Sairah ? - May 1, 2001   She came home with me almost exactly nine years ago, at the end of May in 1992. I got her from a local cat rescue organization--I think she'd come to them with two other lovely long-haired cats, but by the time I finished dithering she was the only one of the three who was left. Thirteen pounds of tortoiseshell fluff, mostly black with patches of orange, fawn, and white, she had long, long whiskers, enormous green eyes, and a face that was perfectly split down the middle, half beige, half black. I adapted her name from that of a character in a book I was thinking of writing: a cat-woman with mismatched eyes. She was the first cat I ever had. I never knew exactly how old she was, but supposedly she was three or four when I got her, which would make her twelve or thirteen at the end: aging but still far from elderly. The vet had her listed in his records as a "domestic short-hair," something I never understood, since she was more hair than anything else. I always thought there might be some Maine Coon or Norwegian Forest Cat in her--she had the huge ruff and long build, as well as a repetoire of attractive chirpy noises, in addition to her long, loud, complaining meows and the indescribable "Mmm, yummy dinner!" yowl--but there was never any way to find out for certain. As for her personality, she was imperious, demanding, and horribly spoilt. She was a princess, beautiful and always the center of attention, and she knew it. At the same time, she was gentle, affectionate, and for the most part impeccably well-behaved. She had her scratching post, which she mauled, and her spider plant, which she mangled, and everything else was sacrosanct--except maybe for my UFO catcher dolls, which she generally trampled into the couch cushions on her way past them. She turned Dad into her perpetual tummy-rubbing machine, because she knew he was too soft-hearted to refuse her (I was meaner), but she was an endlessly responsive companion, loving to be close to people, to talk and to be talked to, to curl up close and be petted--although she rarely sat in laps and resisted being picked up. She didn't play much either, being rather sedate, but she had her few special toys all the same: her bit of fuzz, which was a piece of fake fur left over from the making of my kitty costume. A peridot necklace, which precisely matched the color of her eyes, and which she liked to gnaw on for no reason I could ever see. Half a walnut shell. She hated to travel, and no matter how short the trip was she could be relied upon to be sick from both ends before we arrived. She also hated it when I had friends over to watch TV or videos, and she'd sit outside the door to my den giving us the "haunted cat stare" until we were done. She liked shrimp in her cat food and licking the cheese off my popcorn, but her favorite treat of all was whipped cream. I think she actually learned the word "strawberries," although she certainly thought it meant the cream instead. Looking back, I can see that she must have already been feeling sick on that last night, because she came into my den while we were watching TV and curled up against my leg as I sat on the floor. She also kept licking my soda can, something she often did in the summer, when the weather was hot and there'd be condensation on it. And she was so quiet--she didn't complain for once, just leaned close to me and let me rub her head and her stomach, patient, as she rarely was during her life, and very still. I want to remember everything about her. The way the fur stuck out between her toes. The way she'd sweep her tail sideways along the coffee table as she walked past, usually imperiling my pretzels or my tea. The way she'd sit extremely upright, staring down with very round eyes at a spider or cricket walking across the floor, as though bemused and vaguely affronted by the intruder but far too polite to make any comment. The weekend pre-dinner routine that she had down to a theatrical perfection: begin pacing and meowing at least one hour before feeding time. When no food appears, place one's rear to the wooden desk and give it a series of thumping kicks with one back foot. Stare when the humans laugh but make no move to get up. Walk out into the middle of the floor and hurl oneself down at full (and considerable) length as though swooning from starvation. Get up and do it again, just to make the point. Repeat the entire process over and over, until it's actually time to eat. (I'll never know why she did this, because it never made me feed her even one minute earlier. Wishful thinking? Or maybe she really did just like to perform.) How she always looked so silly coming back from the groomer, who insisted on tying a ribbon on the top of her head, the one place where her fur was actually short.... And the tolerance with which she'd put up with the ultimate indignity--the Divebomb of Love, a slow-motion arms-out approach, complete with airplane zooming noises, which would end in a face-first "crash" against her fur and appropriate explosion sound effects. I want to remember all her little ways and habits, from her morning routine of visiting with Dad to the way she'd always wait up with me, lying behind my chair until I finished my email, and then following me to bed and going to sleep by my side. But I know all those memories will fade with time and distance, until what's left are vague recollections of a presence, a personality, a scattering of events that may someday become confused, may eventually be associated with some other cat who's yet to come. The thought of losing all those pieces of my sweet girl, so precious now, all that I have left, is an ache deep inside: an echo of that first pang of emptiness, the dread that I felt when I first started to think that she might not ever be coming home with me again. Forgetting is half the pain of losing a loved one. The other half is remembering. The hardest thing right now is to face all those places and times when I think she ought to be there but she isn't. When I walk into the house and the greeting dies on my lips, unspoken. When I look down at the white cloth covering the trunk in my room, still puckered where her claws once caught in it, and she's not there, crying for me to open the window and let her look out. I keep going to the door of my den, expecting to find her curled up on floor, in the place where she often retreated when not pestering Dad for attention, in the place where I would always see her and go, "Oh, so that's where she was." The floor creaks sometimes, when I'm brushing my teeth at night, and I keep thinking it's her, marching up to the bathroom on small, stompy feet, and that she's about to meow at me, urging me to hurry up and get into bed. But it's only the sound of the house settling. All of this, too, will fade; the price of freedom from grief is that same blurring of memory, the leaving-behind of what was once so loved, or perhaps being left behind by it instead. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to write this memorial: in these words, clumsy as they are, maybe I can cast some lasting reflection of what she meant to me, so that it may endure even when my own remembrances become uncertain and remote. At the same time, the exercise of writing helps to provide some of that distance, seals sorrow into a physical form outside of me: these words and phrases, which can be created, carefully shaped, and then left on the page, a talisman, a cry, a shrine built by the hand and mind and heart. There are two more things, somewhat related to each other, that also give comfort. One is that her illness and dying were over so fast. She was gone in less than twenty-four hours. There was no lingering agony, no struggle, no long watch for death's approach. There was pain, but I know the vets made her as comfortable as possible. So, all things considered, her death was easy. The other is that when she was taken in such a flash, she was still in the prime of her life, only just beginning to grow old. I'll never have to see her decline into sickness and infirmity. It's a cliche, true, but for me, she will always be my beautiful girl, untouched by any shadow, contented in her existence, forever vibrant and whole. Bye-bye, sweetie-girl. Sleep well. One more Divebomb of Love for you.