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moon--vixen · 2 years

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The day I’d been dreading finally came. Today, April 6th, 2022, at around 7:30PM PM, my beloved Tiggeriss finally passed.

Most don’t believe us when we tell them we got her at 6 months old in 2000, because that makes her 22 years old. 22 full years that I got to spend with her.

If you’ve never heard a tale of a cat old enough to vote, drive, AND drink, then let me tell you her’s. It’s quite a tale all on its own, one that deserves to be told in full.

When I was a wee 7 years old, I found our big house in Texas to be unnerving at night. My bedroom was right next to the front door, and any creek or shift or settling of the house scared me, so I asked my Mom if we could get a cat. I’d always loved cats, and hoped having a companion in the house would make me more comfortable. Plus, any bump in the night would be far less scary, when you think of it as just the cat!

It took the usual child-begging-for-a-pet convincing, but eventually she agreed, and we began hunting locally for people giving away cats.

We met a few, like a mean cat that didn’t like being touched and would regularly scratch at you if you tried. listening to the owner remind her 4 year old “we don’t touch the cat, or we get the love taps” was enough to send us running.

We wanted a nice, sweet kitty I could pet and snuggle with, who would be a family member and not just an animal we have in our house.

And when we met her, we decided our needs changed slightly, though the end result was exactly what we wanted.

She didn’t like us much at first. she didn’t fight too much when I tried to hold her, but she certainly made it clear she didn’t like it (turned out, she just absolutely hated meeting new people). All the while the man that let us in was telling us all about her and how she didn’t seem to fit in their family, as she was just too headstrong, too much of a spiteful little spitfire. Their 4 year old, one of at least 3 kids under 6 with another one the way, liked picking cats up by their “handles” (tails) and how most of the older cats “didn’t mind”, but she was particularly sensitive about it and wouldn’t “just let [the kid] be”. He also told us how ornery she was, about absolutely everything. Like how he felt that cats don’t need to be on the furniture, they don’t even need beds of their own, cats are just fine sleeping on the floor, and warned us she just would not stop trying to get on their bed no matter what they tried. Every other cat (of which they had many, an entire litter and then some) learned quickly to behave, but she was extremely hard headed. Stubborn to a fault.

Every word out of his mouth just made me want to get her out of that house more, regardless of her personality. She could be the most hard-headed kitty on the planet, but she certainly didn’t deserve to be treated like that. Mom and I still find it so wild that this family had 3 kids and another coming, on top of 8 cats, were trying to re-home 4 of them that “didn’t fit”, and she was the last one they hadn’t managed to home...and every single word about her out of his mouth was how awful he thought she was, to the people he was trying to give her away to...not a single kind word out of his mouth about her or what kind of family she’d be a good cat for. Just...how much he disliked her. And then got emotional when we decided to take her, her squirming to get out of his grip as he snuggled and kissed her for the last time as if he hadn’t just been shit talking her for the last half hour. Make it make sense.

Regardless, he sure was not lying though! Something we would learn all too well as the years would go by.

The first thing we learned, as we took her around a pet store to see what she liked, was how particular she wanted to be petted. she didn’t mind strokes across her back, or even her stomach. Instead, her particulars were ALL around her face. She needed to rub her cheeks on you and every single object she could, forcefully. even the comb, to brush her out had to be rubbed on. And it wasn’t just a few rubs and then she’s over it, no. We couldn’t comb her chest because she simply would not stop. It was her absolute FAVORITE form of touch, of which she was already showing signs of being weird about, always mrrr’ing any time you came near or touched her in any way, sometimes as a surprise, sometimes as if to let you know she was there. Dad even referred to it as “honking the cat” because he could just lay his hand on her back and she’d mrrr, repeatedly.

