In the summer of 1991, shortly after I moved back to Atlanta, I was driving through the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood when I happened upon a garage sale. I had to stop, not because I saw anything particularly appealing on the yard, but because there were more kittens on the grass than I had ever seen amassed together in my life. Three mother cats had littered at the same time...and I picked out one little white kitten with big gray spots...the markings resembled those of a cow. I had to have this little creature...but then decided that she should have a playmate, so I scooped up another little kitten who was all black with little white sock feet and vest and a little white triangle on her nose. I deposited them in my robin's-egg-blue 1980 Mercury Lynx with rusty doors and drove to my apartment at 825 Monroe Drive, becoming a cat owner again for the first time since I was seven years old.
The white cat could only be called Cow, so Cow she became. I had just read a book called "Weetzie Bat" by a young avant-garde writer named Francesca Lia Block just before getting my kittens, and there was an animal in the book whose name was Slinkster Dog. Slinkster Dog was quite cool, as was my new black kitten, so she inherited her appellation from an inverted borrowing from that book and became Slinkster Cat.
Cow was the more gregarious of the two, always affectionate, always adventurous. Slinkster Cat (soon abbreviated to Slinky) was more reserved and didn't like to be held, although she did like to cuddle beside me if I didn't touch her. She was offish and seemed sullen to me. Having had no real long-term experience with cats, I attributed all the mannerisms and characteristics of dogs to them and felt hurt when they didn't love me back immediately or give me the attention I craved at any given moment. I began to regret the acquisition of cats, but since I knew I was now responsible for two lives, I determined that I was going to love them.
Approximately one month after I got the kittens, I went through an unpredictable breakup. I had met a wonderful guy who shared my sense of humor and love for life, was a great kisser and was as good in bed as I. He dumped me for foolish reasons, but my heartbreak consumed me. I grieved and I stopped functioning normally. I was contemplating terrible things. I ceased believing that I could be loved, but on one painful afternoon when I had probably laid out of work because of all the aching, my little black kitty crawled up on my chest as I was sobbing and meowed at me plaintively. I knew somehow that she understood that I was hurting and she came to comfort me. I looked at her beautiful little amber and green eyes and made up a four note lullaby to her name which I sang to her over and over as I cried out my soul and held her to me. She let me. The love I felt for this little kitty was overwhelming. Her name was abbreviated to Slinky henceforth, but sometimes I called her Sinky.
From that day forward, I understood my cats and learned that I had to accept their love on their terms, not they my love on mine. In the days that predated my understanding of cats, I did two bad things to Slinky for which I will never quite forgive myself, although she, in her feline magnanimity, forgave me long ago for my sins. Slinky once would not stop yowling in the middle of the night...this taking place in my more unstable days...and I grabbed her and shook her and yelled at her. I felt terrible immediately thereafter and apologized to her by loving her and holding her...but I was, in one brief and horrid moment, abusive to my little baby. Another time soon thereafter, I had just gotten fired from the worst job I had ever had in my life and called animal control to come to pick up my cats. The guy arrived in his animal murder vehicle...I had thought that the cats would go to a shelter and be adopted...but this was animal control, not the humane society. I looked at Cow and Slinky and realized that I would continue to support them and love them no matter how destitute I was...so I sent the murderer away and picked them up and loved them and kept them with me.
Slinky forgave me and loved me more and more every year.
I was so poor in those days, and since I didn't have the money to pay to have my cats spayed, both Cow and Slinky got pregnant at nearly the same time. Cow gave birth to five kittens. Slinky waited until I had returned from a trip to North Carolina and was studying for my exams for my M.A. While my friend Sara slept on my couch outside and my roommate Lisa slept in her room, Slinky came walking into my bedroom, hopped up on my lap and demanded affection. I noticed soon thereafter that a little tail was sticking out of her...a tail that wasn't her own. I called my friend Keith at 3 a.m. to ask him to come over, woke Sara and Lisa, and the four of us then witnessed Slinky give birth to two kittens. Sara kept one and named him Tigger (she gave him away shortly thereafter) and I kept the other...a black kitten with white socks on her paws and a white triangle on her nose on the side opposite Slinky's. For reasons unknown to me, I named this kitten Watermelon.
I moved to a farm just outside Watkinsville, Georgia in 1997 to begin my doctorate at the University of Georgia in Athens. Since Cow and Slinky and Watermelon had all borne the ignoble burden of being sequestered inside my small houses and apartments throughout my tenure in Atlanta, I allowed them to become free range kitties, thinking that they would enjoy the liberty of the outdoors. Cow and Watermelon adapted immediately to this openness, but little Slinky stayed near the house, never venturing far from the yard. Her conservatism aided her; Watermelon and Cow soon met their fates amidst the busy traffic of New High Shoals Road in Oconee County. I was then left with only Slinky. I later adopted a big gray cat that I named Murder who became Slinky's new companion. I have always believed that animals need company of their own kind and that it is cruel to give them only human companionship, since we humans tend to become absorbed in our lives and cannot give them all the attention and love they deserve. Murder and Slinky had a rocky start...a litany of hisses and spitting and fighting...but they eventually grew to love each other and to be mutually affectionate.
