Mia

Our cat, Cremesickle, disappeared one November. He was a big orange tabby and he was mine. Or was I his? He followed me around like a young child. We would converse, he would listen to what I said, then voice his comments in a mellow meow. Cremesickle, would sit with me while I watched TV, or if I lay on the couch he would stretch out on my stomach, reaching from my chin to my thighs. He was a good and mellow cat allowing Chanz at three to carry him all over the house, of course, she could only lift the front half of him, the bottom half would tip toe along side her. He had been with us over ten years when we let him out one night and never saw him again. I checked all the animal shelters around, put up signs, but we never saw him again. I would find myself crying at seeing a cat cross the road. I would wake from sleep to look out the window, sure I had heard him meowing to be let in. One night I dreamed I heard him meowing outside the window, in the dream, I got out of bed pulled the curtain aside as saw him standing on the bench, patting at the window to be let in. It took a long time for me to mourn Cremesickle.

It took a couple of years then Ray and I talked about getting a dog, a small dog that we could keep easily in our single wide manufactured home. I went back to the same shelters I searched for Cremesickle, this time looking for a small dog. After visiting a few different times I wandered into the cat section. As I walked by one cage the cat inside reached out and tapped me on my shoulder. It was a young Chocolate Point Siamese. She was just what I was looking for, but didn’t know it.

She arrived at our house on March 11th, Ray’s birthday. I wanted a cat for me, but from the moment she saw Ray, she was his cat. He chose her name, after looking up the history of cats on the internet, he decided to call her Mia.

Oh sure, she would come sit on my lap while I watch TV, join me while I work on the computer, usually on the desk directly in front of the monitor, or on my hands while I am trying to type on the keyboard. I would pick her up and put her on the back of the chair where she would watch to see if anything interesting happen on the monitor, then she would hop down for a closer inspection. When I crocheted she would gaze intently at the yarn to make sure I was crocheting the afghan correctly; industrially patting the yarn to be sure it was unwinding at the proper speed, sometimes grabbing the yarn with her teeth and taking it across the room if she felt it needed to be stretched out. Chanz and I spent one day cutting material for her costume for a play. Mia, of course, did her best to help, laying on the material and pattern as we cut around her. After I lugged the sewing machine onto the kitchen table she would gaze at the fabric as it emerged from the needle and presser foot, occasionally patting it to assure herself my seams were straight. When I called her she would look at me with the look that spoke volumes. “Me? You want me to come to you? No, you come to me.”

Mia was Ray’s cat. She would follow him around as he was weeding the garden, occasionally pawing at the dirt as he turned the soil. Safely supervising from the porch or picnic table Mia watched as mowed he the lawn, not really scared of the lawn mower, but smart enough to stay out of the way. She knew when it was best just to let the man do his job. They would play cat n’ mouse, Ray’s fingers emerging from the chair in which he was sitting, she would catch his fingers, then paw back into the hole in which the hand disappeared.
Ray would talk to her like a girlfriend, calling to her, she would answer, but her voice was so quiet he could rarely hear her soft meow. He would wander the house looking in the corners, under the tables, in cupboards, searching for her. She would watch him from her position on top of the entertainment center, meowing each time he called her name so softly he couldn‘t hear her. It was her form of hide and seek.

She watched him from a safe distance as he washed his car, staying well away from the spraying water, if the water sprinkled her she would walk a few feet further back and sit down and continue watching. When Ray cooked dinner she would sit on the counter, carefully observing the preparation and cooking of the food, hoping she would get a taste. She usually did. If she wanted a cuddle she would go to Ray. Rubbing her belly he would tell her she was getting fat. She would wrap her paws around his hand and take a quick nip as if to tell him, ‘Don’t tell me I’m getting fat’.

Mia was Ray’s cat, she would come when he whistled, amazing the neighbors.

When Mia was hungry she would sit on her food rug and patiently wait for her food, she would only eat Meow Mix. If we were not prompt in feeding her she would lean down and closely examine the bowl, to be sure she would know the exact moment when the food would magically appear. She would keep that stance until one of us would pick up the bowl, empty the remainder of last nights dinner into the trash and fill it with fresh Meow Mix. She would join us at the table either sitting to my right on the table or on the chair, our preference, not hers. She would delicately accept small pieces of bacon, ham and chicken Ray and I fed her at dinner time while we ate, but only to be sociable .

