The Story of Miss Kitty
Miss Kitty was my cat. She died on Sunday, February 6th 2005. Here’s some of her story.
Miss Kitty the Early Days
I first saw Miss Kitty in the summer of 1993. I was living in Dallas. It was a Saturday night and after a night of drinking and night club hopping I was walking towards my car that was parked on lower Greenville Ave. It was about 2 am.
There on the sidewalk I saw the most beautiful cat I had ever seen. She seemed very friendly too. Greenville Ave has a lot of traffic on it even at 2 am, and I was thinking that the cat might get run over if she wandered into the street. So I picked her up and drove her to my apartment.
Now that I think of it, it occurs to me that I kidnapped her. Her owner from a nearby house or apartment probably let her outside and she wandered over to Greenville Ave. I regret committing the crime, but I will say Miss Kitty was happy with me.
Miss Kitty I estimate was about 1 years old at that time. For a long time I thought she was a white Persian long hair cat. But actually she belonged to a breed called “White Maine Coon” cat. Those kind of cats come in several colors but a lot of them are white. I think the the “Coon” part comes from the fact that their face is raccoon-like and so is their tail. They came originally from France and before the Civil War they were mostly only in the state of Maine.
I named her “Miss Kitty” from the name of the bar girl in the old TV series, “Gun Smoke”, starring James Arness as Marshall Matt Dillon.
At this time of my life I was between jobs and drawing unemployment. I was attempting to make some money as a fine arts painter. I would make acrylic and oil paintings on canvas. Miss Kitty would sit there and watch as I painted. She was a great companion. (Except when she would decide to sit on a wet canvas and get paint on her butt.)
Good Times with Miss Kitty
Miss Kitty could be very playful. We played all the usual cat games. I would drag my belt in front of her and say “A snake!” and she would attack it. Sometimes when she was on her back I would dangle a sock she would grab it with her claws and then move her head from side to side quickly. It was very comical.
She was a lot like a dog in that if you called her, she’d come.
Mostly she just enjoyed being petted. When I’d be sitting there, she would come up and rub her head against my hand so I would pet her.
She also enjoyed traveling by car. She would have her back feet on the passenger seat and her front paws on the dashboard on our trips to Fort Worth from Dallas. She’d look out the front windshield.
Another funny incident: One night around 1995 I had returned to the house about 2 am after a night of drinking and chasing women in the nightclubs. I was in good spirits. When I came into the house Miss Kitty greeted me. She was so happy to see me it made her feel like peeing. She ran over to big plant we had there and proceeded to piss in it excitedly. She loved me so much it much, she treated me like I was a Beatle and she was an overexcited teenage girl.
Miss Kitty was a quiet cat, she hardly meowed. She also seemed highly intelligent. This one time around 1993 when I drank too much peach brandy I passed out on the sofa. Miss Kitty walked into the room and looked at me. She started going, “Meow, meow, meow!” in a worried tone. Her meowing was very expressive it sounded like she was complaining to me about my drunken state.
Another time when me and Miss Kitty were at my parents house: They had a cat named “Tiffany”. My mom caught Tiffany on top of the kitchen table eating food. Mom scolded Tiffany away. Tiffany got in her cardboard box where she slept. I smacked Tiffany (not real hard) for being a bad cat. Then Miss Kitty walked up to Tiffany and smacked her too. It was too funny.
Miss Kitty could recognize the sound of my car from about a block away. When she heard it and saw me she’d come running to the car happy to see me. It was a bit troublesome as I felt I might run over her accidently.
Latter Days
In the last year before she died, Miss Kitty developed “irritable bowel syndrome”. It made it hard for her to control her bowels. At any moment she would frequently have a burst of explosive diarrhea. Needless to say we decided to make her an outside cat.
If I had taken her to the vet on a regular basis she probably could have gotten well. Being that I was on a shoe-string budget that was not to be.
I knew “irritable bowel syndrome” was probably a real pain in the ass for her, (literally). Usually she was a very clean cat but now sometimes she would have dried feces caked to the fur on her hindquarters. I kept telling myself, “I’ll take her to the vet and handle the problem”, but procrastinator that I am I never did.
Also she liked to get under our cars in the driveway and rub her head on the car bottom. I think she liked our cars. Usually she’d get black car grease on her little head.
When the weather started getting colder, like around 40 degrees and the wind was blowing I think it really bothered her. Sometimes she would burrow in the leaves and dirt to keep warm. Her beautiful fur was now almost always dirty. Her little paws looked like they had dark boots on. I started calling her “my stinky kitty” about this time.
Still she kept a sweet disposition when she would come in to take her meals. But her expressive little face did register that she was feeling very anxious. Miss Kitty especially enjoyed eating table scraps. I think this human food is what made her ill. In spoiling her I got her addicted to human food.
Miss Kitty spent 12 years being an inside cat. Now she was being forced to be an outside cat and she was never comfortable with it.
Usually when the temperature dropped to around 35 degrees I would let her spend the evening and night in the house. She didn’t like using the litter box. I would spread newspapers all around.
A couple of nights before she died; the weather forecast said the temperature would drop to around 38 degrees. I figured Miss Kitty would be OK outside. I mean she did have a fur coat.
After I put her out, I looked at her through the window. She looked back at me and the expression on her face was of desperate pleading to let her back in. Her little eyes showing a feeling of betrayal.
About this time I had changed her diet to dry cat food. She ate it grudgingly for about half a week. But the good thing is that her diarrhea seemed to be clearing up. Still the dry cat food didn’t appeal to her. She would beg for human food and I would turn her down. By her expression I could tell she was disappointed.
On Feb. 6th, 2005 it was a sunny Sunday with the temperature high of 60 degrees. I was inside working on a painting. About 4:30 pm the neighbor lady came by and informed us that she thought Miss Kitty was hit by a car and was laying by the side of the road.
I quickly ran outside. I saw Miss Kitty in a neighbor’s driveway, laying on her stomach with her face down. I put my hand under her throat and called her name. She immediately started purring. But I noticed she seemed to have difficulty moving.
I picked her up. I noticed her heart was beating hard, like she was feeling scared or something. I put her in my room in her favorite chair. I tried giving her a piece of luncheon meat ham, (she usually loved this). But she seemed too weak to be able to eat it even though she tried. She couldn’t seem to drink water either.
I petted her gently. She held her little paw tight against her mouth. Her eyes had a very distant look in them, like her attention was riveted on something only she could see. I would say, “Miss Kitty!” and she would flick her tail showing me that she heard me.
I knew she was in a bad way. I stepped out to look in the phone book for a vet. Miss Kitty fell off the chair. I ran back and put my hand on her chest. It seemed like she was breathing. I saw her breath go out. In retrospect I think that was her last breath right then.
I didn’t realize it was her last breath, I just thought it was a breath. I decided to walk around the block to figure out what to do, since I was broke and couldn’t afford a vet. I decided I would hock my guitars to pay the vet.
Ten minutes had passed. I walked back to where Miss Kitty was. It was then I realized Miss Kitty had died. I yelled at her, “Miss Kitty come back!” but she did not come back.
I wrapped her in her favorite little carpet she liked to lay on and put her outside. I put her in a pillow case and buried her in the back yard the next morning.
Later that day, the radio was playing “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” by the Beatles. It made me think of how the shovelfuls of dirt covered her, hiding her away.
Epilogue
All Miss Kitty wanted to do was love and be loved. She was my special little friend for 12 years. I wish she could have stayed longer. |
