Goodbye Honeyqueen
Alas, it is truly the End of An Era. My parents have put their one remaining cat to sleep. I don't think they've been completely catless since my sister and I were in, like, kindergarten.
Last night they put down our Honeyqueen. She was about 17, and she was in kidney failure. We'd had Honeyqueen for most of her life. She was maybe two or three when my mother stole her from neighbors she felt weren't caring for her properly. At the time, the yet-to-be named Honeyqueen was this wiry little outdoor cat who appeared in our yard sometime, all friendly and cute. We thought she was a stray, until we pieced things together and realized she belonged to neighbors who kept her outside and maybe left food for her. In a fit of this-is-unacceptableness, my mother commandeered the cat and brought her into our house.
Years later, we found out that the cat's name had been Amaretto, which is a stupid name. I named her Honeyqueen, which is silly and awesome and not stupid at all. In the months that she was this random outside cat, I used to call her various random things whenever I talked to/played with her. I frequently called her "Honey" and "Queenie," among other things, and when my mother finally purloined her, I mashed my two favorite pet names for her together and christened her Honeyqueen.
My friend Tom, once he got wind of this, was sufficiently hilarified, and in between splutters, asked me, "Why didn't you just throw a few more things in there? 'Oh honey, queenie, sweetie...cutie...darling...likeable...'"
Honeyqueen was fairly large for a female cat. She was tall, and her rear end always seemed higher up than her front end. Her coat was an unintelligible tortie mishmash on her topside, and mostly white on the bottom. She had a long pointy face, which earned her the nickname "Pointy," and deep-set green eyes. She was very pretty and very unusual, and she wore it all very well.
She was very sweet and affectionate, almost to a fault. I remember one time, in an era when I was a rottener human being than I am now, I was so annoyed by her persistent walking across my computer keyboard and attempts to hug me that I actually picked her up and shook her like a can of soda. I never forgot that, always regretted it, and never did it -- or anything like it -- again.
But Honeyqueen forgave me and kept on being very sweet and lovey, in her quiet way. She was unassuming, but not dainty. If she'd been a person, she'd have been tall and soft-spoken, with a medium/athletic build, short auburn hair, and freckles. She would have played soccer or field hockey. That kind of girl. Way back before Honeyqueen was ours, my sister told me a story about having seen her in our yard playing with a wing. Just a wing, off some bird. Honeyqueen was repeatedly throwing the wing into the air and catching it. That kind of girl.
She had a distinctive meow that sounded as though she were saying "wow." Her typical greeting was to say it twice, usually with a questioning inflection: "Wow-WOW?" She could make "wow" mean anything.
When she was younger, she liked to sit on top of the refrigerator and make a biteyface at anybody who tried to get her off of there. That was about as bitchy as she got.
The rest of our crop of cats either picked on or ignored her. She was not high up in the pecking order. I remember a strange incident in the mid-1990s, where my parents were out of town and I was home alone with the various cats for a few days. I had been petting Honeyqueen and noticed that she seemed not quite herself. As I tried to pinpoint how and why, I noticed that the membrane was up over her eyes, and she was breathing in a sort of labored way. I continued to pet her gently, but trying to check her out and determine if she was sick or in pain or something. I touched her stomach and something Did Not Feel Right. I packed her off to the vet immediately and the vet found that her abdomen had an open gash on it. They stitched her up and she was fine before long. We never did manage to figure out what the heck had happened to poor Honeyqueen.
There were several years where one of our other cats, Chaplin, was picking on her pretty bad. My parents tried to keep them apart as much as possible, with limited success. Eventually all the other cats got old and sick and died, and only Honeyqueen was left. She really enjoyed being the only cat in the house. She could just be peaceful and quiet and lovey. She began sleeping on my nephew's bed, which he considered an honor. He began to dote on her, and she began to really enjoy and depend upon that attention.
It became clear about a year ago that Honeyqueen, now of advanced age, was deaf. She couldn't hear a damn thing, including herself, as indicated by the fact that she was screaming all her meows: "WOW-WOWWWWW?!?!?" My sister and I thought that was cute and sweet and hilarious. We liked to find her wherever she was sleeping and say her name with increasing volume, clap our hands, drop stuff on the floor -- all with no reaction: Honeyqueen would stay asleep. Then one of us would go over to her bed and make a big windup and pitch, and pet her on the head, and her little pointy face would pop right up and she'd holler, "rrrrrrWOW?" I have video of it. Video of my sister and I, two middle-aged adult women, torturing our cute, sweet, elderly, deaf cat by patting her on the head & waking her out of a peaceful, soundless, deaf-cat sleep. We are such bitches. But we couldn't help ourselves. She was so cute.
