Thoughts on My Departed Feline Friend

In Memoriam

Kitty died on January 6. Considering that she was born in April 2003, she was quite an old cat—almost twenty. For the last eighteen of those almost-twenty years, she was my flatmate. First in Jerusalem; then in Tel Aviv; then—for the long haul (since 2009)—in Be’er Sheva. I moved to Be’er Sheva because Tamar’s here; but we live near each other, not with each other. That honor—until a couple of weeks ago—went to Kitty.

Divorced since 1996, I didn’t think I wanted a cat—even though I’ve loved cats all my life, most notably our legendary cat Charlie (1965–1976) who roamed our two-acre yard long ago in Clifton Park, New York. Loved cats, but didn’t think, as a divorced guy, I wanted to be tied down by having one.

But back in the fall of 2004, my son was moving from Jerusalem to Kfar Saba (up the coast from Tel Aviv, slightly inland) and the new landlord forbade house pets. My son tried to find a taker for Kitty—then a spayed one-and-a-half-year-old female—but couldn’t. He said he’d just have to set her loose; there were a lot of people in the Jerusalem neighborhood who fed cats. I said, no way, and adopted her.

And now, many years later, there’s the science of the empty spaces that she used to fill: the armrests of the big sofa and the small sofa; the balcony with the view of solar water heaters and pigeons; the chair with the big soft white blanket thrown over it. Yes but, you don’t have to mourn like this—she was very old, well into her nineties in human terms. Yes but—my little companion for eighteen years? Who knew my daily routines—working, reading, resting, news-watching, piano-playing, music-listening—better than anyone on earth and indeed joined me in some of them?

***

We had something like the “relationship” of two people who live at close quarters with each other for a long period. It wasn’t always a picnic with Kitty—especially in her latter years when her need for my attention grew, or maybe her inhibitions about expressing it declined. As a freelancer working at home, this could get difficult for me; I contended with it by trying to establish pretty clear rules about when we were and weren’t together. To simplify: during the day, David is working; in the evening, when David reads and watches the news, we hang out.

It wasn’t hard for Kitty to internalize this principle, but as she got older it got harder for her to abide by it. I’d say she knew ten to fifteen words in English, and “bother” was definitely one of them. As for me, I gradually learned that I didn’t need to say “Kitty, don’t bother!” so sternly or loudly; the word “bother” itself had enough of a clear and bitter meaning to her.

But finally, in the evening—after I ate supper, rested (and Kitty often joined me for that rest), had dessert and tea—finally there came, for her, the golden, the sublime moment, when I came into the living room with iPad and cellphone and settled down on the small sofa, the one beside the sliding door to the balcony, to read until the evening news. Kitty hopped onto the little table beside the sofa, or onto the sofa itself, green eyes wide and bright, purring loudly. The ecstasy continued unbroken until, shortly before eight, I went to watch the news in the bedroom, and it continued when I returned to the sofa for more reading. (One might wonder—where was Tamar in all this? We’re late-nighters.) It was nice for me to create a sublime experience for a little creature just by being there—and being affectionate, though to her my sheer presence was such a great thing that affection was sort of a bonus.

One might also wonder—what about the news-watching? Couldn’t she join me for that too? She couldn’t—because for that half hour or so my attention was trained too much on the TV, too little on her. Realizing that was the case, she’d jump grumpily off the bed and stalk back to the living room. As I said, in her latter years she became more demanding. But it was an honor.

***

Last summer, the last summer of her earthly life, when she was already nineteen, Kitty underwent a certain deterioration. Drank loads of water, urinated a lot, and lost weight, even though her appetite for food—and most of all her heavenly canned food, Fancy Feast—remained as keen as ever. But I was aware that something was wrong—and that it was most probably kidney disease, a very common and irreversible affliction in elderly cats.

My call, though, in light of her age, was to avoid going to the vet unless she reached a real crisis. The disease was terminal in any case; and for her the veterinary hospital was a grim and terrifying place. I’d also heard that they’d probably try to replace her Fancy Feast with special K/D (kidney disease) food that isn’t even tasty to cats. It wasn’t worth it to turn her life into tribulation for the sake of a slim hope of extending it slightly.

And as it turned out, in the fall, when the fierce summer heat subsided, she not only seemed to recover—drinking less water, regaining some of the weight—but to enjoy life more than ever. It didn’t hurt that the fall of 2022 in Israel was a very pleasant one with little rain and gentle sunlight. Those were Kitty’s three sources of ecstasy—hanging out with me; Fancy Feast; and the patches of soft sunlight in which she’d bask in bliss.

And to those, though it may seem hard to believe, I have to add a fourth—music. Reading on the small sofa, my eyes would periodically get tired and I’d take a small break in which I’d play music from YouTube on the iPad. Especially if it was softer music, this was a reverie for me—but it was for Kitty, too. You would have seen both of us with our eyes closed and identical, beatific expressions. I’m not saying a cat discerns melody and harmony the way a human does—though not discounting it either. But cats love certain smells, certain tactile sensations (like mild sunlight), and they can certainly love certain sounds, too. On YouTube, there’s a version of “Down in the Valley” by a men’s choir that I particularly favor; when it came on, Kitty’s ears unmistakably perked up and her enjoyment was intense. And then there’s the gorgeous, slow, heartrending third movement of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio. The violin may simply have been a beautiful sensation to her ears, but she was enthralled.

***

In early January the sunny days stopped, the sky got overcast, and on January 4 Kitty went into a rapid decline. I’m sure there was a cause-and-effect here; her hours of basking in sunlight undoubtedly gave a boost to her aged, unwell body and helped keep her going for a while. When the sun went away, her aged organism finally gave out.

I’ve been a vegetarian, and then a vegan, since before I adopted Kitty, but the experience of having her as a flatmate for eighteen years has only strengthened me in that commitment. Animals lack our cognitive ability but are richly endowed with sensitivity and emotions. Kitty and I easily, mutually recognized each other’s feelings. We now know that human consciousness survives bodily death, and the same lines of research indicate the same about animal consciousness—at least for the higher animals we have as pets. It was hard saying goodbye to Kitty but it wasn’t the closing of a door.