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| Jesse, in 2004 |
Well, here we are, poised at the beginning of a new year. It's been an interesting week. We got home from our great train adventure, going to Santa Fe via Amtrak--that's another story, with more pictures--on Thursday, December 29. We were just bone tired and although we actually unpacked and started the laundry, we spent a lot of time just snuggling up with all of the cats. The dogs were happy to be in a place where the floor doesn't move while they are trying to pee.
Okay, interrupting for some technical info. This is, once again, being typed one-handed while I have my other arm wrapped around a cat. Calleigh will tiptoe across the keyboard while simultaneously batting objects off the table so I tuck her in close and off the keyboard. If I stop kissing her, or rubbing my face on her head, she looks at me and cries and pushes the laptop away with her back feet. I guess that I just want to prove that I can still multitask.
Back to the story: Jesse, our 19 year old matriarch, was upstairs in the bedroom where we had set up private accommodations around Thanksgiving. She hadn't been eating well; she'd had a couple, scary, neurological-type episodes, so we brought her to the bedroom where her food could be out all day, she had a private litterbox nearby, she had her own bowl and a fountain for water, and she would have us at night. It was really lovely. At night, we'd put away her food so that the dogs wouldn't get it, and she would come up on the bed without stepping on either dog and proceed to take possession of one of the human's pillows. From this perfect position, she could wrap around the head of the human and reach down to grab a hand and place it in the right position to pet her. She's been doing this since she was a baby, and it's the sweetest thing. She was a very sick, nearly feral 3-month-old kitten when I adopted her. She would only let me pet her if I laid on the floor and reached toward her. Then she would stretch out a paw and guide my hand.
I took these pictures a month ago:
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| Reaching......... |
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| Right here...... |
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| Perfect |
And when I moved in with Carolyn, Jesse became a whole new cat. She stopped hiding. She sat on our laps in the living room. She begged charmingly wherever we ate. She was really happy.
When the kittens (the 1st set, from 2003) grew up and became obnoxious, Jesse moved into our bedroom for a couple of years. When her 1st tormentor moved to the garage and the furnace room to flex his masculinity and a twisted sense of humor, she took over the house again.
Do you see in the pictures how her fur looks lined with silver? She's always been the most beautiful thing; I called her my pewter cat, and that beautiful plush fur has stayed soft and thick and wonderful. Now, her kidneys have begun to fail, in spite of the kidney diet she's been on, and she isn't interested in eating much of anything anymore. She's not a cat who can be treated easily. Giving pills is possible but very traumatic; trips to the office are accompanied with deep, loud howls and lots of stuff in the carrier that has to be cleaned up. We've decided that we are going to simply give her the highest quality of life for as long as we can.
When we got home, we found that she wouldn't leave the closet. She wasn't using the litterbox and we had to do some serious cleanup and rearranging. She would eat if we hand-fed her and purred mightily when we would sit sit in there and pet her. So, that's what we've been doing.
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The minute I finished writing this, we remembered that we had a jar of chicken baby food and took that to her. She got up and RAN to it. Sucked up the whole jar. Then, of course, I got dressed and dashed to Wegmans for more baby food. Carolyn spent hours luring her out of the closet with the food. About the time she'd given up, Jesse arrived on the bed and walked right under the covers and curled up next to her. Next move? Carolyn sat next to her and petted her. Hours later, during a pause in the petting, out came a paw, searching for a hand. She's still with us, 25 pounds of personality in a 7 pound cat.
I thought that I was writing an obituary when I started this New Year's Day. Nope. Not yet.
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