy to get his socks on right and just threw on whatever when it was time to get dressed.
That girl and her nutty brother came to live at our house in July. One of them adopted Rosie, the other chose Rachel and I. We named them Tigger and Tweetie -after much debate and lists and a drawing and some arguing and changing the names back to what we wanted instead of what was drawn. 😂
Tigger is a typical male orange tabby. This means he is opinionated and talks about all his opinions from the moment he half wakes up until he falls asleep purring. Tweetie was the timid one. She hid behind the couches and under beds for 3 days after they arrived. Tigger became the butler who inspects the litter box for cleanliness and proper poop burying and Tweetie oversaw the food rations.
They both grew into giants. They both blew up like blimps after their surgeries to be fixed, but Tigger lost his weight after his incident in which he ate 23 hairbands, a foot of boot lace, many pieces of Christmas tree needles, a bunch of grass, and half a purple crayon. He threw that mess up on my bathroom floor one day and never got fat again -he stayed at a healthy 16 pounds. Tweetie maintained her 22 pound self for many years. They are very large frame cats, but even still. Twenty-two pounds is a little excessive 😆 -kinda like Tweetie herself. I always was afraid she was gonna die of kidney failure and diabetes.
Tweetie liked watching bird movies and always ran around behind the TV to see where the bird went after it went off the screen. She loved doing barrel rolls to have her belly rubbed. We called her the dog cat. She would put her head down and do a flop head over heels to end up on your feet. Her favorite people were the ones who didn’t like cats. If they sat in a chair she would hop up, introduce herself with a head bump and then tell them to pet her. Most of them ended up petting her at least once before shooting her away. But she was so soft they usually would secretly keep scratching her ears and neck while telling stories about how they don’t like cats.
When Revven was learning to talk he couldn’t pronounce Tigger and Tweetie so they became Gigger and GeeGee. (Those G’s are all hard G’s, so you say their names right.) GeeGee was also known as El Dumbass and Tubby. (I’ll let you decide who named her those two.) Sometimes Petunia if she was being fretful. Fatty if she was griping at nobody about nothing. Just plain Cat if she was annoying. Her middle name turned out to be Suzanne, but she very rarely ever had to be called all three of her names because she was a mostly good cat.
Two months after these two came, Radley left. I can’t even tell you how many times in these years since that I have been crying in the dark and I would feel a soft thump next to me. A soft head would come push on me and she would settle in purring. Many times GeeGee would sit on me and purr while Gigger would stand on my shoulders washing the tears off as they fell. Some days I’d get annoyed at them, they’re such good comforters that I couldn’t even have my good ugly cry for hours like I felt like. 😏 In the dark all I ever had to do was reach my hand out and one of them, usually GeeGee, was right there and would immediately come over and rub on me purring.
Did you know it’s scientifically proven that listening to a cat’s purr lowers your blood pressure? Did you know that when one of their friends is dying the whole clan will gather around them and all purr to beat the band? Purring helps heal their bodies. The purring of a cat lowers stress — petting a purring cat has a calming effect. It decreases the symptoms of dyspnoea (difficulty in breathing) in cats and humans. It also reduces the risk of heart disease. Cat owners have 40% less risk of having a heart attack. Guess I should be pretty good then. 🤣 The healing power of cat purrs is believed to help with infections, swelling and pain, muscle growth and repair, tendon repair and joint mobility.
I didn’t mean to go into a science lesson, but I do mean to tell you all the things GeeGee has done for me over the last eight years. A few weeks ago we realized she looked a lot skinnier. I figured the stair climbing we had her doing had gotten her the weight loss regime she needed for the last 5 years. But then she kept getting skinnier and started puking. And didn’t quit. She barely ate anything for 4 days. So we brought her to the vet where she stayed for 3 days. They called us to come get her, she looked a lot happier. But her liver enzymes were 3 times higher than they should be so they gave us prescription food and appetite motivator paste to feed her. We were to bring her back for a recheck in two weeks.
That was Thursday this week. Her liver enzyme number has gone up from 305 to 345 and she lost a full pound in that two weeks. She’s lost half her weight and now she’s only 11.20lbs. That’s a full cat! Boofys doesn’t even weigh 11lbs in her whole self. Henrietta MIGHT but I doubt it. So there we are. Liver failure. My dad died of liver failure caused by IV nutrition because it’s a rare side effect and he liked the rare stuff. I okayed IV nutrition for Radley against my nagging thoughts and when he died, his liver area was almost black on his belly and I should have never agreed to it. People tell me I made the best decision of what I knew at the time, but I didn’t. I said no but I was talked into changing my mind. And he’s dead because of it.
People think I’m not supposed to think such things, but guess what? I do. People want me to be a softer person. More pliable. More lenient. 🤣 Look where not going with my gut got me. Sitting on a bed chomping at the bit because pickles were more important than Radley, with him dead because another person talked me into the IV nutrition. He could have lasted the night without it, I asked them. But no. I gave in.
And now GeeGee is going out with that same ailment as those two. People will say she’s just a cat, but I have never had “Just a cat.” in all my almost 39 years. I’ve never had “Just a newborn.” either. Nor have I had “Just a miscarriage.” or “Just a stillborn.” People should really stop with the minimizing. Something is important to somebody. Nobody gives a shit if it’s important to you or not. It is to them and you better let it be. You ain’t them and you’ll never be, so don’t tell them to respond how you would.
As for me and my mess? We are gonna go hug a cat and listen to her purr and feed her steak and shrimp (not really, she hates shrimp) and take pictures, because no matter what anybody says to the contrary, pictures bring back the memories. And when pictures are all you have left? They’re priceless.
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