Blessed Kateri

 

So today is a tough day in a tough year.  We are going to have to say goodbye to a very special part of the family, our pet cat Kateri.  She was and will remain a part of our hearts.  Like Nutty, our first pet together, Kateri has been a live action partner through quite a lot of challenges.

So where to begin?  Well, lets start with her name, Kateri, for Kateri Tekakwitha, the fairly recently canonized patron saint of the environment and ecology, the first canonized native person for the continent we call North America.  Our Kateri was born in a litter of kittens in July 2004 to a family of devout Roman Catholics that had befriended Jackie while I was away on my first deployment to Iraq, the Hamachers.  Belen and Paul were wonderful people, with Paul finishing out his service in the Air Force by commanding the AF ROTC detachment at the then named University of Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T).  They had purchased and rented a small farm north of town given their rather large family, making space for a few pets in the barn or garage was normal.

The Hamacher children named the kittens for Catholic saints or blesseds that were commemorated around the date of their arrival.  Kateri (so named because the feast day of the, then, Blessed Kateri was July 14th) along with her long haired tabby colored brothers and sisters needed new homes.   Having returned recently from Iraq after a 14 month tour, Jackie and Nutty were very intent on having another feline partner in the mix.   So after a visit out to their home for breakfast, and after observing the rambunctiousness of the tree climbing longhairs, we were smitten, and Kateri was on her way home with us.

Kateri from the outset, was what I would call a “troublemaker”.   You see our other cat, Chestnut, Nutty as we called her, was the alpha of the two, but Kateri was not about to let that get in the way of her “counting coups” nearly any time Nutty went by.  And I mentioned that amazing tree climbing ability (Christmas or otherwise), well one weekend, not long after we had gotten Kateri, she escaped out the front door on Jackie and decided to run up a nearby tree at the edge of the woods near the duplex we rented in Rolla.  The problem was I was, of course, at Army Reserve drill some 45 minutes away at Fort Leonard Wood, and I didn’t have an extension ladder at the time.  So after rushing back home, renting a ladder in a pinch on a Saturday afternoon, I rescued our small, shivering and scared, Kateri kitten from her own treetop prison.

Kateri, as I said came to us in 2004, and at the end of that year, I defended my thesis and graduated with a MSCE from Rolla; we were then on the move.  This was our first civilian move, I now being in the Army reserve, but my job was taking us from Rolla, MO to northern Virginia, just outside Washington, DC.  The cross country trip was a two day drive affair, and we opted to split up, with myself and Nutty in the advanced party and Jackie and Kateri in the trail party.  I flew out to Saint Louis to help with the second drive east.  Unlike Nutty who was not a great traveler, we soon learned here that Kateri was the one that could always roll with the punches.  We also had it reinforced that if there was the possibly the most uncomfortable position to lay down or otherwise find herself, she did so.  This often included the upper area above the trunk in the Dodge Stratus that Jackie was driving at this time, or flopped over the  center console that made getting a cup into the cup holder a challenge.

For the first year in Virginia, we lived in a nice single story “rambler” (aka ranch) home in a nice wooded neighborhood that had a full size tennis court in the backyard and a really nice wood fireplace sunroom/family room that Kateri and Nutty made their own, but Kateri was especially grateful for the bookcase she was able to crawl into an nestle into, and the backyard full of leaves and branches that would inevitably be stuck to her tail.  She also more than proved her worth with her keen mousing, which Jackie and I greatly appreciated a couple time through the years.  Sadly, we couldn’t buy the house we were renting, so we found a nearby townhouse and a year later figured out a way to get all of our stuff and the two cats into it.  Before we moved our stuff in though, we took the cats over and let them get in their first prowl.  Nutty, being prim and proper, checked out the rooms and so forth, but Kateri, she headed straight for the basement, and figured out how to cover herself in cobwebs.  That also was Kateri, her long hair meant, to her at least, it was purposely for capturing whatever debris it could.  With the hope to be able to display the most disheveled appearance possible.  Inside or outside, she would constantly pick up leaves or cardboard flakes (from some scratching device or another), or some other foreign object.

