M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Ode to a Four-Footed Friend
By Susan Law Corpany

Author’s note: We interrupt our regularly-scheduled writings to bring you this special column. In two weeks I will resume my Personal Records Management theme.

Years before I came on the scene, my husband Thom found an abandoned kitten under the new home he and his first wife, Sue, had purchased in Captain Cook, Hawaii. He named the little gray furball “Smokey,” and she has been part of the family ever since. When Sue died, Smokey grieved along with the rest of the family. Thom said he would often find Smokey curled up on Sue’s bathrobe.

When I first met Smokey, she was, understandably, quite distant. I was an interloper. I have never met an animal that could give dirty looks the way Smokey could. In Hawaii, they call it “stink eye,” and Smokey’s dislike of me came through loud and clear. I did my best to offer friendship to the big gray cat, but she would have none of it.

When Thom and I married, a change in employment located us on the Hilo side of the big island. Thom’s oldest son, Rob, stayed in the other house with Smokey. Eventually, Rob moved out and we turned that house into a vacation rental. Thom and the boys discussed how much Smokey hated riding in cars, and we wondered how we were going to transport her across the island. The boys decided to try holding her and soothing her rather than confining her to a box.

We began the trek across the island with a caterwauling cat and the sounds of two boys trying to comfort her. About halfway through the trip, she crawled up into the front seat and onto my lap. This was the first time the cat had done anything remotely friendly to me.

I decided that maybe in a moment of crisis, she was willing to befriend me. I began to stroke her fur, but she wouldn’t sit still. By then it was dark, and I couldn’t see what she was doing, but in a moment my nostrils confirmed that she had just used me as a human litter box. Then she attempted to bury the evidence, effectively spreading the wealth.

As we pulled into the nearest gas station, I got out of the car, covered from neck to knees. I ignored the snickers from the backseat. Thom tried to help. People were looking at me and laughing out loud. “They’re looking at you because you’re walking like Frankenstein.”

“They’re looking at me because they can smell me coming, but why don’t you show me the cool way you would walk if you were covered in cat poop!”

Thankfully, I had a change of clothes in the back of the Jeep, and the rest of the trip home was without incident. Thom assured me that Smokey was very embarrassed and that it would be best if I never mentioned the matter to her again. Every once in a while, though, I would catch her eye and we would both know what I was thinking about. I swear that once I saw her smirk.

For the better part of a year, I fed her, watered her and tried to make friends with her, to no avail. Then when I was away from the island for a couple of weeks, Thom said he had found her curled up on top of my bathrobe. Sure enough, when I returned home, the big gray cat came and climbed on my lap for the first time, quietly kneading me with her paws, still not quite making friendly eye contact, but it was a start. Smokey had decided to accept that she had a stepmother.

Over the years, we have had a couple of more interesting rides in the car, to visit the vet.

“Oh, I can see she is bleeding. Has she been in a fight?”

“No, that’s not why we’re here. That’s what she did to herself trying to claw her way out of the carrier.”

This last trip to the vet, my stepson Shawn tried to hold her during the ride, so when we got there, he was the one bleeding. We gave her the medicine the vet prescribed and hoped her breathing would not be so labored. We started to realize that Smokey was getting old.

Although the medicine helped some, she continued to have breathing problems. There might have been more they could have done, but I wasn’t sure her old heart would stand up under another car trip to the vet. We continued to love her and care for her the best we could.

One day as she looked at me with those expressive pleading eyes, I invited her inside the house to curl up in the soft kitty bed I had bought for her. The eyes that had once so strongly expressed her dislike of me now expressed gratitude for somewhere soft to lay her tired old bones. I thought to myself, “I bet when it is time for Smokey to go, she’ll just disappear, like the aging Indian who goes to the top of the mountain and never comes down.” It just seemed like something she would do to spare us the trouble.

We haven’t seen Smokey in over a week, and both Thom and I know. Some things you just know. She spared us the grief and pain of finding her, but she deprived me of an opportunity to say goodbye and to say a few kind words over a shoebox at yet another pet funeral, so all I can do is eulogize her here.

Smokey, if you had a bathrobe, I would go curl up on it for a few days and cry. We’ll miss you. I hope you made it to the top of the mountain.

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