On a sunny day in August 2010, we decided to adopt a cat. The boys, at that time 4 and 6 years old, wanted nothing more than a Tabby kitten. I told them we’d have to see what they had at the shelter, but they were adamant about a Tabby kitten. We walked into the smell of way too many animals and after noses pinched, we started looking into the cages. One kitten among all of the cats, and he was an orange Tabby. Eight weeks old with a meow that begged to differ, coarse hair, and a bit of an attitude. However, my boys wanted a Tabby kitten so we chose him. Perhaps he chose us. Henry Griffith Kittlelands. Eight weeks old and ready to go. We brought him home and I quickly explained to my boys that kittens and cats rule the house and we should let him explore his new environment. He smelled everything. He was afraid of the couch and kind of freaked out by the floor-length blinds but started checking out the staircase one step at a time. He wandered upstairs to the cat box in the bathroom and walked away. I picked him up and put him in the litter just so he would know where it was and he marched around a bit and then jumped out. This continued throughout the evening and my children were in love with this little orange ball of fluff and sass. Later that evening, after I put the small boys to bed, I could not find Henry anywhere. I searched high and low throughout our townhome and started freaking out that I couldn’t find him. Finally, an hour of anxious panicking later, I found our new kitten asleep across my son’s head, purring boisterously, knowing he was home. It’s weird, after that, his fur became floofy soft. Like all he needed to bring out his softness was a family to love him.
Then the toe biting began. I wanted to kill him. Each time I would fall asleep at night he would find my toes above or below my blankets and bite them. Not my children’s, mind you, just mine. I kept tucking my toes beneath the blankets, but still, they were bitten. He grew out of that phase in a few weeks only to find a new fun obsession. I had one of those iPod chargers with an alarm clock attached and Henry figured out how to press the button to turn the music on. The first two times he did this, I assumed it was my alarm going off in the morning. I would get up and feed him and then realize it was 4AM. Perplexed profanity. How could he figure this out? On the third morning, I woke up just enough to see Henry standing on my dresser and then gently pressed his paw onto the alarm button of my phone. Like he just sat there and took one paw and pressed. Motherfucker woke me up five days in a row. I had to finally plug my phone into another charger just to keep him from waking me up. Diabolical, perhaps. After that came opening the cupboard with the cat treats, turning on the tv, also at 4am, opening my drawers but only pulling out my underwear, and of course, the Great Hamster Massacre of 2010. After this, the diabolical moniker would be infamously etched into history.
Ah, the hamsters. At first, he would just sit atop the cage and poke his paws gingerly into it to sort of freak the hamsters out. Hamstersaurus Rex, Phineas Schnicklefritz, and Kevin (see earlier blogs cuz I can’t even go into explaining the names again) would freeze and then go back to the hamster wheel of anxiety (caused mine, not theirs) and try to ignore him. Little did they know their days were numbered as he was plotting their demise. We still thought he was a cute and adorable, sweet, but very smart Tabby kitten...
One fateful night, Henry woke me up with way too many kisses, licking my nose almost raw. I said a polite thank you for the affection and then promptly put him outside my bedroom, closing the door. I realized he had left his cat toy on my pillow and went to grab it to bring it to him, when I realized it was indeed Phineas, dead on my pillow. Oh goody, a cat present. I immediately wrapped Phin in a towel, put him in a shoebox, and brought him downstairs to the patio. As I came back into the living room, I knew if I looked at the hamster cage I would know what he had done. All energy went into not looking but my curiosity that should have killed the cat got the best of me. The hamster cage was bent inwards and all of the hamsters had disappeared into the night. I knew Phin was the first victim and wondered when the other corpses would appear. I knew Henry had killed them all and it was just a matter of time to find their cold, dead, hamster bodies. Ugh. Superduper ugh.
In the next day and a half, the other bodies were found. Rex by Henry’s food bowl and pieces of Kevin had been bandied about for me to step into. Yuck and a half. My children, as wonderful as they were when small and naive decided Henry just needed a "time out". Me and ridiculous Gen X parenting...
Sigh...perhaps diabolical feline needed a friend. My friend, Terri the Vet, suggested that between the biting of toes and the killing of hamsters, perhaps Henry needed his own kitten. Enter Maurice Navidad. Black Tabby kitten was brought by Santa’s Kitten Elves because my boys, although Jewish, were very good boys.
Maurice was five weeks old and so tiny he could fit in one of my hands. Nothing but bright green eyes and a plop of fur. The tiniest floof ever. In the light, you could see his Tabby stripes and he was a puffball of yumminess. Henry seemed to agree. When he met Maurice he didn’t growl or hiss; he just seemed to know that this was HIS kitten and boy did he love him so. They grew up together with my children. Scars from the cats and from life, we all grew up together as one big floofy happy family.
I remember when my now-husband, Cameron, came to my house for the first time. Henry loved to meet people because he figured all people would want to rub his deliciously soft belly. Maurice, on the other hand, was frightened of most people and hid under the couch until they left. However, when Cameron came over the first night, not only did Henry wrap himself around his tall legs, Maurice came to sit on his lap. It was not even a first date and yet I knew he could be trusted around my family because Marice deemed it so. When your shyest animal says a man can be trusted, well that was the man for me and my kids. (I love when the cats are right). I think when Henry saw this 6’5” ginger in front of him, he figured he was the best gigantic orange Tabby in the world.