The next thing we learned, almost the moment we got home with her, was why she was so intent on getting into human beds and blankets. It became blatantly obvious to us that she was simply cold natured, and just wanted a warm place to sleep. We had beds all over the house, but let her onto any resting furniture she wanted. Any chair, any bed, in and under any blanket or sunny spot she liked. In fact, she was the kind of cat that, normally if you give an animal food immediately after medicine, their mind will go “medicine means food, therefor medicine good”. She was the opposite! Any medication we even attempted to give her she’d spit out right in your face like a loonytoons character. We knew from day one if she ever got sick and needed regular medications, she’d just have to be put down because she simply would not take anything she didn’t want, and could find anything in her food. She was even picky about her water, needing it constantly flowing and refreshed.

she was SO adamant in fact, that even my father, who was a staunch dog person and raised in a southern religious household that believed in “spare the rod spoil the child”, he also attempted to use physical punishment as a means of training. Now, there is NEVER an acceptable reason to hit a cat, but if ever there was a cat to break someone of that, it was her. He’d done this to a dog before I was born, and that dog just became mean. But there was no amount of abuse that could change her mind on what she wanted. She even turned the tables on him, turning him from a dog person to a cat person in just a single year. Amazing what a head as hard as steel can do.

And I say we “let” her onto any furniture she wanted, as if we really had a choice. If she was in your spot and you wanted her up, you could lift her entire hindquarters above her head and she would not budge! Hell, she knew if you yelled no at her for doing something bad, she wasn’t gonna move or stop until she saw you getting up and coming to her. And you had to get up. you couldn’t just lunge like you were gonna get up. Her Royal Hinnie-butt would fully and completely make you get up and take a minimum of 3 steps in her direction before she decided it was worth it to stop.

She would eventually learn to scooch over so we could share the seat, but that took a good few years of trust building, especially just for her to let me hold her after the things that 4 year old did to her. She never did like anyone messing with her tail...

Regardless, clearly, keeping her off things really had been quite the task. They’d named her “Tiggeriss” (or Tiggeress, as my mother spells it) due to her incredible ability to jump, and just how nimble she was.

We could watch her look at a high shelf full of my Mother’s decorative tea cups, and directly from the floor she’d jump up onto it and barely even disturb the dust. she never bumped a single cup, never broke a single one. Not that that ever stopped Mom from panicking every time she saw it.

She could even get into Mom’s shelves of fabric for a warm nap, and manage to not pull down a single item. I couldn’t even look at that thing wrong without something falling off...

She’d also race up the stairs of our home and leap onto the banister without even slowing down, able to stop her momentum on a dime with barely a lurch forward.

I was always terrified of and utterly convinced she was going to fall though, and would always stand under her in the living room just in case. If I got a face full of claws, lost an eye, that’s just how it was going to be. I didn’t mind catching the sharp furball if it saved her from a broken leg.

I never had to make good on that promise though, no matter how much Dad tempted fate. She had this one toy, a leather tassel on a string, and all he had to do was stand in the living room and flip the toy up into the rungs and she’d go flying up the stairs, and the moment she’d get to it he’d yoink it back down and she’d come flying right after it.

She knew good and well what he was doing, she was far too smart not to. even a wiggle under the blanket wasn’t enough to fool her, she would ether burrow under for it or recognize the other end of the toy in our hands. I swear she’s even unlocked doors!

And once, later when we moved out of that house and we were packing up the very last items before leaving the last time, she of course couldn’t communicate that she needed to pee, but Mom had already taken the litter box to the car. Our living room had a little wine bar we used purely for storage. I’m not even sure we ever turned that sink on, yet she somehow understood what that sink was, I can only presume from watching us use others around the house, and she stood on the edge of it and peed into the sink, easily washed away and took no time out of our departure. She was truly beyond smart.

And in fact, we were incredibly fortunate that any place we moved to, once she had explored every room and had her fill of the countertops she never really tried to jump onto them again. I think we had enough other things in high places that the countertops just weren’t interesting enough to bother.

