Long Ago and Far Away...

Keep on the Sunny Side of Life

It is the middle of a frigid February night. Shadows are playing games on the vaulted beam ceiling of our living room. It is the sort of scene you would expect in a gothic horror movie. Everything is here but the thunder and lightning.

I am sitting on our leather sofa and talking to our dead cat.

Cleo had been with us for 17 years, which would put her age at about 18. You never know exactly with a rescue animal. You’re doing well if you can even get the birth year right.

I am telling her stories from the early days, speaking softly, as if somehow, she can still hear me.

I tell her how we came to be at that veterinary practice in Washington, DC. back in 2005. We were there because Barnum, our golden retriever, needed to have stitches removed. He got them in the first place because he had swallowed a whole tennis ball.

Naturally, Barnum had swallowed it on Columbus Day, so the animal hospital could charge special holiday rates. They showed us the x-ray of the ball. We could even see the label. So, they went in surgically at time-and-a-half. Today, the vet-tech was removing them, but at least it wasn’t on a holiday.  

Barbara had been thinking we needed a second cat, so that Jackson, our beloved tuxedo cat, could have company which he probably didn’t even want. He already had Barnum, the retriever, and Luke, our big black grizzly bear who would soon lose a leg to cancer.

That amputation only gave Luke one more year, but it was the best year of his life. He was the center of attention – and affection – in the park across from our house in Georgetown. Small children approached us to pet the amazing three-legged dog, and Luke just ate it up.

But I’m meandering. Which story am I telling now? Oh. Our second cat. The vet-tech is gingerly snipping Barnum’s sutures, and Barbara is saying she has heard it can be difficult to integrate a second cat into the animal pack.

“Not if you do it properly,” the vet-tech says, quickly adding, “Do you want another cat? We have one here who really needs a home.”

She explains that a kitten had been seen drinking rainwater flowing in a gutter in Washington’s DuPont Circle neighborhood, and a good Samaritan had brought her to the clinic. Normally clinics are not in the business of rescuing orphaned animals, but there was just something special about this one. She is plucky.

They treated her for ringworm and other maladies and put her in a cage, to keep her safely isolated while she recovered. At night, she could come out, and ride around on the shoulders of the cleaning crew. The staff built her an elaborate cardboard castle to climb on.

She was the princess of the practice.

The vet-tech took us back to see her. She couldn’t leave her cage, but they slipped me into a small room. She hissed at me, and I was in love. A few weeks later, when she was recovered, we put her in a carrier and took her home.

The kitten became Cleo. Our son named her after a literary group at his college. But within the family, she was always Cleo DuPont Basler, a nod to her beginnings.

She never properly bonded with Jackson, but they grudgingly tolerated each other. We remember her first Christmas with us, the two of them watching us decorate our tree, and then falling asleep together in a big box of ornaments.

(Cleo, in the early days, looking up to Jackson)

The years went by. We decided to retire to Santa Fe. Barnum and Luke were both just fond memories by then, but Jackson and Cleo and our two newer dogs had quite a time motoring by day and spending each night in a different motel as we moved west. They were great sports about it, and their reward was a nice adobe house in Santa Fe, to call their new  home.

We began fostering kittens for the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, and Jackson and Cleo grew grumpy. They wanted no part of these energetic vermin running around, so, our fosters got their own room, safely tucked away from disapproving grown-up cats.

When Jackson died on a New Year’s Eve, we adopted two of our foster kittens. Cleo remained grumpy, but with Jackson gone she was the Queen of  Most of the House.

In time, Cleo became the only survivor of the fabled Long Trek from Washington. After eight years in Santa Fe, we did yet another cross-country move, to Indianapolis. Cleo was now the only member of the pack to have lived with us in three different cities, if cats notice such things. Probably not.

I wish I could say Cleo mellowed in her old age, but she didn’t. Still, there was something comforting about knowing we shared a lot of history. Cleo had seen it all, and she had seen it with us.

In June 2022, Cleo was diagnosed with kidney disease, the same thing that had taken Jackson from us. It is the scourge of all cat guardians.

The bad news was we knew how this would end. The good news was that by upgrading her diet to a special prescription kidney formula, and by taking her in to be hydrated once a month, she could last awhile longer with no loss to her quality of life.

That brings me back to the February night where I began this tale, eight months after her kidney diagnosis. It is dinnertime, but there is no Cleo. We find her in a cozy club chair in the living room, completely still. We hold her dish of food up to her nose, but nothing. Not the twitch of a whisker. We both know it is over.

Cleo stays there all evening without moving, and at bedtime we leave some lights on. I can’t sleep, knowing what awaits us in the morning. I go to the garage and choose an Amazon carton which will work for taking her body to the vet.

There is nothing else I can do but remember. I hope Cleo cherished the good times, her grand, wild adventure that began when a tiny kitten, living rough, slurped rainwater in a DuPont Circle drain all those many years ago.

I tell her this story I’ve just shared with you, mostly to make myself feel a bit better.

When I finish talking, Cleo lifts her head, looks at me and meows, very loudly.

It is a meow that says she is annoyed at having slept through dinner, and that I need to do something about this travesty right away. She follows me to the kitchen, complaining nonstop, and finishes every morsel in her bowl. Then she goes back to her chair.

I don’t awaken Barbara. I just crawl back into bed, feeling beyond thankful.

At 6 a.m. on the dot, there is a sudden thud on the bed and a loud demand for breakfast, as usual. Barbara screams with surprise and delight, I tell her about the middle-of-the-night miracle, and we all have breakfast.

That was six months ago. Cleo DuPont Basler is back!

Right now, as I write these words, Cleo is asleep just inches away from me, basking in a carefully chosen sunbeam. When the sun moves, she will, too. Another busy day ahead.

(Cleo, today, in a sunbeam in our den)