Kitty Chronicles: The Life of Max
Posted on May 24, 2008
OK, this may be the first and last time I devote an entire story to cats. I have written about science, prisons, murders, city council meetings, Huguenots and Walloons. I have been a travel writer, a tech writer, a news writer, but cat writer? Never. Too cutesy, too sentimental. But last week our little cat Max died and I was moved to find closure. My wife Pat did the illustration. - R
This week, for the first time, I felt death in my hands. Previously I had only experienced death from a distance, through late night telephone calls and seeing my father, open casket, made up like the patron of some wine or cattle dynasty. He was a carpenter.
But last week I held the limp body of our little cat Max, minutes after he gasped and coughed and let go, floating off with kitty angels proffering gifts of furry virgins, catnip and chicken livers. I lifted Max from the kitchen floor and he doubled over in my hands.
My wife Pat adopted Max and his brother Moritz (Max and Moritz, the mischievous Katzenjammer Kids) from the pound before we were married. Max and I cemented our relationship playing cat hockey, I flinging Max across the slippery floor of Pat’s kitchen, spinning him in dizzying directions, Max running back for more. When Pat and the “kitty boys,” as she calls them, moved into my catless house in Marin County, California, Max adopted our indigenous “what about me” culture. Like George W. Bush, Max was the kind of guy you’d think you’d like to have a beer with but was, in reality, a spoiled bully. He raided his brother’s cat bowl, nosing out Moritz before devouring the contents of his own. He was Robert Morley fat, a charming, kitty treat, wet food gourmand. Max was the “downstairs cat,” always seeking approval, always the first warm-bodied being to meet guests, charming them with his catty wit and furry nuzzle. Brother Moritz was an aloof, upstairs, pining-for-the-veldt cat, making infrequent, almost ceremonial appearances downstairs.
Three months ago Max was diagnosed with a cancerous leg, which was amputated. Within a week he was back home, hopping with ease up and down two flights of stairs. We nicknamed him Tripod. He became a poster child for recovery. Friends suggesting that their life would end if they were faced with challenges that Max accepted with aplomb.
Two weeks ago, Max parked himself on a rug in our upstairs hallway and refused to move. He didn’t eat, didn’t respond to acts of affection. We were worried. But after two days, he returned to Max-mode: Turbomax, Technicolor Max, Rocky Balboa Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds Max. He bounded up and down the stairs, snuggled up to us in bed, rested on my tummy as I watched TV and between my book and me. Then one morning last week, as the thermometer burst through its glass bubble, Max returned to his parking space. We thought it was the 100 degree heat. I paid regular visits to him as he lay on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor. But his meows turned to hoarse cries then, from my office down the hall, I heard gasping and coughing.
Yesterday Pat brought home a rhododendron. We walked up a hill in back of our house, buried Max, planted the flowers on top, christened the location Max’s Hill and teared up over our imperfect but endearing friend.
That night, through the process of elimination, we discovered which cat peed outside of the box. Not Max, but Moritz. I am not sure what what means, thinking and peeing may or may not be mutually exclusive.
Tonight Moritz, the “upstairs cat,” came downstairs and did a little catwalk around my legs, marking them as his territory. Then he got on is hind legs, placing his paw on my lap, inviting a scratch on the chin. That was very Max-like.
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