Louie

Louie lived a long and full life for a cat, and he will be greatly missed. We got him when he was a kitten, barely old enough to leave his mother. In fact the vet who gave him his first shots said he was probably younger than what they thought at the animal shelter where we got him. Because he was so young he thought Melodie was his mother and sometimes tried to suckle! He was Mama's Boy ever since. He even came when she called him, which is very unusual for a cat.

We named him Louie because his black and white markings reminded me of a Holstein cow, and the dairy connection made me think of Louis Pasteur. Only afterward did we notice the L-shaped marking on his nose, so he was a monogrammed kitty.

We first got him as a companion for our other cat, Emily. She was about three years older, and was sometimes annoyed by her new "little brother" who would pounce on her when she was just chilling out. They would then proceed to chase each other all over our apartment. It was like having kids, especially since we didn't have any of the human variety.

Emily died of kidney problems when she was about eight years old, and Louie has been our "only child" ever since. When we moved from Rhode Island to upstate New York, he rode in the truck with us, and hardly ever complained. While we were living with another couple in New York he got out somehow, and was missing for two or three days. We thought we'd lost him, but one night we heard a pitiful little meow from the back porch and there he was. A tearful reunion followed.

He was very affectionate and loved to snuggle on Melodie's or my shoulder. The combination of fur and purr was so soothing it was better than tranquilizers. And he had a regular ritual with Melodie, where he would sit on the bathroom counter and wait for her to get out of the shower. She would then lean down to him and he would tilt his head so she could give a him a little kiss on the head.

He was a brave hunter too. When the apartment next to ours was being renovated, a few mice showed up in ours. Louie would stalk them, and when he caught one he would toy with it just like in a cartoon. And more than once he presented us with the trophy from his hunt.

When we moved to Georgia, he again rode in the truck with us, but got overheated when we were in South Carolina (it was August). There was a tourist information center that let us bring him into the air conditioned building and gave him some water and let him cool off. He made friends wherever he went because he was so damn cute.

The long trip from Georgia to here was even more surprising. He just settled in the truck and rarely complained, and it was a week-long trip. He was content just knowing we were with him. And he was nice to have on those cold nights sleeping in the back of the truck. He put up with so much through the years.

Except for the one time he got out in New York, he was always an indoor cat, and was only sick once, when a cyst on his back ruptured and got infected. But other than that he lived a happy, healthy life for sixteen years. Recently he started losing weight and not eating, and when we took him to the vet, they discovered a mass in his belly, which they said was most likely cancer.

They could have done tests to confirm it and even surgery to remove it, but it would have only been buying him a short amount of time anyway. They tried giving him steroids to stimulate his appetite and make him feel better, but that only worked briefly. He continued to get worse, and rather than have him suffer we had him put to sleep.

By that time he was so thin and bony and weak that he wasn't the Louie we remembered. We will miss him terribly, but it's better to have the memories we have of him, than to watch him continue to deteriorate. But it's never an easy decision.

It will be a while before I can open a can without looking for him at my feet or expecting to hear him demand, "Give me some of that!" But he also demanded attention too, not just food. If I was reading or doing something on my laptop, he'd climb right in front of it and say, "Pet me NOW!" I never thought I'd miss that.

His whole life, his whole world, was in the midst of our home. It's not surprising that he would want to be the center of our world. There is nothing quite like being the object of his investigation, with the tickle of whiskers and an inquisitive nose. So long, Fuzz-Face! I'll miss you.