I always wanted to have little cats, and so I prayed that Slinky would be tiny. Tiny she was all throughout her life...weighing less than a bag of sugar. Throughout our relationship, Slinky transformed into the most wonderful of cats. When left alone for more than 15 seconds, Slinky would begin gathering a sort of magical cat sound charge...and if anyone touched her after those 15 seconds, she would make a little squeak. She only took 15 seconds to recharge, and my friends and I delighted in poking Slinky gently or touching her anywhere on her body again and again after the requisite waiting period to make her release that funny, sweet noise. Once reserved and offish, Slinky became the sweetest and most affectionate of cats, always jumping to sit near me or to stand on my chest while I was lying in bed to "make biscuits" on me, kneading me with her little paws. I devised stupid nickname after stupid nickname to refer to her in private in our own secret, affectionate way...Slinkage of Cat, Slornkage of Crobblefied Snotcher Kitticles...monikers that I dared never to disclose in the presence of any human being.
My wonderful lover Terry, with whom I have spent my life since 1997, has always referred to Slinky and Murder respectively as "Black Cat" and "Gray Cat." A dog person through and through, he often likened my cats to phone books. He said this only in jest, but over the years he did in truth develop a clandestine adoration for both of our kitties nonetheless. As our menageries melded when we began to cohabitate in 1998 with the introduction of my doggies Fido and Lucy and my kitties Slinky and Murder into the solitary life of his little puppy Biff, I did not expect Terry to overcome his disdain for felines, but he grew to love Slinky and Murder more and more over the years.
Sometime in the early fall of 2004, I went to pick up Slinky and noticed that she weighed considerably less, that her meow was higher pitched, and that she seemed afraid. I sensed that something was terribly wrong, and I was correct. I rushed Slinky to the 24 hour emergency care vet. She was diagnosed with hyperosmolar syndrome, a condition that stems from diabetes. The vet worked to stabilize her blood sugar and I took her home a week later. I was so afraid that Slinky was going to die...I cried and prayed and hoped for the best. The vet instructed me to put Slinky on two units of insulin twice daily...injected subcutaneously. Terry and I shared in the responsibility of assuring that Slinky never missed a dose. We spent oodles of money making certain that her diet was most beneficial to her condition and that she only ate Purina DM. With such ardent and loving care, I hoped for the best. The vet neglected to tell me that her condition would have to be checked periodically with something called a glucose curve.
In early February 2005, Slinky began exhibiting pronounced neurological difficulties. She began falling over and spent all her time lying on the bathroom floor behind the toilet. Since I had just had surgery and was incapable of moving, Terry rushed her again to the 24 hour vet. They stabilized her again after a two day stay. He brought her home, but I noted a faraway look in her eyes, an absence...like she had traveled to a place of sadness and pain. She began lying on the bathroom floor again, her little meow became a heartbreaking soprano cry, she could not walk more than a few steps without falling. I grabbed her in my arms and flew for a third time to the emergency care vet.
They worked for a week to stabilize her blood sugar and made little to no progress. On February 26th, I spoke with Dr. Simmons at Pets Are People Too and he told me that he could not understand why her blood sugar could not be regulated. He said that he needed to perform additional tests: taking x-rays and doing bloodwork. I consented to these tests, raising the cost of Slinky's care over the past seven months to three thousand dollars. Dr. Simmons called me later that day to tell me that Slinky's kidneys were failing, that her liver was twice its normal size, that her electrolytes were out of balance and that her blood sugar was still high. He said that this prognosis was not good and that Slinky would probably die if she were brought home.
Terry and I then made the heartbreaking decision to euthanize my little angel cat. Terry called me in tears to tell me that he had just dug Slinky's grave in our yard. He sobbed and I sobbed. I was at my cabin in the mountains...unable to bring myself back to Atlanta to witness her departure...so I called my wonderful friend Sara and asked her if she would accompany Terry to the animal hospital to be with him to support him in his pain.
Terry and Sara told me that Dr. Simmons reiterated that Slinky's chances at survival were slim. Terry said that he took Slinky and put her on the floor and let her walk around a bit. He saw the same faraway look in her eyes that I had noted when I sensed the beginning of the end of her life, he said that she wasn't our little kitty anymore. He and Sara then held her and loved her, and Dr. Simmons then administered the injection. My little Slinky went to sleep peacefully in Terry's arms and died.
Only four days have passed since Slinky died, and I have mourned and grieved for her uncontrollably ever since.
I am convulsing with sadness and crying and aching as I write this. I am not attempting to be literary in the least, because I am fully aware that I am incapable of capturing the wonder and the innocence that was the life of my companion animal of 14 years with my words. I only know that I am hurting without her, that I hate myself for not having had the courage to be with her as she died, that I hate the vet for not having done bloodwork and x-rays earlier in her illness so that her life might've been saved. I find death pointless. I want to kiss her goodbye and hold her little white paws, I want to hear her purring beside me on my bed once again, I want to stroke her little head and tell her I love her, but she is gone, sequestered for eternity inside a little box three feet under the ground underneath a holly tree at at our home in Georgia, with a little statuette of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, guarding over her slumber, her little nametag reading "My name is Slinky - I am diabetic" draped around his neck.
Little Slinky, I love you so much and I miss you more than I ever thought possible. Thank you for loving me and for sharing your life with me. I love you, little kitty. I hope that we will be reunited in heaven one day. I love you.