A few months ago the vet told us Honeyqueen was in kidney failure. To be precise, the vet said Honeyqueen's kidney levels were so high, she didn't even know how Honeyqueen was even able to walk around. But she was indeed walking around, and she looked great. My parents began giving her subcutaneous fluids a few times a week, and she stayed chipper. They had a new window installed in their living room last month, and one of the workers told my mother that while he'd been working on the outside of the house, high up on a ladder, he'd looked in the window and been startled to see Honeyqueen just on the other side of the glass, watching him with great interest. That funny pointygirl.
She was doing very well, but unfortunately my family knows how feline renal failure works, and we knew she could take a dive at any moment. That happened last night, when my father found her nearly completely still and not blinking. I haven't talked to him about details yet, but I'm wondering if she was in shock -- if perhaps she'd had a seizure, like Frito did last January, which led us to put him down as well.
In any case, my father decided it was time to let her go. He wrapped her in a big towel, and took her to the emergency vet at 11 o'clock last night to be put down. He said she went very peacefully.
And now my parents are Without Cats. This is inconceivable. Honeyqueen was the last of them. The last of the cats I grew up with. She had a long, comfortable life. Certainly longer and more comfortable than if my mother hadn't stolen her from the neighbors. She had a softer, quieter personality than a lot of the wackadoodles we have shared our lives with, but her sweetness made her stand out. She was the only one of our cats who didn't have some kind of unacceptable neurosis, hygiene issue, or attitude problem. She was a good girl. The best.
Honey
Queenie
Honeyqueen
Queenidge
Quanadge
Quonnidge
Kwanzaa
Kwanz
The Kwanz
Honeykwanz
Hunkwanz
Pretzel
Plotzy
Pointy
Miss Pointy
Pointyface
Miss Pointyface
Pointy Girl
Honeychile
Honeycat
Wow-wow
The Wow-wow
Wowwidge
The Wowwidge
Miss Wow
Miss Wow-wow
Miss Wowwidge
Wowzer
Wow-wow Sauce
Orange
Miss Orange
Last night they put down our Honeyqueen. She was about 17, and she was in kidney failure. We'd had Honeyqueen for most of her life. She was maybe two or three when my mother stole her from neighbors she felt weren't caring for her properly. At the time, the yet-to-be named Honeyqueen was this wiry little outdoor cat who appeared in our yard sometime, all friendly and cute. We thought she was a stray, until we pieced things together and realized she belonged to neighbors who kept her outside and maybe left food for her. In a fit of this-is-unacceptableness, my mother commandeered the cat and brought her into our house.
Years later, we found out that the cat's name had been Amaretto, which is a stupid name. I named her Honeyqueen, which is silly and awesome and not stupid at all. In the months that she was this random outside cat, I used to call her various random things whenever I talked to/played with her. I frequently called her "Honey" and "Queenie," among other things, and when my mother finally purloined her, I mashed my two favorite pet names for her together and christened her Honeyqueen.
My friend Tom, once he got wind of this, was sufficiently hilarified, and in between splutters, asked me, "Why didn't you just throw a few more things in there? 'Oh honey, queenie, sweetie...cutie...darling...likeable...'"
Honeyqueen was fairly large for a female cat. She was tall, and her rear end always seemed higher up than her front end. Her coat was an unintelligible tortie mishmash on her topside, and mostly white on the bottom. She had a long pointy face, which earned her the nickname "Pointy," and deep-set green eyes. She was very pretty and very unusual, and she wore it all very well.
She was very sweet and affectionate, almost to a fault. I remember one time, in an era when I was a rottener human being than I am now, I was so annoyed by her persistent walking across my computer keyboard and attempts to hug me that I actually picked her up and shook her like a can of soda. I never forgot that, always regretted it, and never did it -- or anything like it -- again.
But Honeyqueen forgave me and kept on being very sweet and lovey, in her quiet way. She was unassuming, but not dainty. If she'd been a person, she'd have been tall and soft-spoken, with a medium/athletic build, short auburn hair, and freckles. She would have played soccer or field hockey. That kind of girl. Way back before Honeyqueen was ours, my sister told me a story about having seen her in our yard playing with a wing. Just a wing, off some bird. Honeyqueen was repeatedly throwing the wing into the air and catching it. That kind of girl.