So, grooming a long haired cat is a task that is not to be taken lightly.  And it was a constant necessity.  Kateri, however, was simply not a fan of the process.  Jackie and I would be able to get in like 3 strokes of a comb or other grooming device before we would incur her wrath.  In the summer, Missouri’s and Virginia’s being warm, would often result in her fur getting matted and creating hot spots that, if not removed, would cause her real pain.  But getting them out, now that was a battle.  We eventually took to doing a summer shave, “lion cut”, to help her wade through.  Invariably, out on the patio, the day we would do this, it was a scene of fur and screeching and scrapes (mainly on Jackie and I) and a cat transformed.  A few times we were able to get a local groomer to take the mantle of this effort, and I think Kateri and us both agreed that was the better way out.

Kateri, as I indicated, was a flopper, almost anywhere and any way, but she also loved to curl up like a ball, and lay on top of Jackie.  At night, especially in winter, if Kateri wasn’t in her “Tuft” cat bed, she was laying out on top of Jackie.  Nutty would like to lay on my chest or next to us, but Kateri had claimed Jackie as her own and best bed spot.  Given her name and this clear preference for Jackie, I’d tease her as being the “Catholic cat” to Nutty as the “Lutheran cat”.  And there was a bit to all this as Kateri with her grooming needs, could certainly pour on the “Catholic guilt.”  The only other place you can always find a cat, and Kateri was no exception, is in an open cardboard box.  So much so that its probably no surprise that her second favorite spot was in one of our paper recycling boxes or what ever new package arrival was left for her to climb into.

Holidays, when we were living in Virginia were nearly always a drive back to the Syracuse/Auburn area in NYS where our families were located.  Most years we would opt to take the cats with us.  When we were in Syracuse, they were more or less confined to the second floor at my parent’s place.  But when we got to Auburn, on account of Jackie’s mom’s small apartment, the cats became guests of the Elster’s, often for almost a week.  Nutty always the less adventuresome, stayed to the main house, but Kateri, nope that wasn’t enough. One time she had to crawl through the the utter bowels of the basement, covering herself in cobwebs and lint and whatever else she could find.  And despite being allergic to cats, Dale Elster, our brother-in-law, became enamored with Kateri and the two were often best buds each year.  Sadly, after Christmas in 2013 (a year we didn’t take the cats with us), we came home to see that Nutty had a respiratory issue which led to us having to put her down in early 2014 (for more, see Tribute to Nutty here:  http://backusec.blogspot.com/2014/01/tribute-to-nutty.html).  So Kateri, who always had Nutty as the leader, was now running solo.  By now she had grown into her “go with the flow” existence and being the alpha cat just wasn’t her bag.  But she did her best to cuddle into laps like Nutty did and be our prime home comforter.  Later that year, a fateful decision made, we were on our way to northern New York State, and Kateri was moving (returning if there is karma involved) to the land of her namesake’s people.

Now Missouri and the DC area have some snow on occasion and sometimes its heavy, but here in the north country of NYS, where there are more cows and deer than people, Canada is a mere hop, skip and jump away, and ice hockey is THE sport, umm, snow, its like here.  And not to subtlety help us in remembering this fact, as we were returning to our mutual alma mater’s at Clarkson University, the first winter back was a return to the bitter snowy cold we experienced back the 1990s (climate change had been inching the thermometers up for some time, to the point that ticks and lime disease, never seen in my youth this far north on account of the historic cold winters, are a serious issue).  Kateri features in as, undeterred, and by now a bit heavier on account of her age and taking full advantage of self feeding, jumped out to experience the winter snows fully.  She was so insistent on going out onto our patio area around the backyard pool, that in the winter I would shovel a “run” for her to be able to get out and about.  She really thought about being a permanent outdoor cat, but the aforementioned ticks and her age, well, it wasn’t going to happen, even when an unexpected guest arrived.

Pepper, a new kitten who joined the family in the summer of 2015, was Kateri’s next challenge.  Kateri, never taking the alpha position, was just not happy having Pepper around and growled in her general direction any chance she could.  After all she had ruled the roost for a year or so and here was the young whipper snapper that was in her space.  With the help of some felaway feline scent treatments, eventually Kateri was able to cope.  Wrestling matches still ensued from time to time, but the whole big house, big yard world gave Kateri enough space to get away as she needed to.  That, and by now, her flopping was often on top of the toad stool just inside the living room window or on the shelf in the bedroom where she could bask in the sun, her favorite pastime.  Life was good, summers by the pool, winter romps in the snow, sleeping on Jackie at night and sun bathing by day.

And that brings us to the last couple years, age had begun to show.  Nutty lived from 2001 to January 2014, 13 great years.  This past July, Kateri went over 16 years old.  As age took her, things began to show.  First, it was a lot of fussiness over the litter box and occasional over sprays or urination on the tray we put in place around the box for such problems.  Bespeaking her joints didn’t quite want to crawl over the ever shallower litter box edge anymore, we started a regimen of antinol pills at dinner.  It was also fussiness about food, and weight loss.  We changed diet, went back to self feeding (to which Pepper has taken advantage and needs to trim up a bit), and other strategies to get her back her mo-jo.  Then the vomiting began, something we attributed to her love of eating grass in the summer as she went out (and of the cat grass we would provide in pots in the winter for her), but it became more chronic and with or without grass eating involved.  And then it wasn’t just urination outside the box, it was #2 as well, to the point that she was using the co-located “puppy pads” much more often than the box, if she used the box at all.  She was old, we thought, things happen.  But after some blood work of late, it was clear she had liver disease and it was getting worse.  With a newborn child, Emily, joining us in early November this year, she really took a more serious dive, so we got a check and we tried another diet change and added some new medications, but ... well it was clear her GI track wasn’t recovering and wasn’t likely to rebound.

As we learned with Nutty, cats tend to hide their conditions for a long time.  There was also the factor of loss of vim and vigor, even for things that she really loved in the past.  It was just hard to see her suffer in the long term.  Her fur wasn’t the same and it was just time to make the ultimate decision.  So, not wanting to put it off until after Christmas (after all losing Nutty when we came back from the holidays was a real bad way to start a year), and it being 2020, the year of less than optimal circumstances, we made arrangements and today, 15 December 2020, was the day.  We’ve been melancholy since this weekend, knowing we were going to call on Monday to set the day, and today has been hard.  Emily is bubbly as ever and a wonderful joy, but it just can’t make up, today at least, for the hole we were going to create in our hearts for our long haired tabby friend.

So the title of this post, takes its cue from Kateri’s namesake, but I can’t seem to get a song out of my head, one I know many have heard and find hope in, as do I.  “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine; O what a foretaste of glory divine; Heir of salvation, purchase of God; Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.”  I know that death is a part of life and that God is in the midst of all pain and joy and love and sadness.  So this is not the final end, her memory is in ours.  Earlier this summer, Jackie created little flip signs so we could keep track of when each of the cats was outside, and for Kateri’s it has a picture of her flopped in an upside down umbrella and the caption “Out adventuring” for when she would be out on her loved patio; now flipped to that side forever on the back door.  There is no doubt she is indeed adventuring somewhere, eating the grass she loves to chew, and enjoying more of the shrimp dinner that I shared with her last night.  We are going to miss you Ka-tear.

Blessed Kateri, feline of ours

O what a companion, of both of our hearts

Cuddle-er of Jackie, fur that’s a mess

Born in Missouri, always in our love

Love, your humans.

Tribute to Nutty

So the last few days here at here at the Casa de Backus have been rather melancholy.  Ever since we returned back to the house here in Northern Virginia, we noted that our pet cat, Nutty (formally named "Chestnut" but never referred to that way) had an apparent increased respiratory rate.  Concerned, we took her to the Vet for an initial look, and, after a couple X-rays showing something ominous in her lungs, we were back the next day for some more of those, an ultrasound, and a quick snippet of the mass in that region of her torso.  So since Friday we have been awaiting the results of these final tests and we can only pray for the best, make her comfortable, and give her some antibiotics with the hope it enables a cure.

