From the
beginning, I should have known he was going to be a bad cat. I had taken a
neighbor’s cat to the vet, and the vet had asked me if I wanted a kitten. I had
said no, but the vet had urged me to
see the kitten before rejecting it. Before I could resist, the vet had brought
me a cardboard box with a reddish orange kitten in the bottom. Active and
alert, the kitten stumbled around the box, his tiny tail pointing up like an
aloe leaf. When his eyes met mine, I knew I could not refuse the new member of
my life.
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| My Snapshot of Ramesses Seeing Himself in a Mirror |
So Ramesses
came home with me. Whatever plans I had made for the rest of the day I
abandoned while I made trips to the nearby pet store to obtain everything I
needed for the care and feeding of a cat. Ramesses played and played, never
growing tired. Eventually, I had to go to sleep, or else I would be groggy at
work the next morning.
The day
dawned, and I called for Ramesses. He didn’t come. “He doesn’t know his name
yet,” I realized. After showering and dressing for the office, I took the garbage
bag from the kitchen, dumped it in the can outside, and hauled the can to the
street for the garbage man. Still no sign of Ramesses! I began to worry and I
searched the house. I looked under furniture and explored dark corners with a
flashlight. Meanwhile, I heard the rumbling of the garbage truck outdoors.
In a flash
of horror, I thought, “He crawled inside the garbage bag!” I ran toward the
street, but the truck had already left. I jumped in my car and chased the
truck, finally catching up with it at the top of my subdivision. The driver
must have thought I was deranged. With tears wobbling in my eyes, I blurted out
that my new kitten must have been hiding in my garbage bag. The garbage man
assumed his gentlest manner and said that a kitten could not have survived the
crushing motion of the truck’s mechanism.
I felt
crushed, too. As I drove back to my house to get my briefcase, tears dripped
from my chin. I retrieved my briefcase from the room across the hall from my
bedroom, and I stepped into the bedroom to make sure I had turned off the
light. As I switched off the lamp beside the bed, I thought I saw something. It
was between the nightstand and the wall and was sticking out from under the
nightstand. It was the tip of a tiny orange tail.
Somehow,
Ramesses had wedged between the nightstand and the wall and had found a small
cavity beneath the nightstand that he could access only from the back. When I
jerked away the nightstand, there he was, sound asleep!
I was
overjoyed … and mad! I picked him up, and he purred. In the night, he had
wanted to be near me and had found his secure hideaway next to my bed. He was
obviously proud of himself. “You gave me a bad scare!” I repeated as I took him
downstairs, put him in the kitchen where his food and litter box were located,
and closed the doors to the kitchen. I was not going to go looking for him when
I got home from work!
Right then
and there, I should have known he was going to be a bad cat. I let him have the
run of the house. One day I returned home to find that Ramesses had invented a
game. He clawed his way up the rattan wallpaper in the living room until he
reached the ceiling. From there, he jumped to the floor. He ran back to the
wall and clawed his way up again. While I was away, he had scratched a channel
up the wallpaper. The frayed rattan fibers were hanging like fringe from floor
to ceiling.
One of
Ramesses’ favorite games was smash.
Around two or three in the morning, a crash somewhere on the first floor of my
house would knock me awake, and I would sit bolt upright in bed with every
nerve straining to hear the burglar’s footsteps. Heart thumping, I would grab
my flashlight and sneak downstairs to confront the trespasser. Then I would
find that I had left a drinking glass on the kitchen counter and that Ramesses
had found it irresistible. He had knocked it off, and it had smashed across the
tile floor. I soon learned to store all glass items behind cabinet doors, but,
every now and then, I would forget a glass or a bowl. That night, Ramesses
would play smash again. Once, before I could run across the room, he smashed a
tumbler, and I noted how he crouched at the edge of the kitchen counter to
watch in fascination as the sparkling shards shot in all directions. He was
like a kid at a fireworks display.
But you had
to love him! Whenever I took a bath, he begged to be lifted up and dropped into
the water, where he swam gleefully. I trained him to walk on a leash, and he
and I took many trips to a nature center where we hit the trails. He especially
liked the pier beside the goldfish pond. I had to hold him back, so that he
would not dive in! Visitors to the center were surprised to see a cat on a
leash, and I had numerous conversations with articulate citizens who felt
compelled to pet him.
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| My Photo of Ramesses Contemplating Buddha |
Ramesses
shared a seventeen-year chunk of my life and moved with me four times. I always
knew that, as independent and mischievous as he was, he would share the
tragedies I experienced. He seemed to know when times were bad and would
snuggle beside me in a chair or on a sofa. I always appreciated his support and
understanding.
There came
a time when the vet said my best choice was to put Ramesses to sleep. He was
old, and his kidneys were failing. I lifted Ramesses to my shoulder one last
time; I could feel him looking around, as he always did from such a high perch.
He was always curious about everything. He started to purr.
Ramesses
lies buried near the creek. I imagine him prowling beside the water and
watching for goldfish. I should have known he was going to be a loving cat, an
unforgettable cat, and the best cat of them all!
