It is taped on the wall by my wife's sewing machine. I took it with my old work camera, back when we were only shooting black and white negative film. It shows our cat, Maggie, at the top of a ladder and our other cat, Frisky, a few steps below her. I'm guesstimating this is from the mid 1990s--we got both cats in 1992.
Look at how fluffy, furry and robust Maggie looks. That is how I will remember her: a big calico ball of fur. A lot of fur. All fur, all the time.
Maggie's time with us ended last Wednesday morning. But, like with anyone who has spent close to two decades as part of your life, the memories will linger for a long time. This post features a few Maggie pictures we will remember her by.
An extremely furry kitty.
As with Frisky, I was the first to see Maggie's health was failing. She just wasn't as active as before and was walking/climbing with more difficulty all the time. She became considerably thinner--towards the end, she was just skin and fur. Her coat became much thinner and more irregular. And she was very tired and weary; she slept a lot more than before.
This is Maggie three days before she died ...
And here is the chair where Maggie spent a lot of time sleeping over the last few months. The towel she lay on is gone, but you can still see that Maggie had spent a lot of time there ...
As she faded away, I started feeling more compassion for her. But until then, I didn't really care for her because of the 24/7/365 shedding operations. She left kitty fur all over the house, in places you would expect it and places you wouldn't. Everywhere. We'd try to brush her, but the fur would go flying all over the place, even with a slicker brush. Here, my wife cuddles her, while Charlie sniffs the brush ...
How much did she shed? It affected my work attire: I finally despaired of ever wearing dark pants to work because the cat fur (from the sofa) would quickly show up and stand out against black or navy blue pants legs.
For that reason, I vowed some time ago that Maggie will be the last long-haired cat we will ever own; we will never make that mistake again. While I've mellowed towards Maggie and feel sentimental about her passing, this is a vow I absolutely intend to keep.
Maggie was in indoor cat, of course, but as we packed for a trip, she tried to make sure she wouldn't be forgotten ...
For much of Maggie's time with us, we only had a little film camera. We were raising the kids, too, and didn't have a lot of money for buying film, taking rolls of film to the drugstore for developing and then making enlargements. I had access to a camera and black and white film at work, so I used that sometimes. Like with the photo of the cats on the ladder.
Here are snapshots of Maggie from back around 1999. In one, she and Frisky are all eager for dinner ...
And in the other, they occupy the same bench near a window ...
My wife loved Maggie very much. She was "her" cat. As a routine part of her day, whenever she saw Maggie nearby, she picked her up, carried her to a favorite rocking chair and started petting and cuddling her, while Maggie purred loudly. "Mom's baby" got a lot of attention ...
These came to be called "kitty breaks," and they continued to the very end. My wife loved petting Maggie, Maggie loved getting petted, and it was sort of like a symbiosis. Sometimes they would sit and rock and doze off together. My wife said Maggie would beg for attention, and she certainly wasn't going to say no. It worked very well for them. Not so well for all the pending work in the house ...
At night, Maggie had a place reserved right next to my wife's pillow, and that's where she stayed most of the night. She wasn't shy about claiming a quarter the width of a queen-size bed ...
As I have written many times, Maggie loved to eat. She would finish off any cat food left in the others' bowls when they decided they had enough. The typical meal ended with Maggie walking away from an empty bowl, licking her chops. Always the highlight of her day ...
She even would take a crack at out breakfast toast in the morning ...
It's no coincidence that the cat food consumption rate has gone down sharply lately.
We got Frisky about four months before Maggie, but though Maggie grew to become a much bigger cat (in terms of size) and Frisky was a little Abyssinian with a quiet voice, Frisky was definitely the boss kitty, the one who walked with her tail held high. That's how it was for many years. By the time Frisky left us and Charlie and Max came on board, Maggie was getting to be an old cat. She hissed at both the newcomers for a while before finally getting over it. She never was an alpha ...
Towards the end, Charlie started getting a little too boisterous with Maggie. When the cats started gathering in the living room just before their dinner time, Charlie would often stalk Maggie and try to tackle her. Maggie growled and hissed. Also in the morning, as my wife was getting ready to go downstairs to serve breakfast to the cats and I was in the computer room, I could hear Maggie growl and snarl. Charlie must be getting too playful again.
Over the last year or so, Maggie seemed to be growling and snarling a lot. Even at me. Even at my wife, when she tried to brush her tummy. She seemed to walk gingerly at times, like an old person with aching joints. We set up "steps" to make it easier for her to get up and down to places (such as living room chairs) she liked to nap.
In the days since Maggie breathed her last, we have not discussed getting another cat. I am not going to raise the subject, either. I know there are lots of cats at the shelter, but, at least for now, I think Charlie and Max will be enough for us.
But that is not a final decision. I think it is very possible that my wife will get lonely and start longing for a kitty she can cuddle--a new "Mom's baby." Charlie and Max aren't that way; they like to get petted, but on their own terms. They will hop up next to you to get petted, but it's got to be their decision. They don't think of themselves as dolls.
So I will be trying to observe my wife's mood very carefully in the next few months. If she starts getting into a sad mood ... well, first let's see if she does.
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