Cool Paw Luke

 

I have a theory, untested and totally unscientific, that cats experience a profound change around eight years old. It's just something I have been lucky enough to experience. I have lived with a lot of cats. I have loved them all, every cat, any cat. You could say of me that I am a true cat person. Oh, I love dogs too, but not just any dog, certain dogs, but any cat.

Sometime in the spring of 2017, my neighbor, who is a nurse by profession, brought me a ginger boy kitty. She called him Fluffenutter because he was orange and white, irregular spashes of both unceremoniously distributed with no regard to symmetry, except for the white tips on each ear. He was everything a ginger cat should be: funny, silly, and totally endearing. Our collie became his surrogate mother. He would make biscuits and attempt to nurse in her ample fur. She would clean his ears and snuggle with him, occasionally snorting directions. She is a herding dog, after all. I named this ginger boy Cool Paw Luke. We only really called him Luke, but I liked the distinction the extended moniker gave him, plus he was pretty cool with his paws.

Luke wasn't our only kitty. I had adopted Tibbers in 2013 to be a companion for my Dezi, my only cat after my marriage ended in divorce. Tibbers was the most laid-back cat I have ever known; nothing upset him, ever. Dezi was very glad to have him. In 2014, I adopted two older kitties from an MSPCA shelter in town, Toby, age 6, and his bonded buddy Bolt, age 10. Shortly after the death of Dezi, I happened to see a terrified, tabby kitten in a PetSmart adoption kiosk, fell in love, and took her home. We called her KJ, for Kimba-Joy. She had been a feral. I assumed that would be my full complement of kitties when my neighbor came to me with an urgent need to find homes for kittens born to a patient in her care. She called him Fluffenutter. He became Cool Paw Luke. 

Toby developed heart failure and crossed the bridge within nine months. I changed Bolt's name to Blaise because it felt more uplifting to me and had a similar sound to make the transition easier for him to manage. He responded very well, opening up after the loss of his bonded buddy. My boyfriend moved in with us in 2019, bringing with him and his kitties, Grem and Budu. Grem had been a feral but chose the 'good life' with her human shortly after they met, and therein lies the tale, or tail as the case may be. Budu was an infant feral kitten, left on his Bronx windowsill on a cold, rainy night, lucky to have been found. She was extremely young, maybe just a week old. He valiantly worked to save her, and she flourished. She is the feisty baby in our kitty colony now at six years old. Tibbers left us two years ago, thyroid disorder. Blaise was eighteen when his spirit crossed over. Then there were four: Grem, Budu, KJ, and Luke. I could write volumes about all of them, but this is about Cool Paw Luke.

As some ginger cats go, dear Luke grew quite large, tipping the scales around twenty pounds. After the other older boys crossed the bridge, Luke was the senior boy. He played a bit too roughly for Grem, so we had to separate them, erecting baby gates and initiating time slots where one group had the run of the downstairs and the other two were relegated to other rooms. It was just Grem. Luke managed to get along with everyone else. KJ did strike fear into Grem after the separation became ingrained in our daily life, but she was more of a paper tiger. Luke was so big and strong, if he had wanted to, he could have hurt Grem, though he never hurt any of the others. Grem seemed to be convinced he could have easily killed her. So the separation became the law. 

Luke turned eight last March, and to lend credence to my theory of the eight-year change in cats, he really began to alter his relationship with me. He became more attentive, placing his two front paws on my arm in the morning, as if to keep me in bed a bit longer. He demanded fresh grass to chomp, which I grew for him in a tiny pot on a sunlit windowsill in the bathroom. Every night at 10PM, he and KJ would get a handful of treats from me, then race out of my room to roam the hall and the office to munch kibble and stare through the bars of the baby gate at his nemesis, Grem. Sometimes they might spare, but it was mostly quiet, pensive looks. Budu would sometimes experience both worlds. It was a timed and predictable existence. Around midnight, I would open my door, and the two would join me, KJ at my right shoulder, Luke by my feet, snoozing until morning.

The other night, Luke was being a bit more destructive than usual. He likes to claw the wing chair next to his favorite cat tree. It gives him a view of the river under a branch of a benjamina tree in my room. When he isn't trying to keep me in bed, he is in the cat tree. But the other night, he walked along the back of the wingchair, gazing out and up to the sky. I wondered what he might be looking at. There were no branches where he'd been gazing, only a midnight sky. I thought of taking a photo since it was such a classic pose, but opted instead to curl up next to KJ, patiently waiting on my right. I looked again, and he was still gazing. I wondered if he had spied an angel or a cloud that may have looked like one. Again, I missed my opportunity to take this perfect picture.

Friday morning, and I watch my granddaughter for an hour or so while her mom goes to work. I woke up early enough to enjoy a wee bit of hurkle-durkle with Luke as he plunked his large white paws on my left arm. He smiled a deep, satisfying smile. He has learned to not dig his claws into my bare skin, and that is wonderful. We enjoyed a few more minutes, but it was time to get up. I told him we could linger tomorrow and promised him a full session on Saturday morning.

Last night, it was just as always: the kids (I call them that) were upstairs for TV time. When I came up at 10, I gave them each a handful of treats and then they both raced out the door to sample the freshly filled bowls of kibble, hang out on his favorite scratching board, which doubles as a perfect throne, and stare through the baby gate at Grem and Budu.

I had just turned off the TV, settling in to catch up on Facebook, Instagram, or emails, when I heard a low growl in the hall. I wondered if somehow the gate had opened and Luke was embroiled in a faceoff with Grem. I would never forgive myself if any harm had come to either of them because of something like an unlatched gate!

Instead, I found my Luke writhing on the floor in obvious pain, limbs flailing, gasping, and limp. I tried to pick him up, but all of his muscles were loose; his head just dangled. He was too heavy for me. My boyfriend and I managed to get him onto my bed, where I tried in vain to massage him back to life. 

It was over in an agonizing five, maybe ten minutes. It was horrible. In those intense minutes of anguish and pain, my ginger boy was gone. 

I called to my daughter and the three of us shared the amazement of the loss, the how, and why of it all. In the passion of the moments, I called out to him to not leave me, that it was too soon, that we were just beginning to deepen our bonds. He was eight.

We wrapped him in a turquoise towel and placed him on the fluffy gray cat bed I had purchased for him so he would leave the dog's bed to the dog. He always chose the dog's bed. Sadie came to sniff and try to roust him out of the towel. When it didn't work, she sat, confused. KJ darted in and out, also confused. 

My daughter pointed out that the gate was no longer necessary, and Budu came in to see what had happened, 

After dear Luke was bundled up on his bed, looking peaceful and sleeping, KJ, Sadie, and I settled in for an uncomfortable silence. I scrolled through my photos, damning my choice to not take that picture the other night and not staying moments longer in bed with my Luke Friday morning, only to promise a Saturday that will never come for us.

I take heart that I noticed the change in him, his sudden attentiveness of late. I took the time to make sure he had the grass to nibble on and that special little bowl of water on the countertop in front of the coffeemaker. I celebrated him every day, and that does make me feel a little better.

See you at the bridge, dear Luke.