It took us a while to figure out her bathroom routine. We first put her litter box at the far end of the house. That was unacceptable and Mia soon let us know that her preferred bathroom was the one off the master bedroom. Ray put her kitty box in the master bathroom, tucked in the corner behind the toilet. She forgo the use of it to pee in, choosing to pee on the floor under the toilet paper roll, then unrolling the toilet paper onto the mess and neatly gathering it into a nice pile for us to pick up. She now has a Poop box filled with kitty litter and a Pee Box filled with toilet paper.

When I went to work, I could expect to find Mia sitting on the table by the front door waiting for me to return. Ray stated “With all the cars that go by she only perks up when she hears your car pull into the parking spot, then she makes a dash for the door.” I would notice the same behavior when Ray left and I was home with her. As soon as he walked up the porch, and opened the door she was there to greet him.

We thought everything Mia did was cute and took pictures of her like a grandchild.

‘Oh, look, she’s playing with yarn, take a picture.’ ‘Honey look at Mia sitting on the plant, looking out the window, take a picture.’ Her first snow, hiding on top of the cupboard, relaxing on top of the swing, we took pictures of almost everything she did. We have files of pictures of Mia on my computer, so many pictures my daughter, Shea, commented, “You have more pictures of your cat then you do your grandchildren.”

Mia did not like company, whether it was one of my family members from out of state who occasionally would stop for an overnight visit or Shea, Chanz and Chaiz who stopped by to spend time with us. There wasn’t anything we could really put our finger on that let us know why she didn’t like adult company, we just knew. With Chaiz, from the time he first came home from the hospital she resented him. One night while I was watching him, as a newborn, she came over, sniffed him, then proceeded to try to bury him, as she would do to something nasty in her litter box. Her opinion of him didn’t improve as he got older, to keep her safe or at least untraumatized we would put her in the bedroom and close the door, which worked until Chaiz was being potty trained and his potty of choice was Bum-ma and Bump-pa’s potty. Mia resented the imposition.

When Ray and I left town whether to go on vacation or camping we left Mia home. She did not like to be left alone. Having Chanz or Shea come over to feed and pet her just was not good enough as far as she was concerned. We left her free to roam the house until she started peeing in the living room as a display of protest at being left home alone while we went gallivanting around. She was then confined to the bedroom and bath, when we left the next time. The corner next to the bathroom door was her protest spot. From then on when we left she was confined to the bathroom, with the window open so she could watch the world outside. We heard her yowling at us under the bathroom door as soon as we opened the door. Our first order of business was to let her out of the bathroom, pick her up and give her lovings. She ate that up until we put her down to unpack “Yoew, yoew, yoew, yoew, yoew” she would exclaim as she walked back and forth with us as we unloaded the car and trailer. She would comment loudly the entire time about what happened while we were gone, asking why we had abandoned her and why in the world we thought whoever we got to stop by and feed her could be trusted to do such an important job.

We went to South Dakota to visit our son and his family and my parents the first part of July, when we got back, we noticed that Mia was thinner and she was refusing to eat her Meow Mix. She would still eat little bits we feed her from the table, but just to be sociable as before. So we thought perhaps we should try a different type of cat food. We tried a couple another brands as well as various canned foods. She didn’t like salmon or beef. She would accept cubed chicken eating a small bit, but enjoying the gravy. Then she quit eating that. I took her to the vets last Saturday, she weighed 4.8 lbs a full pound less than what she weighed when we first brought her home 4 years ago. We are sure that she had weighed at least 6 lbs before she quit eating.

During this last week Ray noticed that she was getting weaker, observing that she would not stop at her food rug to even sniff at the food. Hiding in dark and unusual places, places she had never hidden before. Previously Mia sit for a brief time Ray’s lap and then up looking for another adventure, now she spent most of her time cuddling on his lap. Only getting up when he set her aside because he needed to move. “Honey, we’re losing her.” were the words he stated when I came home from work on Wednesday.




Mia passed away about midnight. This morning Ray cried as he made our breakfast, Mia was not there to supervise the preparation of the meal. Ray called me to breakfast, as I came in, I looked at the table and realized Mia would not be sitting in her normal place on my right, politely waiting for her piece of bacon. We cried again in each others arms,