Fast forward a few more years and we welcomed Velma Luna Theodosia into our family. Luna is a Russian blue Tabby and a fabulous diva. Maurice fell in love and because of that Henry didn’t want anything to do with her at first. Terri the vet still can’t figure out why Maurie, who was neutered before he was brought to us, mounted her in that special way. Seriously, you can take the cat out of the kitten but if it’s true love…
Anyway, Henry stopped sleeping on me at night and kept his distance from us all. He had other things on his mind, such as teaching himself how to pee on the toilet and figuring out how to open the sliding glass doors, and of course, constantly talking to me about the world and the treats he needed in his bowl.
Time passed on and the threesome grew to be the closest knit threesome I have ever seen. They would have meetings that I could only wonder about and then things in the living room would be moved to fit their liking. It was disturbing but in a good way. The three cats loved each other so much. Henry was in charge of things, the most delightful alpha male who made decisions I wasn't always privy to. I had no say in what he decided so I decided to pretty much let him be in charge. I was just glad he wasn’t a republican.
Then, the pandemic hit, and lockdown began. At first, the three cats kept looking at us as if to say “Why are you still here? We have things to do that don’t involve you. Will you be leaving soon because we can’t get our stuff done?” Then after a few months, they were like “You’re not allowed to leave anymore because you make the most divine napping areas when you’re supposed to be in class.” My students loved my cats. Unfortunately, my cats were there more than my students were. When I say my cats were “there” I mean like on my laptop or lap or sometimes both at the same time, “there”. You try teaching rhetorical analysis while a Tabby takes up residence on the keyboard.
Fast forward to two nights ago. Actually, three weeks ago when Henry decided to start sleeping on me again. I would lay on my side and he would perch on my curves and fall asleep. Even when my middle-aged hips were screaming at me to turn over, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. He was so happy, purring voraciously on me; I would just lay there wide awake until he moved. He would then sleep on my head, my back, back to the curve of my hips, all of a sudden totally connected to me again. I should have known...
Anyway, two nights ago, I went up to the roof to sit by the fire with a well-deserved glass of wine after a day of teaching high school and I called (literally I called my child on his cell phone) to see if he was doing his homework.
“Henry is snuggling on me. He hasn’t done that in a while so I’ll do my homework in a bit”. There was such a smile to my son’s voice, I couldn’t say no. We have a rule in our family that when a cat is napping on you, you stay there so they can nap. (see above paragraph) And we enjoy the snuggliness of said cats as well as the excuse to not do anything but be a human floof bed. Seriously, that’s like the best rule. When cats snuggle and nap on your lap like a weighted blanket, you totally do not move.
Five minutes later, my son ran up frantically screaming for me to come down because something was wrong with Henry. I ran downstairs to find my favorite orange feline not moving. I have been trained in CPR so I tried it on him and several minutes of chest compressions and blowing into his tiny mouth...nothing helped. I felt myself cry out in disbelief. I didn’t want to believe it, but he was gone. I held the limpness of his body in my arms and cried. He had been there through all of my children’s childhood growing up with them and being a staple in our home. We all had scars from his love and temper and Henry-ness, and now he was gone. Dead. Cold. Nothing. It was more than I could bear. How could he be gone? He ate a ton of food and snuggled us that day, and then...nothing. He was gone. My heart broke into a million pieces as I wrapped him in one of my son’s old baby blankets. I put him in an Amazon box because those were his favorites. Never mind the expensive cat beds we bought, all he wanted was a big Amazon box. I have a million pictures of him in Amazon boxes. Those were what he wanted to nap in. That or a pizza box. If there was a pizza box anywhere in our house he would find it and sit on top of it and take a nap. It amazed me how much he loved boxes. And naps. Maybe he was a sleepy UPS driver in his past life.
I called a place, the first place I saw online, The Rainbow to Heaven people. So sweet to me as I cried on the phone to them. $400 later they were on their way to pick up Henry. They had this little gurney for him and they were so respectful and kind. Before they got here, Dash and I held him and told him his life story. I stroked his soft belly. It was cold. How could this be? How could he have gone so fast? I didn’t want to leave his side. After we put him on the gurney, we all said goodbye. My husband, a giant ginger cat himself, was inconsolable. They had such a special bond that even after death, will never be broken.
I can’t believe he died on my son’s lap. I told Dash what an honor that was. Henry picked a place to die and it was him because he loved him. He loved him. You could reverse either pronoun and it wouldn’t matter because both love each other.
I guess this is Henry’s eulogy. His ashes will be brought back to us and we’ll put them in Cameron’s garden because, besides my squishy curves, that was his favorite spot.
Tonight I put on a sweatshirt to go upstairs to sit by the fire and couldn’t figure out what the horrible smell was until I realized I was wearing the same shirt when I held him to say goodbye. Not really a smell I wanted to remember. I thought of keeping the sweatshirt as a keepsake, ya know, never washing it? But it’s a really cute hoodie and I’d like to wear it again, minus the smell. (No matter how sad I am right now, omg, dead cat smells like dead cat.)
Okay, I’m an English teacher so I desperately need a theme to understand why I have written this. Loving people, even if they’re cats, sucks because it hurts when they die? No. Let’s be more thoughtful. Loving people, even if they’re cats, is wonderful because they enrich your lives and even though you are sad when they die, they live on in your heart. Yah, I like that better. Much better. Even if my hoodie still smells real, really, really bad.
Goodbye, my ginger Tabby floof of yumminess. You will stay in our hearts and the stories of your diabolical adventures will keep you infamous forever.
