Visiting Column #63 -- It Was Real, Tashi

Back in 2003, our old cat, Chester, passed away after contracting feline diabetes.  He had walked into our lives as a tiny kitten 14 years earlier, back when we lived in the hills on 13 acres of woods full of stray cats.  He had apparently separated from the rest of the litter, and saw our house as a refuge.

When he died, we had moved to the suburbs in Virginia, and had decided he mostly belonged to my mother-in-law, who lived with us at the time.  Because my wife was working at the time, my mother-in-law came with me when we took Chester to the vet that final time, received the diagnosis and the strong recommendation that he be allowed to go to sleep.  We went home without a cat but with many tears.

Tashi's first days with us

My wife and I decided that her mother would be better off with a new kitten, so we found a breeder of Himalayan kittens in the next state and arranged to meet him one Saturday.  We told my mother-in-law to relax at home, that we were going out for a while to "look at mattresses", and came back hours later to an angry old lady, wondering where we had been so long ... until I reached into my jacket and took out a furry little kitten that looked like a tiny koala.

We named her "Tashi", having looked up names in the Nepalese language, and Tashi meant something positive that I can't remember.  I do remember that we knew even then that Himalayan cats are not native to the Himalayan area at all, but are a fairly recent cross between Persian and Siamese cats, blending the furriness of the Persian with the points of the Siamese.

Seven months and loving carpets

Tashi attached herself to us quite well; we never allowed her out of the house, and she learned to get around both upstairs and down as she grew into later kittenhood and got bigger and stronger.  By six months her coloration had developed, to where the little koala nose was now the dark face and the ears, feet and tail had all filled in their coloration.  She didn't have the full furriness of later years yet, but a very thick and healthy coat, and she loved having it petted, as long as you were the right person.

 She almost didn't see those "later years", though.  At about three years old, she developed an indeterminate illness characterized by total lethargy and lack of appetite.  We brought her to the vet, and they tried various remedies and diagnostic tests -- the bill was about $3,000 when we were done -- and still couldn't figure it out.  Finally, he said that they would give her a steroid treatment and send her home. "If it's going to work, you'll know it in 24 hours," he told us.

It worked.  The steroids quickly cleared up whatever was wrong, and a day later she was up and around, healthy and happy and sleeping most of the time like a normal cat.  Of course, there had been the time she ate a twist tie and required an operation to remove it (we stopped using twist ties from then on).  But she was a part of us all that time, a furry, sleeping part of the family.

"Christmas Cat", 2014

Tashi was "Christmas Cat."  Each year, the first night after we would put the tree up, you'd wake up to find her sleeping on the tree skirt under the branches, or looking up from that position as if to say "You got a problem with this?".

That was every Christmas, right through the last one.  You know, it seems odd to feel how connected a cat can be to a family, especially since they really don't do tricks, they sleep a lot, and they decide what they will and won't do, as if they are actually the rulers of the home, which we all know that they are.  We content ourselves with their idiosyncrasies and love them for those consistencies.

Rooting for the Sox over Seattle, 2011

She didn't work for a living, but she did have a knack for finding the nearest laptop keyboard, and God forbid you leave a computer unattended for very long.  You would be very likely to return to work only to find a large furball with a head, sitting on the keys and looking back at you, and wondering what you thought you were doing disturbing her like that.

It didn't have to be work, either.  For a few years, in the evenings I would put the Red Sox games on the laptop while my best girl and I watched TV, and while most of the time Tashi lay on her lap, occasionally she'd waltz over to my side of the couch and plunk herself down on the keyboard.  I'm not kidding, of course, as you can see by the picture at left.

Enjoying her couch bed in January

Tashi turned 17 last Fall, and had slowed her pace down tremendously in her old age, with an arthritic back controlled by glucosamine.  She found fairly reliable places to sleep, although she could still climb up on the couch as needed, including the one we'd normally find her in when we woke up.  

We bought her a bed and put it on the couch.  She typically hated beds, but this one seemed to comfort her more than the others, and she curled up frequently in feline bliss (right), having outlived the typical age for the Himalayan breed by a couple years already.

About a month ago, we started waking to find that Tashi had eaten nothing, or almost nothing, overnight, when she typically ate.  We changed up on the type, shape and flavor of the food, but it was pretty clear that she was no longer interested in eating, and was drinking less than usual.  You know what that means, but you don't want to let yourself think it, and you just can't talk about it.

We moved her water bowl (which she lapped at occasionally), her food (which she didn't touch) and her litter box (which she used as always) all into the sunroom that she now stayed in, laying on the floor.  In the last week, God was so kind; He gave Tashi plenty of sunny days to where she could move herself into the area of the floor where the sun was shining to warm herself.

Other parents might have chosen to bring her to a vet, but this was the seaside Carolina shore home we had brought her to four years ago, and as it didn't appear that she was in real pain as Chester had been, we felt like she should be allowed to go on her own terms, enjoying the sun that God was giving her in her last few days.  Despite her limited mobility, she was still able to use the litter box, still able to sip a little water, and lay in the sun the rest of the time.

Our beloved kitten went to go warm the laps of the angels last Saturday, the 13th.  We buried her earthly remains in the back yard, under a marker that is a sleeping cat with angel wings, and we no longer will have a pet, we have both decided.  While there is no longer cat fur to vacuum up and litter boxes to empty, no food and water bowls to clean and fill, we would gladly trade all the care for a few more years with Tashi.  

But she had loving parents who cared for her her entire life.  She outlived all the targets and as we say, in the world of cat lives, she "won the battle."  

I'm so glad it was we who got to serve her, "La Reina Gattita" as a former cleaning lady called her.   

In coelo quies est.

Copyright 2021 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton