the art of saying goodbye

This week I had to say goodbye to my cat, Miss Madeleine Manx. She would have been nineteen in June and was always extremely energetic and healthy. When she entered my life, my nights of sleeping uninterrupted ceased.

I got her as a companion for Mollie Malone who always seemed so, so sad when I left for work. But that was just her way. Mollie welcomed her flat mate in typical Mollie fashion, which is very sweetly and with barely audible meows. After the initial meet and greet and hiss and growl, that is.

Madeleine’s meows, in contrast, sounded more like some strange sheep-goat creature.

When Mollie died, we were living in New Orleans, and I had to take the bus to the quarter to the vet. Just me and Mollie. Almost the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

When I returned home sans Mollie, Madeleine was a bit confused. But we slowly worked through the changes and routines. And Madeleine came into her own. I’d always felt she was the more dominant one, but she usually always acquiesced to Mollie. She respected her elder.

She’d been just as sweet as Mollie, but with a tough girl attitude to mask it. Mollie would comfort me when I was upset or crying by placing her paw on the tears. Madeleine walked away from me whenever I cried. A proponent of tough love, I guess.

Mollie was infinitely patient. She knew she’d always get fed and usually at the same times. Madeleine, up until about a week ago, was always fearful I would not feed her, so she constantly reminded me.

Mollie never woke me. She only curled up closer. Madeleine would pounce on me, and use me as a launching pad. Ten pounds isn’t much unless it’s two in the morning and the launching point is my belly or breasts.

If that didn’t work, Madeleine would go to the bookcase and knock down one book at a time until the entire bottom row was on the floor.  If I was especially stubbornly asleep, she would rustle through my pens and papers on my desk.  Madeleine was systematic and thorough. I loved her madly. 

Both of them loved fresh flowers. They loved to smell them and they loved to flip around a single carnation when I bought those home.

When young, they liked to play with rubber duckies in a large bowl, making them bob and spin.

They loved watching the birds and squirrels outside our windows; Madeleine making that funny sound in her throat.

Madeleine liked feet and shoes. She’d rub her head against my unwashed feet and lay across visitors’ shoes. She stayed away from freshly bathed feet.

Mollie loved rotisserie chicken thigh meat. Madeleine turned up her nose.

Their favourite toys were things I called sperm worms because they looked like the top-hatted sperms in the children’s book, “Where Did I Come From?” The one time I went into the pet shop asking for them by this name, I got some rather interesting looks.

They both hated when I practiced my flute. I know cats' ears are very sensitive, but really. I was rather good.

An old beau told me that Mollie and Madeleine were like the two sides to my own personality. The one thing he said I agreed with.

While I never wanted to be a crazy cat lady, I did like my home with these two felines in it. I am more a homebody than most people realise, I prefer quiet pursuits and pastimes, and the three of us had a happy existence.

After Mollie left us, Madeleine was the ideal housemate. Not too clingy, very clean, and except for her night owl ways and food impatience issues, we got along just fine. 

When she started having alternating bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea about a month ago, I knew she was nearing the end. Then there was the blood (same as with Mollie). And when she tried to jump from my bed to my desk, which she did all the time, and missed and banged her left front paw so that she could barely walk, I knew it was over. She had been very vocal the past two weeks. Very. That was not her normal way. But I guess I didn’t want to see that my full of life little girl was unwell. I hope I didn’t make her suffer.

Now, for the first time in almost twenty years, I truly live alone. It will take time. I keep hearing her in the catbox or lapping her water. I heard Mollie, too. I keep expecting to hear meows when my key turns the deadbolt in my front door. I know these things will pass.

I have to remember that I don’t have to put things up or out of site anymore. If I start a project, I don’t have to clean it up and start over the next day. I no longer have fur children mentally equivalent to toddlers (but with the ability to jump and claw!)

This is a brand new world for me. And I’m not sure I’ll like it.

Mollie and Madeleine waking up mom
©Trish Korous

Mollie loved warmth
© Trish Korous

Madeleine hiding after our move to New Orleans
© Trish Korous

best friends
Mollie and I
© Trish Korous

sunday mornings
Madeleine and I
© Trish Korous