But the sense of sadness here is based on a reality that Nut is 13 years old, and while cats can have long lives, this may be more than we can facilitate financially, never mind emotionally, or otherwise.  So we are facing the distinct reality that Nutty may be at the end of her journey.

Now anyone who has had a pet knows that they can become very attached to you, and more often than not, you to them.  And these animals can often have a lasting impression on you well into your future, one that is forming as much as some human relationships, and sometimes more.  Let me start with that I have always considered myself to be a "dog person", but this cat has had probably as much impact on me as some of my pet dogs in childhood, part of that is in our joint service together.

That service part is really the beginning of our joint story as Nutty became a part of our lives.  You see back in late 2000, I had made a rather fateful decision that changed things that made having a pet like Nut possible.  After just over 3 years in the Army, living near and on Fort Leonard Wood, MO, Jackie and I had decided to move up the highway to Rolla, MO (some 45 min away) as part of a longer plan to transition from Active Duty to the Reserves and launch into a civilian career tract.  After surprising my superiors (who equated this with forever "leaving the Army", surprising how after 17 years and 2 combat deployments I am still very much a part of that esteemed organization), we settled into a very nice 3 bedroom duplex, that for the first time in our renting experience allowed for pets beyond fish and gerbils.  We had really wanted to get a pet at some point, but this finally presented us with a real opportunity to do so.

Timing wise, this was also good, as I was still in the midst of my gallivanting across the continental United States (mainly to the American Southwest) in conjunction with my Army unit's higher OPTEMPO (or at least what seemed to be higher OPTEMPO at the time).  So one day, someone at Brewer Science, where Jackie worked, got word we were in the market for a new furry friend at our residence and, having a newly minted litter of cats in his garage, arranged to bring one into work for Jackie to bring home.  So entered a cute cuddly kitten in a shoe box, complete with litter, that arrived that afternoon to the Backus' ranch in Rolla.  We were immediately smitten.  She was cute, and cuddly, and had beautiful rose colored chestnut tones to her otherwise primarily grey short haired coat.  Thankfully she was already litter trained and weened so we were able to proceed apace with just simply enjoying our new found furry friend.

It wasn't long that she got her name, and it really didn't relate to her fur colors.  Rather, it had to do with here rather insane nature, she would simply do the craziest things.  Whether this was chew on electric cords (luckily that didn't happen often) and her incessant need to "floss" using the drape cords, or climb into closets and places she couldn't get out of, or simply, and literally, chase her own tail for entertainment.  It was also her pretentious cleanliness and unabashed exposure of her lady parts (in a gesture I continue to see as a one legged salute) to make sure every part of her was prim and proper.  But it was clear she really loved us, especially when she wouldn't stop with grooming herself, but would often give our chins a lick or 20 as we lay in bed for the evening, after she had gotten all of her fur in just the right spot.  It was easy for her to snuggle right up under my chin, when she was that little and take a "cat nap" in the middle of the night, and in my haze of awaken-ment almost get crushed by my abrupt movements.  But what was always amazing to both of us was how much she was a companion for us to greet warmly at the end of the day and in our comings and goings.

So this brings us back to service, as I ran off to Pinion Canyon in Colorado and then out to the National Training Center in California, Nutty was quick to take on duty as Jackie's home-front service mate and comforter on the lonely nights it was and is to be a soldier's spouse.  But this was supposed to be kind of a short term deal as I was transitioning in the Spring of 2001 off of active duty to the rather docile life of Army Reserve Duty and weekend-warriordom.  Well I did mention the year was 2001 correct?  So come September (that is 9/11 to be exact) our little family was rocked and many things got changed, not the least of which was her services as comforter-in-chief.  And on Valentine's Day 2003, this task went into high gear as I got "the call" and was mobilized as part of the initial forces to go into Iraq.

