Biography of a Queen

I was chatting with a neighbor out by the barn one May afternoon, at our second home in central Kansas. A plain brown tabby cat strolled out of the tall grass and sat down to listen. Our neighbor, who raises cattle across the road, stooped down, scooped up the cat, and stroked and scruffed it in a friendly way. One of his farm cats, I thought. His wife is allergic, so they aren’t allowed in the house. We finished our conversation, he set the cat down and left. I spoke to the cat and petted it, it was courteous, and I went inside.

            She spent every day in our yard, while our indoor cats glared from the windows. The day we left to go back to Chicago, she (I had discreetly determined she was a lady) was reclining in the driveway. I picked her up, set her on a fencepost out of the way, wished her well, and we left her there.

            In early July, we returned. When I stepped out of the truck, she met me at the gate. She greeted us happily, tail in the air, and we warmly welcomed her. When we fed the others, we brought her a serving too, which she seemed to appreciate. She was healthy, thickly pelted in stripes and brindles, with a perfectly calm manner. She purred, and spent the afternoon in the shade on the patio.

            The next morning, I went out to find she had brought us a turkey. Wild turkeys troop through our property frequently, and she had apparently raided a nest. She left the dead chick on our doorstep. What could I do but thank her? (And bury the dead bird.)

            It hit 104 degrees that week. She lay on the patio cement, panting under the trumpet vine. I asked her, “Would you like to come inside? To cool off?” She stood up, strolled inside and stretched out on the cool kitchen floor. We called her Pawnee (after the indigenous tribe from central Kansas), and that was that. She stayed.

            She could have been anywhere from 2 to 5 years old. We will never know where she came from.

            Perfect in courtesy. Perfect in habits. Never hurried, never flustered. Quiet, polite, obeying all household conventions as though she had decreed them herself. She treated the other cats as though they didn’t exist; they shrugged and said, “Oh. Another one. Whatever.” We let her continue to roam outside – after all, this was her territory. Kansas Pawnee. When I wandered around our acreage, taking photographs, she would amble along beside me. She inspected the foundations of the outbuildings, examined the upper regions of the granary. She showed me the blooming jasmine. She was never far away. We could just call from the door: “Pawneeeee! Kitty kitty kitty!” and here she came, strolling casually through the short dry buffalograss, sometimes giving a short chirp of greeting. Back in Chicago, she reclined on the back deck, never left the confines of our suburban fenced yard. Sometimes lurking beneath the sprawling mugo pine, napping under the junipers, and then returning inside at will or our call. She was the world’s best cat.

            Because we continued to let her go outside, I took her to the local Kansas vet for vaccinations. The usual rabies and combination FELVP shot was given on a Monday. On Friday she wouldn’t eat. She lay all day on the sun porch and barely moved. We drove back to Chicago on Saturday; she dozed in her crate the whole way. She still wouldn’t eat on Sunday, and let me take her temperature: 104.5. I took her to the emergency clinic, where she got fluids, blood work, and an antibiotic. I asked the vet if it could be the vaccine – he said no, not that many days later. On Tuesday, I took her to our regular vet, and the first thing she said was: “I think it’s a vaccine reaction.” More fluids and added steroids for inflammation. I discovered, from the manufacturer’s website, that this particular vaccine can cause high fever, lethargy, and inappetence in about 1% of cats, starting 5-10 days after the vaccine. Lucky us, the 1%. It was a long month. Fever up and down, days of hospitalization with intravenous fluids, coaxing with food, and boatloads of steroids. At last, at last, she recovered. We never vaccinated her again.

            A few years later, she slowed down. She rarely went outside. Her appetite was dicey. And she started bumping into things. We did bloodwork – liver, kidneys, blood pressure all fine, a mild heart murmur. It was a mystery. Finally, we tested for fungal infection. “I don’t think it’ll be positive, but there’s nothing else to check,” said my vet. And both the blood and urine samples came back positive for histoplasmosis. It lives in the soil, especially around poultry and birds. Our Kansas barn housed owls, and who knows what other earthy places she might have explored. The ophthalmologist confirmed: she was completely blind, and fungal lesions were visible in her eyes. A local pharmacy compounded the hideous-tasting antifungal medication into a tuna-flavored syrup, and we squirted it into her twice a day for 6 months. It made her nauseated, so we were back to subcutaneous fluids, anti-nausea meds, baby food, homemade food, turkey breast… and a little tiny bit of steroid to keep her going. Her vision was gone for good, but – as cats do – she mapped out the house, the furniture, the litter boxes, the water dishes, and carried on. Her free-range days were over. Six months later, she tested clear. But she would never be the same.

            She might be 12, she might be 15. She weighs half what she used to. She limps. Her kidneys have failed. She wobbles from bed to bed, still manages to clamber into the litter box in the hallway (she misses sometimes, but so what). I never know if or what she will eat. Mostly nothing. She gets fluids, vitamins, and anti-nausea meds every other day by needle, and an appetite stimulant cream rubbed into her ear the other days. She is matted – she no longer cleans herself at all, and won’t permit me to. It hurts when I comb her and she protests. She wanders and gets lost in the house. She hardly sleeps, just crouches in her bed. She has no strength. She clings to her dignity, but it is ebbing away. It’s time. It’s time.

            Pawnee, Pawnee, Kansas Pawnee. Queen of our hearts, of our home, of two states. Always perfect, always regal, always courteous, always kind. Everyone thinks they have The Best Cat Ever. But they are wrong. We have.

            We will lay her to rest near the irises in Kansas, with Mrs. Chippy and Phoebe and Basil nearby, where I can sit on the porch with a glass of wine and thank her for enriching us, for loving us, for trusting us, for choosing us.

“They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave need have no fear. The largest and the noblest faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life, the needs and duties of each hour, their grief will lessen day by day until at last these graves will be to them a place of rest and peace, almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer.” – Robert Ingersoll