She had a distinctive meow that sounded as though she were saying "wow." Her typical greeting was to say it twice, usually with a questioning inflection: "Wow-WOW?" She could make "wow" mean anything.
When she was younger, she liked to sit on top of the refrigerator and make a biteyface at anybody who tried to get her off of there. That was about as bitchy as she got.
The rest of our crop of cats either picked on or ignored her. She was not high up in the pecking order. I remember a strange incident in the mid-1990s, where my parents were out of town and I was home alone with the various cats for a few days. I had been petting Honeyqueen and noticed that she seemed not quite herself. As I tried to pinpoint how and why, I noticed that the membrane was up over her eyes, and she was breathing in a sort of labored way. I continued to pet her gently, but trying to check her out and determine if she was sick or in pain or something. I touched her stomach and something Did Not Feel Right. I packed her off to the vet immediately and the vet found that her abdomen had an open gash on it. They stitched her up and she was fine before long. We never did manage to figure out what the heck had happened to poor Honeyqueen.
There were several years where one of our other cats, Chaplin, was picking on her pretty bad. My parents tried to keep them apart as much as possible, with limited success. Eventually all the other cats got old and sick and died, and only Honeyqueen was left. She really enjoyed being the only cat in the house. She could just be peaceful and quiet and lovey. She began sleeping on my nephew's bed, which he considered an honor. He began to dote on her, and she began to really enjoy and depend upon that attention.
It became clear about a year ago that Honeyqueen, now of advanced age, was deaf. She couldn't hear a damn thing, including herself, as indicated by the fact that she was screaming all her meows: "WOW-WOWWWWW?!?!?" My sister and I thought that was cute and sweet and hilarious. We liked to find her wherever she was sleeping and say her name with increasing volume, clap our hands, drop stuff on the floor -- all with no reaction: Honeyqueen would stay asleep. Then one of us would go over to her bed and make a big windup and pitch, and pet her on the head, and her little pointy face would pop right up and she'd holler, "rrrrrrWOW?" I have video of it. Video of my sister and I, two middle-aged adult women, torturing our cute, sweet, elderly, deaf cat by patting her on the head & waking her out of a peaceful, soundless, deaf-cat sleep. We are such bitches. But we couldn't help ourselves. She was so cute.
A few months ago the vet told us Honeyqueen was in kidney failure. To be precise, the vet said Honeyqueen's kidney levels were so high, she didn't even know how Honeyqueen was even able to walk around. But she was indeed walking around, and she looked great. My parents began giving her subcutaneous fluids a few times a week, and she stayed chipper. They had a new window installed in their living room last month, and one of the workers told my mother that while he'd been working on the outside of the house, high up on a ladder, he'd looked in the window and been startled to see Honeyqueen just on the other side of the glass, watching him with great interest. That funny pointygirl.
She was doing very well, but unfortunately my family knows how feline renal failure works, and we knew she could take a dive at any moment. That happened last night, when my father found her nearly completely still and not blinking. I haven't talked to him about details yet, but I'm wondering if she was in shock -- if perhaps she'd had a seizure, like Frito did last January, which led us to put him down as well.
In any case, my father decided it was time to let her go. He wrapped her in a big towel, and took her to the emergency vet at 11 o'clock last night to be put down. He said she went very peacefully.
And now my parents are Without Cats. This is inconceivable. Honeyqueen was the last of them. The last of the cats I grew up with. She had a long, comfortable life. Certainly longer and more comfortable than if my mother hadn't stolen her from the neighbors. She had a softer, quieter personality than a lot of the wackadoodles we have shared our lives with, but her sweetness made her stand out. She was the only one of our cats who didn't have some kind of unacceptable neurosis, hygiene issue, or attitude problem. She was a good girl. The best.
Honey
Queenie
Honeyqueen
Queenidge
Quanadge
Quonnidge
Kwanzaa
Kwanz
The Kwanz
Honeykwanz
Hunkwanz
Pretzel
Plotzy
Pointy
Miss Pointy
Pointyface
Miss Pointyface
Pointy Girl
Honeychile
Honeycat
Wow-wow
The Wow-wow
Wowwidge
The Wowwidge
Miss Wow
Miss Wow-wow
Miss Wowwidge
Wowzer
Wow-wow Sauce
Orange
Miss Orange