Roi

Sometime in early 2000 I took our cat, Jersey, to the vet for a check-up. When I was leaving I saw several very young kittens in a cage with a sign that basically said if nobody adopted them they would be sent away to be killed. So I took one of them. She was very tiny, and her hair stuck straight out, making her look something like a punk rocker.

I named her Roi, an acknowledgement of my love for singer Roy Harper, with the i serving to acknowledge that she was a she. The kids--who were 10, 8, and 5 at the time--were smitten with her. And she was amazingly cute in the way that only kittens can be. Jersey wasn't so smitten, and we had to keep them in separate parts of the house for a week or so, but they ended up becoming very close.

Jacqueline began to call her Roister, which (1) was pretty darned cute and (2) was an apt term for this rather wild kitty (secondary definition of roister: to revel noisily or without restraint [dictionary.com]). And she was most certainly Jacqueline's main kitty for many years.

But Roi'd been showing signs of her age of late. In fact, when  I took her to the vet because I feared she had a bladder infection, the receptionist, upon hearing that Roi was 17 years old and having some continence problems, immediately sent us to the Death Room to await the vet, who entered with a solemn expression and talked about putting Roi down. I was more than a bit taken aback. I also stopped seeing that vet after Roi and I left.

But there was no doubt that her days were numbered. And this morning when it was time for breakfast, Jet appeared as usual, but Roi didn't. I knew immediately, of course. She had never failed to appear at the first sign of breakfast. So I put it off as long as I could, then went down to the basement and found her, stiff and cold.

I'm not a person who bonds deeply with pets. I don't refer to them as my children, I don't talk baby talk to them, I don't make them wear sweaters or holiday costumes. I don't even buy special treats. I feed them good healthy food, I play with them, I pet them, I clean up after them. But they're just animals.

Still, 17 years is a long time. When I got Roi from that vet's office, I had just recently been divorced from my first wife. Roi was with me through the beginning, middle, and end of my second marriage, and several other minor relationships after that as well. 

And that does mean something, doesn't it.

So I couldn't  put her body into a plastic bag for the trash men. And I didn't want to just take her to an animal crematorium. I didn't want somebody else to "do the dirty work," for one thing, because this was personal. And so I did something I've never done before. I dug a grave. And I took Roister's favorite pillow and took out the stuffing and put her body inside of it, then Jacqueline and I stood by her grave and said good-bye to her. Jacqueline didn't seem very affected by it all. She did say, "Roister's in Kitty Heaven now." But I know my girl. Her emotions run in deep, fast, underground currents, and her sorrow will be fierce. Already is, really.

And me . . . I have the same feelings that I had after Jersey and Frances died. I wish that I had spent more time with her. I also wish I hadn't gotten mad at her for making messes. I'm glad that when she peed on the floor last night (where she was lying on a rug) that I didn't get angry with her, that I just cleaned up and didn't freak out. And I do and will miss her.

I hope she's having fun with Jersey in Kitty Heaven.