There wasn’t anything she couldn’t climb or get into though, no cabinet or door. If anything did stop her and she knew there was something on the other side, she’d howl until we opened it and let her explore. Coat closets were to never be opened in her line of sight, and no bedroom or even bathroom door was allowed to be fully closed. Honestly, that may be a habit I keep for all of my life, as well as always raising the blinds a little bit from the bottom, another requirement she had, so she could always see outside unobstructed.

She was sass, brains, and beauty, a damn model everywhere she went. Every single vet and most regular people gushed over her beauty, her eyes in particular.

And she ruled our house, every house, for her entire life. Many joke about their cat thinking itself the owner and the humans its servant, but for her it couldn’t have been more true.

At least...until she went into heat. The poor girl seemed to never not be in heat once it started. We watched her closely waiting for it to subside to get her taken in, yet even when she seemed to not be we were told she still was. Her previous owner wanted to get her and her sister fixed at the same time, at the same vet for some reason. I still can’t fathom why, but it was as if she was doing this just to spite him, which I would have found hilarious if she hadn’t seemed so miserable.

We’d also been told she would work best as a single cat, that she never seemed to get along with her siblings, didn’t much like her people ether.

That was going to change very soon though.

In 2002, when we moved to Virginia, I met him; our best boy Kit.

I spoke about him in detail when he passed, but in short, the moment I saw him I knew he was meant for us.

And I was right.

We tried the whole keeping them apart and slowly acclimating them thing. They just weren’t having it, neither one of them. He was innocently and infinitely curious, and she wanted to know who the HELL was in her house!

After about a day of struggling to get in and out of the doors (SHUT doors! The HORROR!) we finally decided to just bite the bullet, and see what happened. we put him in a carrier at first to keep him safe, but that clearly wasn’t working. I opened it, and he came right out and oh so excited to meet her.

She immediately hissed in his face.

And he just. Plopped over onto his side, showed her his belly in his most submissive pose, and she paused. I don’t think she’d ever had another cat react to her like that, to not put up any form of fight.

She gave his head a sniff, and in ten minutes of that exchange, she had curled up around him and was giving him a bath on the couch like they’d always been family.

And that bond would be unbreakable for the entirety of their lives.

One might think she would turn his sweet heart into a little monster, but it was quite the opposite. She’d always hated car rides, they always freaked her out. But he was always entirely calm, just curious, and with some minor motion sickness. And somehow, that made her calm too. And with how Mom once had a cat that had been thrown from someone’s moving car window because it wouldn’t stop screaming and panicking, the kindest little black cat she’d ever had, having a natural way to keep her relaxed was a weight off all our shoulders.

When we moved into the new place, we ordered the biggest scratching post I’d ever seen in person, a nice tall perch so she could enjoy that view of her kingdom, but with enough perches that the both of them could enjoy the high points.

Not only did they adore it, it still sits next to me as I write this. The bottom is ratty as all get-out but if you only looked at the top of it, it doesn’t look a day over 5.

But it sure got the job done. They were absolutely inseparable, whether they’re were napping in it’s pedestals or being our precious little book ends, they were seemingly always together, when they weren’t snuggling with one of us.

or claiming full ownership of every bed in the house, ours or theirs.

Although on top of me was her most favorite spot. Especially later in life, where she’d harass me until I agreed to go to bed just so she could sleep in my lap, even though sleeping on my back is uncomfortable to me, just to then yell at me in the morning to get the F- out so she could take my spot.

and I did. Every morning.

One downside to getting him however, was she was a true and through huntress, the stalked, she waited, you could see the gears of her mind calculating her kill.

He on the other hand would immediately pounce on anything that moved. A literal ankle bitter as a kitten, who only marginally grew out of that mentality with toys. That meant, of course, he couldn’t be anywhere near when we tried to play with her, as the moment he saw it, he’d steal her kill and she’d just walk away. I think it was as frustrating to her as it was to me.

He was also beyond a lap cat, and she didn’t particularly like to share a lap. That meant she often, instead of sitting on top of him or attempting to make him move away or even attacking him like many cats do, instead she would watch from afar, staring grumpily until he left and she could take her rightful place in my lap.

