Endeth the Reign of Hell-Cat

No one has ever liked my cat, Adah, except me. Jake pretends to, but I know she gets on his nerves. She's fat, smelly (since she isn't all that flexible when it comes to bathing) and has a loud, insistent meow. However, she also is a wonderful cuddler and likes to lay on my chest and make little imaginary biscuits with her paws. She purrs so loudly during our cuddle time, and I know she's especially happy when she drools down my neck. She loves to roll in the dirt outside and then bring the bits of leaves and driveway dust inside with her. She gets ferocious with the dogs, and takes no nonsense from my boy-cat. She is a tough, bitchy girl, but I have always loved her.

She chose to live with us during a scary autumn thunderstorm 10 years ago. Jake and I, and our boy-cat, were sitting inside our apartment when we heard a loud meow outside, even above the noise of the thunder. When I opened the door and saw her sitting there (a smaller near-clone of boy-cat), I hardly had time to say, "Oh! There's a cat!" before she came racing inside. She didn't hesitate or freak out---just zoomed in and headed straight for boy-cat's food bowl. Poor boy-cat was stunned, looking at me like I should be doing something to thwart her, but I was too busy laughing at her bravery and nerve. She decided that day that she was going to live with us, and she has been a part of our family ever since. Our next-door neighbor at the time disliked her so much that he nicknamed her, Hell-Cat---a name that I always thought was more than a bit overly dramatic and a little unfair. She earned the name because she would often be all rubby and purry with strangers until they tried to pet her, and then she would attack in hopes of snapping off a bit of finger. But, again, despite her bad reputation, I continued to insist to Jake that she was just eccentric, and secretly loved her all the more for being so cantankerous.

I noticed a few weeks ago that she was losing weight. I felt a hard dread about it, and postponed calling the vet. I pretended lots of things---it was good she was losing weight. At 19 pounds, the vet had been after me to trim her down for years. As she continued to lose weight, I became less able to make excuses and knew, without any veterinary confirmation, that something awful was happening to her. She seemed normal in every other way, though---still bitchy, still giving the dogs hell, still wanting to go outside and play. These things made it easier to ignore her shrinking size and hope that maybe she just had a bug, or some other fleeting illness. Suddenly in the past week, though, she stopped eating and drastically lost weight. With dread in my heart, I took her to the vet today and learned that she has a softball-sized abdominal tumor. We are spending tonight with her, and then letting her go tomorrow.

It's strange to be losing so many lives that I love this year. It almost feels like nothing will be left by the time Snippet is old enough to love along with us.