Now I really can't write this chapter too well on my own, and Jackie will have to fill in the details, but I know from a distance that Nut had some serious duties to attend to.  While I had deployed CONUS for several training exercises and missions, I had never been "in harms way" or "off to war" before.  And for anyone who is a soldier with a significant other at home, you know that they serve just as much as we do, in different but just as compelling ways, while we sacrifice and do our duty for the country.  And while Jackie knew I was going to be a soldier when we met, she wasn't ever really thinking it would be for anything more than 4 years, and certainly she prayed it would never involve my getting shot at.  So I can only imagine that during the first three months of the invasion and occupation, when all Jackie knew was I was over there somewhere, and hearing about what was happening on the likes of CNN, it had to be nerve racking and simply frightening.  So Nutty had some serious duty to perform, and I know that she did as well as she could when Jackie was down, or tired, or simply beat from all of the work and emotional pain that she was in, even once I was able to get a weekly call home to Jackie from my spot in Baghdad.

And this was a critical year and some, to do this.  As I mentioned it was a big "first" in all of our lives, and without question Jackie and I changed as a result.  Nutty had gotten used to two people in the bed, and now there was only one, and one for a long time.  Likewise, Jackie made a major change and rejoined (actively) the church through the local Catholic Parish, and I came home to a new fervor that I hadn't known in the same way before.  That, and for the cat, not only did this mean I was back and she couldn't stretch out in the bed as much, it meant that a good set of Catholic friends of ours had a litter of cats and this meant that in 2004 she had to contend with her soon be life partner in Kateri, an imprudent, not as well kept, long haired tabby colored kitten (who, ohh by the way liked to climb trees and generally cause Nut challenges).  Nutty was there for all of this and we were only 4 years into this life together!

With the turn of the year, I completed graduate school and we made our way back east to the Washington DC area.  Nutty, not exactly fond of travelling joined me on my leg of this cross country trip, and after day one where I had given her a mild sedative (which only resulted in her drunkenly trying to climb around the cab of my pick-up), she found a warm spot behind my neck for the rest of the ride.  She still doesn't like traveling much, but has found my lap or that spot a comfort as she does so and I know its from that trip that we probably best got re-acquainted.  Nut, almost as the leader, did a thorough inspection of our new rental home, and then of the townhouse we bought the next year.  She could always be counted on, in her small frame, to check out ever nook and cranny, and while not the hunter Kateri is, was critical in finding any lurking creature such as a bird, mouse or otherwise (that would typically run out and be caught by her partner in crime).

Well, it wasn't too long that I was recalled to serve in Iraq again, this time as a part of the Surge of 2007-2008.  Nutty, along with Kateri (but we know who was in charge), led the comfort party at home as Jackie, not quite as connected as she ended up being in Rolla, relied on these two fur-balls for hugs and a good cry now and again.  By now she had become a feature on our laps (Nut is the quintessential lap cat) and often on our shoulders/chest.  Jackie wisely brought these two along for our mid-tour leave where she caught me in a photo of Nutty stretched out, as she often is, in my lap while mutually dozing off.  And to this day, her soft, low toned purr is a perfect sleep aid even in my most insomnia laden moments.  Without question she has getting us to relax and be comfortable down to a science.

So at this point I need to turn to the point of this effort and pay tribute to her.  Thirteen isn't the luckiest number, I know, but there have been some hard years in there.  Chestnut, to be formal about it, has gone through three homes, two wars, and been forced into cohabitation with another feline she didn't ask for.  She was, and will always be, Jackie and my first joint pet.  She warmed us in body, heart and soul and became our leading lady in many ways.  And when you think about it, she was a serious part of who we are, reflected back at us, often the best part:  polite, a pleaser, neat a prim, warm, curious, inviting (even with claws), holding a gentle touch, and abounding in cuddly-ness that can't really ever be replaced.  Today, as Jackie sang her "Nutty Song" ("My Nutty has a first name, its n-u-t-t-y, my Nutty has a second name its n-u-t-t-y, and if I sing this song, maybe she'll come by, n-u-t, t-y, Nutty!") I'm going to miss her stopping by to lay down on my chest as I try to take a nap or simply fall asleep at night.  I am going to miss finding her catching some rays in her favorite sun spot or watching us come and go from her window sill ledge ("How much is that Nutty in the window, ...").  She is a special server, one that has been with us through a lot, and I am going to miss her greatly.  To you my Nut, I know that you are where you are supposed to be regardless of when and how this current medical thing ends.  Thank you for being a part of my life.  I love you.