Though sometimes, if she’d gotten there first, I could enjoy a good snuggle with the both of them.

My favorite of such snuggles was when she’d curl up against my side and use my arm as a pillow. Getting to snuggle with her was always such a treat. Well, until Kit started doing it too and then she stopped suddenly, almost out of spite. Like it was our special thing.

though she at least still came to snuggle me, in ways that were mostly comfortable and precious (even mrrr’ing at anyone who came in the room while we were snuggling as if in warning, earning her the title of “Guard Kitty”) until she’d notice my head sometimes too far off my pillow and decide to push me the rest of the way off as that was her spot now.

I didn’t mind too much, other than those nights I’d have dreams of a big hairy spider bumping into my head. The panic when I’d wake up and still feel the hair was never fun in the moment, but realizing it was just my fur baby being her usual self made up for it.

And I mean, could YOU stay mad at this precious little innocent Angel?

She was a most spoiled kitty. For a time in my life the both of them were my only friends. and the biggest reason I had to keep going. Someone had to take care of them. Someone had to prioritize them, be their advocate, make sure they got the best care and weren’t ever left behind. Who else would pull them from a house fire if not me? As long as they were taken care of. My mother never liked hearing me say such things, but at least I never had to make good on that promise.

but that’s what kept me going. I had to at least survive the bullying and abuse until they passed. Then it didn’t matter what happened to me. As long as they had a good, long life full of love, that’s all that mattered.

And I remember telling them so. Promising that I wouldn’t let anything happen to me, so nothing bad would happen to them.

And by sheer force of will she was she going to hold me to that, for so much longer than I could have ever imagined.

and to that end, I spoiled them as best I could. For example, we once bought a large dog bed for them to share. He unfortunately didn’t like the feeling of the cloth it was made of. Or well, unfortunately for him, very fortunate for the Queen who now had the entire bed to herself, uncontested.

And she really was my Queen. Ornery as hell but I wouldn’t have had her any other way. Because for as much of a little snot as she was, her love for us was so very clear.

She liked her personal space, being more of a “hang out in the same space” kind of cat, and she always was, following me from room to room just to be nearby, always keeping me in her eyesight.

always....

I don’t think I’ve peed by myself in 20 years....

Though if there was one thing she loved more than me, it was the almighty Tuna Can.

It didn’t matter if she was asleep upstairs and under a blanket, she could smell an open can of tuna a mile away. And I do mean that. I once had checked on her and found her asleep in my bed, deep under the blankets in her most favorite spot. I took that chance to make myself a tuna sandwich. Kit was the only one downstairs, and though he complained a little, I didn’t think too much of it. I noticed him heading towards the stairs and joked to myself that he was leaving to rat me out for not giving him any, and I had barely sat down before I noticed....

I was no longer alone....

I always found it so funny, she’d never been a particularly huge thief when it came to human food. She was never that “don’t mind if I do~” with her thieving little face already in your bowl.

but when it came to tuna, she’d try and take it right out of my hand.

(don’t worry, I saved all the most precious juice and some solid chunks for her that I’d put in the fridge to save for when she did come down. I’d just wanted to eat in peace first...)

Though she was so strongly adamant about it, I still often made tuna for her, due to her eating habbits. We’d started their food with Iams, until we learned it was basically junk food that suffered from constant recalls and found a far healthier alternative. While on the Iams he would scarf so much of it, she’d often only nibble and let him have the rest. I thought for a while it was her ~motherly instincts~ letting the little kitten have extra food, but even when we switched, and he was quite plump (as he’d be until he passed) she still tended to eat very little. It wasn’t until years later that a vet finally checked her teeth, and informed us that almost all of her teeth had cavities in them, as did a few of his.

We got them pulled immediately, in the hopes the lack of pain would help her eat more as they believed it would, but when she came home with only 3 little teefers left, one in the bottom left, one in the bottom front, and one in the top right, she ate only a little bit better, but now drooled horridly any time she was given attention. With no teeth, she just couldn’t keep it in her mouth anymore, and like a dog, if too much fell out, you could expect the shake. It made it very hard to give her her beloved face strokies without your fingers, and possibly everything around you, getting soaked in slime.

