8 1/2 years ago, my family and I were on an all-church camp out. I got up early and went outside of the shelter where we were staying and started reading a new book I had just purchased. No one else in our group was awake, so I was about to cherish some seriously needed quiet time. Within about 5 minutes of getting settled in my chair with my book and a cup of coffee, a little black cat emerged from the woods. I thought she was wild, so I sat quietly to see what she would do. It turned out she was used to people. She proved it when she jumped into the camp chair next to me, then proceed to climb gently onto my shoulder, then crawled down my chest to settle in my lap - on top of my book. She purred loudly and didn't seem to mind when I shifted the book out from under her so she could rest on my lap. She stayed there that morning until my daughter Anna, who was 8 or 9 years old at the time, woke up and saw her. The rest of the weekend, the poor cat was dragged all over that camp ground and handled by every small child associated with our church.
One of the ladies from the church wanted to take her to a vet to see if she was healthy. I though that meant that the lady would take the cat home with HER. It turned out that the lady brought the cat to our house, told us about the trip to the vet, gave us a bag of food and cat litter and left the cat with us. She was ours, or we were hers - however that works. For the record, she would always be Anna's cat. So, we had to come up with a name. The kids running around with Anna told her at the camp to call the cat "Pancake" because she liked to eat them. Somebody else mentioned that she looked very elegant and suggested the name Cleopatra. I suggested the old standards from my childhood: "Jackson" and "Buttermilk" which were received with boos and hisses. Somewhere in there we got the idea for the Egyptian queen's possible nickname - "Cleo" - and the rest was history.
Cleo was never a big cat. She was also very quiet. That was something special to me. Our old cat, Columbus, would meow all the time - to the point of being obnoxious. He was an outdoor cat, which made having an indoor cat more feasible at the time. They once got within a few feet of each other and it was funny to see little Cleo trying to advance on the old guy. To avoid the conflict or prevent the possibility of showing the younger cat who was the boss, Columbus fled back outside. That was something else about Cleo, the cat was fearless. She loved to walk under our feet - literally. I can't count how many times she got under me and I stepped on her. It didn't help she was all black. I would walk through the house and not see her. She would growl in pain to which I would respond "get out of my way, silly." 5 minutes later she would do the same thing again.
Once, when my mom's dog, Molly, came to Conroe, Cleo wanted to make an impression. Naturally, Molly was anxious after the car ride and then arriving at a new place. Molly knew who I was, so she followed me everywhere - including into our house. When Molly walked in the door from our garage, Cleo made eye contact. Cleo flew across the kitchen floor and dove at Molly, landed on Molly's left front shoulder and latched on. Molly could do nothing but retreat and wound up in a corner and just laid down. I had to pry the cat off and even took a few swats at Molly as I pulled her away. Consequently, Molly will not walk into our garage on her own out of fear of the dreaded Cleo. They were forced to share the garage when it was cold earlier this year. Molly chose to sleep as far away from Cleo as possible. Our dog, Otis, would not cross Cleo for anything, either. Once, she sat in the doorway from our living room to the kitchen. It seemed innocent enough, but when we called Otis to take him outside, he would not try to go past Cleo - until I moved her out of the way. When I did, she acted as if it was nothing. Crazy cat!
In addition to being fearless, Cleo was a little off. We got her fixed not too long after she officially became "ours." We dropped her off at the place early in the morning and were told to pick her up late that evening. When we arrived, the staff pulled us aside to tell us that there was a complication. Somehow one of Cleo's ovaries had fused with her spleen. They had never seen it before. They were able to complete the operation, but they explained that they had to leave a small portion of the ovary behind to avoid damage to the spleen. "The only side-affect might be heat-like symptoms without being in heat." He was right. Every so often, she'd come in to get petted and would position herself so the "petter" was petting her hind quarters. It was weird, but then again, that was Cleo.
Anna taught Cleo to sit. I have to tell that part. Anna would show Cleo a treat and taught her to sit like one of our dogs. I think she may have a picture of it somewhere. If she does, I'll attach it to this post. But, she did it - better than either of our dogs - and only for Anna.
I think she also had some kind of kitty-kat OCD or something. I have never in my life seen a cat groom themselves like she did. She would groom herself until she would shed. She scratched and caused scabs to form all over her neck and head. She also barfed up more hairballs, for a shorthair, than anything I had ever seen before - seriously! I was afraid to let her go outside because she was still smaller than other cats her age. I was also afraid she might get run over. But, the grooming thing got out of control, so we had no choice. It turns out that was possibly the best and worst thing we could do for her. She loved roaming around our garage. She spent days in there before she ever discovered the outside world. Once she found it, the skin condition seemed to subside. She still groomed herself like crazy, but we didn't see near the number of hairballs we would see before. She loved being outdoors.
She also was still fearless and didn't like having to move when we pulled into the garage with one of our cars. After a few close calls, one evening the odds caught up with her and she got rolled under one of the tires. We rushed her to the local emergency pet clinic. In spite of some bruising and sore spots to the touch, she had no broken bones. That's when I think she finally got it about cars. After that, when we turned into the driveway, she ran away from cars first and would come back to see who was in the car.
It was good she finally learned to get out of the way of cars. But, she never got the memo about feet. That must have been her shtick - if cats can even have them. No matter how many times her tail or foot was stepped on, she would come right back for more. There were times that I would step on her and be so frustrated that I would push her away. She would slide across the floor only to come right back, as if to say "hey, what did you do that for?"
You may have noticed that I have been writing about Cleo in the past tense. I'm doing that because we had to say goodbye to her today. Cleo had a run-in with one of our neighbor's dogs. I wasn't there (which was probably a good thing), but I'm sure she put up a valiant fight. Unfortunately, the bigger dog was too much for her. We gathered her up and took her to the same local clinic where we took her after the run-in with the car. The doctor confirmed she suffered numerous, serious injuries. Treatment would be expensive and recovery was not a sure thing by any means. After some discussion with the doctor, we decided we had to say goodbye to our little friend.
In the minutes before the appointed time, we took turns saying little prayers for her. It wouldn't have been bearable if she was in serious pain. But, just like her fearless self, Cleo wasn't scared. I like to think God answers prayers for animals just like anything else. As the song says "His eye is on the sparrow..." I think He looks out for little, quirky cats like Cleo, too - even in circumstances like these. Surrounded by the only family Cleo ever knew, she continued purring until she went to sleep.
I tear up as I write about this. For all the times she tripped me up and I fussed at her, she would just get close and rub up on my leg, as if to say "this is all I really wanted." I'm really going to miss that, as well as the other quirky things she would do.
We buried her in our little cemetery we have in our back yard. When Anna was younger, every squirrel or bird that died in our yard "had to be buried" in our yard. I tried to explain to her then that they were not our pets. She wouldn't hear it. There must be a half a dozen squirrels and 3 or 4 birds out there in different places. (I hope the dogs didn't dig them up, for Anna's sake.) I'm sure Molly and Otis will have their place in the yard at some point. For the record, our old cat Columbus, shares the tree we buried Cleo under. Though Cleo never really ventured in our back yard, I'm sure she'd have liked the place.
It's crazy that an animal can carve out such a unique and sensitive place in a person's heart. Cleo did it to me from the time she walked out of the woods and into my lap.
(PS. The neighbor was upset about her dog attacking Cleo and compensated us for our loss. We had never officially met before tonight and may have gained a friend along the way.)
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