An Exceptional Cat

Camembert (Cammie), Known Angel

Lauren and I have been together for more than 10 years now. Her cats, Cammie and her brother Whit, were there from the beginning. I grew up in a household that only ever knew dogs. I didn’t outright dislike cats, but I did dislike the idea of an animal that had to relieve itself indoors and that relied on someone to clean the litter box, daily. One of the first substantial disagreements Lauren and I had was early on, when I said that I couldn’t possibly live in a house with cats.

On that, I did more than relent. I came to dote on Cammie. I fixed up the extra blanket on our bed that she liked to sleep on, every night. (She liked to dig her way under it during the day, so it was always mussed up and needed rearranging.) I delivered her small plates of freshly chopped chicken whenever I was cooking some for the dog. (Among the few times she was vocal was whenever she saw me carrying one of those small plates.) If I was playing a computer game and she came into the office to request a lap sit, I’d change to a game that required only a mouse (rather than a keyboard) so I’d have a free hand with which to pet her. And, two days ago, I gave her one last ride to the hospital.

Several months into first dating Lauren, I hardly knew what Cammie looked like. I’d visit Lauren at her apartment in New Milford, but the best I’d get would be a brief glimpse of Cammie’s face from around the corner before she disappeared. She was the kind of cat for whom “scaredy” was coined. As the months went by I’d see more and more of her, until one night, as we watched a movie from the couch, Cammie climbed up, unbidden, and curled up in my lap. Lauren and I were frozen. We hardly dared breathe, lest the entire situation dissolve. It turned out to be the first of many times that Cammie would deny me ambulatory independence.

She was a funny, small, and surprisingly resilient cat. By the time I met her she was six years old and had only three teeth, the result of treating a rough case of stomatitis (feline gum disease). Her brother had it too, though the treatment was less effective for him and lingering issues with the disease probably helped contribute to his early death, several years later. But Cammie persisted, not for the last time. Six or seven years later, she collapsed right in front of me and Lauren. After tests and much concern, she was diagnosed with a case of irritable bowel syndrome so severe — and likely, so uncomfortable — that she had largely stopped eating (something that would have been hard for us to know, since we had two cats that shared a food plate) and was dealing with the beginnings of organ failure. Lauren went into full nurse mode, delivering daily injections and medications that were ultimately successful. This amazing cat bounced back and was incredibly renewed. She suddenly had a youthful demeanor I had never known in her. She ran, played, and was generally joyous in a new way, despite being at least 12 years old at the time. I still find it remarkable.

The Beedler, Known Devil

In writing something like this, I’m supposed to talk about what a grievous hole there now is in our lives. In fact, I feel a great sense of guilt for how little my daily routine has changed without Cammie here. She was understated, in the extreme, a fact made all the more apparent in respect to the other cats in the house, The Beedler and Bat Lion, known agents of devilry. Even in her youth she spent most of her day sleeping. She liked to go outside, but never for more than a few minutes. She was marked by simple habits. She slept in our bed, so when I woke and got dressed, she’d follow me into the kitchen. She’d patiently wait (and stare) while I prepared coffee. Cat food was second on the morning routine list. I imagine Cammie assumed that making coffee was a requisite step in preparing cat food, since it always happened just before the only thing that mattered to her at dawn.

Dinner time marked her other habit: timeliness. The cats’ second feeding was generally at 6pm, and if I hadn’t seen Cammie all day, I’d see her within a minute or two of that hour, again patiently staring. When daylight savings kicked in, she’d instead present herself at 5pm, almost precisely. Each year I did my best to make her adjust to our anthropogenic time change, and each year I would end up changing my own habits and schedule to feed the cats at the time Cammie knew to be the correct one.

Likewise, around 8pm (or 7pm, depending on the status of daylight savings time), around the time Lauren and I would be finishing up dinner, Cammie would appear to join us on the couch. Sometimes it was my lap; sometimes it was Lauren’s lap. On a cold, winter night, whomever Cammie failed to choose probably felt a little jealous. On a hot, humid, summer night, the opposite was definitely true.

But no one ever turned her away. As the years went by, Cammie progressively became less fearful. For the last several, at least, she would walk up to guests of ours who were as strangers to her. She’d sometimes even sit in their laps immediately, an act to which I took mild umbrage. She’d lost most of her hearing, so if I needed to get her attention, I had to be certain to get in front of her. Though old, she was as soft as ever. Her coat, even on the last day of her 17-odd years, was velvety. I’ve never met a cat so luxuriously soft. Veterinarians who saw her were regularly surprised when they found out how old she was, a comment made second only to how sweet she was. When we first got her to the hospital a few days ago, tests revealed that her bloodwork was immaculate, her white blood cell count perfect, and her general health excellent, a fact that felt cosmically insulting in light of an observable truth: she could barely breathe, and her throat was badly inflamed.

What bore out was a cancerous mass on her larynx. Two days prior we’d noticed she didn’t eat all of the cat treats she was offered. One day prior, she didn’t eat any, nor the tuna fish that was offered afterward, and she didn’t appear to be eating food at all. She was low on oxygen, calories, and hydration. There was a chance that inserting both a breathing tube and feeding tube, along with regular radiation treatment, might save her…if she survived the night. But there was no chance that she wanted that, nor did we want it for her. So we said goodbye, instead.

Several days earlier, Cammie had dutifully followed me around at feeding times, so even if she wasn’t feeling perfect, she also wasn’t feeling miserable. I’m grateful that the worst part for her was so short in duration.

It is hard for me to reconcile Lauren without Cammie. How can these two entities exist separately? It was very difficult for me when Whit died, a good boy whom I loved very much, but Cammie was still here. Lauren and Cammie were foundational, and seemingly perpetual. After Cammie recovered so exceptionally from her near-death experience, years earlier, Lauren and I often said that she seemed destined to outlive us. I’m sorry that this was not true. Cammie was the cat who made me want to be around cats, though perhaps none more so than her.

Someone once said to me that our pets must view us in the way Tolkien’s race of men viewed elves: mysterious, immortal, and unchanging. As Cammie passed through all her years, Lauren and I must have appeared to be utterly permanent. But, contrary to what one might suppose, Tolkien’s elves envied the short lives of men, a condition they called “the gift of men,” for with near-immortality came an accumulation of sorrows, one atop the next, unceasingly and inescapably. I used to say that the most anyone could hope for was to be reincarnated as a well loved dog. The past 10 years have taught me that returning as a well loved cat would also be acceptable.