But it was around this time that our boy also was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was causing his seizures, and arthritis so bad you could see it on the X-rays, and needed to be given medication we had to crush up and form into their own special pill for him. A special blend of Gabapentin and Phenobarbital. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those names...

They’d told us that cats often figure out new ways to eat, that as long as it’s a paté they could still eat it even without any teeth, but she’d begun to act as if she could only drink her meals now. She also refused meals if they were the same flavor (be it the same brand or just two meals of chicken back to back), and I found she was often throwing up when she’d eat any entirely unchewed dry kibble.

So, we took away all the dry food they’d been raised to nibble on, got a little grinder, and s t o c k e d u p

And for the last....5-ish years, I would give them ground up meals 3 times a day.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

And then it was 4.

Breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, dinner.

And then it was up to 7.

Breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, lunch, snackies, dinner, and the for the love of god let me sleep more than 4 hours second dinner.

I was up feeding them every 3-5 hours depending on how well they’d eaten the last meal. Even in the middle of the night, I’d be up giving them something new.

and boy did she come to expect it.

We kept taking them in for regular appointments, getting their tests, Tig’s tests always came back with some kind of “well x is a little high, but considering her age it’s phenomenal! And y is a little worrying, but at her age..” and it was that way for years, with every single test. she’d come back with flying colors for a cat at such an advanced age. But Kit...he was on an expectedly steady decline.

..Until he got worse. He stopped eating entirely. His kidneys had begun to shut down, and he passed around noon on June 28th.

I wasn’t sure if Tig understood he had died, though I let her smell him after he’d passed, once I found her in her little hiding spot, or if he was just. Gone, and she didn’t understand why or where he went, and why she could never find him..

Our vet at the time believed she’d developed “kitty dementia” in her ripe old age of 20, being well over 100 in cat years.

For months she would sit and stare out the window to the patio, where he liked to lie and enjoy the fresh air, as if waiting for him to come back inside.

The worst part though, was the howling. The absolute wailing she’d do when she thought no one was around. I’d begun to call it her “World Is Ending Death Howl”, and the vet thought that was a sign of the dementia...

But she stopped after a year, as well as her more aggressive need for snuggles.

She knew. She knew.

In those two years, with covid hitting, she became overtly attached to us. We’d all stayed inside, my Mother and I living like Rapunzel to avoid the plague, a perk of being a stay at home mom and disabled, and living as her round the clock free care giver. But in turn, that meant Tig could no longer handle us, or at least me, going out.

Once we were vaxxed, and I started to leave just barely to get my teeth checked or finally get that haircut I so terribly needed, she would panic and Mom would sit with her comforting her until I came home.

I could tell she was getting near the end, so I avoided going out as much as I could, and doing my best to time my leaving with one of her big long naps under my blanket. It helped, but only for so long. Only as long as she stayed asleep.

Though she was wanting more food, she barely ate most of it. she began wasting away slowly. by September of last year her front leg had begun to bow out, as if the muscle was too weak to hold her up fully anymore.

We took her back to the vet to check her, and she didn’t tell us that Tig’s kidney numbers were literally off the chart. Only that she was too thin, and must have hyperthyroidism, and needed to be put on medication. She didn’t pay any real attention to the leg, said she’d walked just fine when she “wheelbarrow-ed her”.

We weren’t allowed to ask many questions. Their covid rules meant we couldn’t go inside, appointments were only 15 minutes long, and you could barely talk to her long enough to get what meds or food needed, with everything else going through the front desk.

We trusted her. We gave her the medication.

In a week she could barely walk.

Her front feet, both of them now, would flop under and she’d walk on her knuckles, wrists, or even elbows.

We checked the medication, and muscle weakness was one of the side effects listed.

And the vet knew that.

