Goodbye, Butterscotch
Butterscotch was a homeless kitty who’d wandered into the fellowship hall and was speaking louder than the speaker. I didn’t take him home that night. After leaving my life in Washington I didn’t want to have anything I’d have to take care of, nothing to love and lose. The next week someone handed him to me. The women had been passing him around and he smelled of cologne. I stopped at K-Mart for a bag of dry food for him and he had it torn open before we got home. I put some outside and told him he was my outdoor cat. He circled the house yowling for the next two hours. I let him in, but just, I told him, for a little while.
That was about nine years and eight months ago.
He became my indoor-outdoor cat, coming in in the middle of the night announcing his presence. He’d be waiting in the drive when I got home or sleeping in the house and then yelling at me before I could open the door as though he’d been waiting there for hours. He thought five AM was a good time for me to get up and get his tartar control treats until we got that moved to seven. He had a really cute begging gesture. He’d paw my face or my arm or my leg when he wanted something, like petting or treats. It would have been cuter if I’d had him declawed.
I’m trying to think of all the good things about him being gone. I won’t have to get a cat sitter when I go into the hospital this winter. I won’t have to get out of the car in black pants and discover I’m covered in cat hair. The kitchen floor will be safe from dismembered kills and I’ll be able to walk across it barefoot in the dark. I won’t have to worry about burrs and ticks in my bed. I’ll be able to keep my laptop on the bedside table without fear of him knocking it off. There will be no more triangular tears in the curtains from his sudden compulsion to climb them. I won’t have to move his paws when he stretches across my chest, kneads my hair and gets dangerously close to my ear. Never again will I have to wonder if he thinks his name is Damn Cat.
A parade of friends, family and pets from hamsters to horses goes through my mind. I was devastated at the loss of each but don’t feel the pain now. I know I’ll be better in a few days and stop thinking he’ll be waiting for me the next time I come home from work. I won’t go to the door and futilely call when I’ve accepted the fact that he blended into the autumn leaves and vanished in the night.
But right now I can’t stop crying.
Steph said,
October 19, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Lu, I am so sorry to hear the Buttercat didn’t come home!!!! I had hoped that he was was just out catting around enjoying the fall before winter set in. I know how you feel when you describe that empty feeling in your home and daily schedule, those dang cat or dang dog moments…….. Buttercat and Cyrus had much in common and they were both animals we took from the clutches of human indifference. I encourage you when your ready to fill your life again with hair on your slacks, special presents on the kitchen floor, laptops safely stored and triangular momento’s letting in the light where light wasn’t supposed to be. The tears I share with you and I’m sorry in such a short time that we both grieve the little lights we have recently lost in our lives.
Sincerely,
Steph
Alton Higgins said,
October 20, 2009 at 4:55 am
Sorry to hear about your cat. While I fuss about our genetic mistake of a dog, I’ll miss the little critter when his time comes.
I enjoy your writing.
librarylu said,
October 25, 2009 at 1:15 am
Thanks, both of you.
Butterscotch would be a hard act (or should that be “cat”?) to follow. I don’t think I’ll be letting another one adopt me anytime soon. I really don’t want to go through this again.
I was concerned he might leave when I go into the hospital this winter. Having someone check on him didn’t work out too well last time I had to be away. I was ready to make his appointment at the vet’s for boosters and a checkup and the crazy part of my brain thinks he read my mind and decided to find another home where the service is better, the treats more frequent, and nobody has a cat carrier.
I just wish my boss hadn’t mentioned coyotes.
I still have my tropical fish (that started with two goldfish and turned into twelve tanks). They’re just not very cuddly.
I may have to put a stuffed toy on the empty spot on the bed.