We rushed her to our old vet, not as close to our apartment and therefor a more stressful ride for her, but we finally got to speak to someone. To see them.

And that was when we saw just how bad a shape she was in. Her kidney levels were so bad, the old-new vet told us she really didn’t see animals with those numbers live longer than a month, and those particular labs were already a month old.

At this point, there was nothing to be done, Besides give her the best painkillers on the market, and let her pass. We were lucky in fact that her body just had no physical fight left, at least nothing from the neck down, or we wouldn’t have even been able to do that much for her. I think even she realized how much they helped though, even if she clearly disliked the taste or being force fed anything, as even that little fight diminished over the week.

Because as painful as it was, she was deteriorating fast, and if we didn’t end her plight soon, nature would. And I didn’t want to wake up to a cold corpse.

For a week or two she’d taken to sleeping in the bathroom, and spending most of her time there.

we felt guilty about her sleeping on the mat, so we placed one of her beds in that spot, and I put food and water next to it so she wouldn’t have to walk.

She didn’t like it not being where it used to be at first, but once she realized where it had gone, she seemed far more comfortable.

She stayed there almost entirely for a while, though she’d sometimes sleep under my blanket again, if I kept her food and water handy.

She even curled up into my side one last time.

In just days, her legs got more and more floppy. She’d lean her head down and her entire back end would come flying over her head. I’d wake up to a clinking and find she’d fallen over and spilled everything. We had a towel down to catch almost all of it, but...it was hard to see.

The hardest part was her mind was clearly still there. She’d act frustrated that her body wasn’t cooperating with her anymore. That she wasn’t the agile little thing she’d used to be. I’d done my best to limit how much she had to move, jumping out of a dead sleep like a new mother at every little noise, holding her food up for her and watching her eat with more gusto than I’d ever seen her eat, ironic as it was. And I know her mind was still just as sharp as ever because I had a bag on the floor on the far side of my room. I’d left it there on accident, but I found that when she came to my room, so used to walking up the steps to my bed that were once for Kit, steps she could no longer walk herself without falling off the back (and landing on pillows I laid on the floor if I wasn’t there to catch her), that if she stepped on that crinkly bag, I’d pop right up and get her whatever she needed. When she knew she couldn’t make those steps anymore, she always went straight to that bag, and it took her less than a day to figure that out.

But by then she couldn’t even walk into the litter boxes anymore, and the ramps we made only helped so much. Even the new temporary cardboard one with a much more shallow edge for her to walk through, though it worked, was only used twice. Every other instance of her litter box use I had to place her there and hold her up, lest she just. Fall into it.

We’d already had an appointment with the same Angels who came for Kit, we knew it was time, but we thought we had a few more days. They were booked out after all, and there’s nothing we could do about that. It was only a week out, and I made sure she got her beloved tuna every single night for dinner.

But when I saw her body begin to curl to the right, unable to even hold herself straight out, almost as if she’d had a stroke, her head bobbled over and her eyes always fully dilated, and that she’d begun wetting the bed she was sleeping in, I knew we couldn’t wait. Not one more day.

The Angels, bless them, could do emergency appointments after hours for an extra fee. A new Angel came for my baby tonight, after one last meal of her beloved tuna, and plenty of snuggles, with Kit’s cremation bead, which now sits on a stronger chain around my wrist, resting near her heart. A chain she’ll come to rest on too, soon enough.

But just like our ornery old girl, ever the little vocal contrarian, when she was poked with that first needle, she yelled at the woman, How Dare This Strange Woman Touch Our Queen!

It didn’t take long for her to settle down, curl into my chest, and fall into her final slumber.

Kit’s passing was so...poetic, in a way. He went out with a soft sigh, on a date that fit our family quirk, a day that would be easy for me to remember. The 28th, like my birthday.

But not ol’ Tig. She had to go out her own way, with one last indignant yell like the spitfire she always was, and on her own schedule.

And she peed all over my arm and shirt. A full bladder she refused to empty beforehand. her last Hurrah.

And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.