A Eulogy, with your indulgences
I started this the other night, but my fingers fumbled on the keyboard, and it was erased.
I'd like to tell you about Bastien's life. You don't have to read, but I need to put it out there, so that others will know him.
Around my Junior year of undergrad, I was taking time off due to several reasons. I was in deep depression. My father had been laid off his job of 13 years from a government agency, so tuition was in question. My grades, again due to depression, were below the 1.0 mark. I moved into an apartment below downtown, near the railroad tracks of Ithaca, in the industrial part of town. We lived above a bar, and I eventually found work at the local hardware store. My roommate, Pam, had adopted a little fluffball of white with grey patches she named Asha. I wanted my own kitten, and having found nothing in the local litters, on a trip to the mall petstore, I found a little black boy with extra toes who let me flip him on his back on my lap and play with his feet. I took him home and named him Bastien. He spent his kittenhood catching flies that flew in the window from the dumpster outside our window, cuddling with his foster sister, and squirming his way under my sheets, nosing cold and wet along my legs until I dragged him up into my arms or, more frequently, onto the floor while I slept. When he and Asha were about two or three months old, Asha disappeared for a month. During that time, Bastien managed to nose his way around the makeshift screen of my bedroom window and fall the one story to the sidewalk. I found him crouching there, not moving but not injured. Later that month, I looked out the window and saw a glimpse of his sister in the lot across the street. Grabbing Bastien with me, I raced outside with Pam and, using Bastien as a lure, we got Asha back inside, covered in fleas but happy to be home. Bastien learned to walk on a harness and leash, cowering low to the pavement when a car raced by, letting himself be weighed on the scale at the feedstore a block away.
I moved several times in Ithaca with him. In any place where there were other cats, Bastien was the underdog, easily beaten, easily duped out of his food. He broke his tail and one of his numerous toes (6 on each foot, polydactyly being common in Ithaca cats) in a co-op I lived in for several years. I discovered his extreme dependence and attachment to me, following me around, walking between my feet, sleeping on my back when I was in bed. When he insisted on walking onto people's dinner plates to get food, I trained him to sit up and beg. Stupid as he was, he learned how to beg with alacrity when it came to food.
When I was close to graduation, I adopted a kitten, a little grey/brown tabby I named Loki, to be his companion. Bastien accepted Loki almost immediately. At the end of that year, I moved down to Florida with the both of them in a carrier in the middle of the Ryder truch cab. We stopped off at South of the Border, a fireworks and tourist attraction in South Carolina. They roamed on leashes, careful and watchful, but happy to be out of the truck.
Bastien and Loki settled in to the one bedroom apartment I shared with Spoonboy. It was cramped, and they raced back and forth in early morning bouts of energy. When I moved into my own apartment, they spread out and claimed space. Bastien held his space at the head of my bed, sleeping next to me on a pillow or on my back, nestling in the crook of my knee during naps. He held whole conversations with me in his croaking voice, telling me he was bored, hungry, needing attention. He sat next to me whenever possible, cuddled under the covers with me to share my warmth. He suffered his baths and crawled on my lap for comfort when he was wet and miserable.
Last winter, he developed a mouth infection and stopped eating for two weeks. I nursed him back to health, dribbling water and protein shakes with syringes into his mouth on the hour until he had enough strength to eat babyfood off my fingers. He lost about 5 pounds, nearly a third of his weight, during that time. He slept curled up next to me under the covers, having no reserves to generate his own heat. After that illness, he gained energy, still skinny, but as energetic as ever. He played with Loki in the afternoons, followed me around, climbed in my lab any time I sat or lay still. He talked to me again in his cranky voice, telling me how much he wanted my attention, wanted more food, wanted to be next to me.
Four weeks ago, I was preparing to leave town for a national training. He snuck out of the apartment when I was doing laundry, aiming towards a confrontation with the building stray, and I scooped him up before a fight could commence. The week after my conference, I burned some rice in the middle of the night, and propped the door open with a fan in front of it to air the apartment out. When I realized I hadn't seen him after cleaning up, I looked around the area with a can of treats to rattle. I couldn'f find him. I repeated the act, widening my circle for the next two weeks. I never saw him.
Bastien was 13 years old. He had bad teeth, unable in his last few months to chew more than canned food. He was still a bit weak from his last illness. He has never been a dominant cat, always retreating from others under threat of confrontation. He had no idea how to find water in a tropical climate, particularly as a black cat in the unrelenting sun here. I suspect he wandered that night farther than he could find his way back, confused and lost, confounded by the myriad tracks of the 20+ strays in the blocks surrounding my apartment. I fear he died alone, thirsty, afraid and abandoned. I grieve for his loneliness during his death, as the one thing I intended was to be there for him and ease his passage.
Bastien was the constant companion for me through my time off from undergrad, entering a second major, graduation, moving across the country, learning to live alone, becoming a self-sufficient adult. He saw me through several relationships and bouts of celebacy and sluttiness. He saw me through several jobs and career changes. He comforted me through more than a few bouts of depression. He woke me up in the morning, he climbed up onto me when I settled in at night, and he made me realize there was something outside the books and websites I lost myself in. I took care of him, though not as much as I should have. I cared for him, as much as I bitched to him. He was Buddy, my boy. He took my kisses, he endured my tortures of baths and too tight hugs and kisses and playing with his freakish feet. He depended on me being there. He loved me overwhelmingly. He learned how to sit up on his haunches to beg treats for me, and never forgot his lessons on how to get french fries.
I think he was my best friend. I don't know if I knew that before he was gone.
Bastien let me shave him and give him a mohawk sometimes. He was a punkrock kitteh. I loved him. More than anything.
I'd like to tell you about Bastien's life. You don't have to read, but I need to put it out there, so that others will know him.
Around my Junior year of undergrad, I was taking time off due to several reasons. I was in deep depression. My father had been laid off his job of 13 years from a government agency, so tuition was in question. My grades, again due to depression, were below the 1.0 mark. I moved into an apartment below downtown, near the railroad tracks of Ithaca, in the industrial part of town. We lived above a bar, and I eventually found work at the local hardware store. My roommate, Pam, had adopted a little fluffball of white with grey patches she named Asha. I wanted my own kitten, and having found nothing in the local litters, on a trip to the mall petstore, I found a little black boy with extra toes who let me flip him on his back on my lap and play with his feet. I took him home and named him Bastien. He spent his kittenhood catching flies that flew in the window from the dumpster outside our window, cuddling with his foster sister, and squirming his way under my sheets, nosing cold and wet along my legs until I dragged him up into my arms or, more frequently, onto the floor while I slept. When he and Asha were about two or three months old, Asha disappeared for a month. During that time, Bastien managed to nose his way around the makeshift screen of my bedroom window and fall the one story to the sidewalk. I found him crouching there, not moving but not injured. Later that month, I looked out the window and saw a glimpse of his sister in the lot across the street. Grabbing Bastien with me, I raced outside with Pam and, using Bastien as a lure, we got Asha back inside, covered in fleas but happy to be home. Bastien learned to walk on a harness and leash, cowering low to the pavement when a car raced by, letting himself be weighed on the scale at the feedstore a block away.
I moved several times in Ithaca with him. In any place where there were other cats, Bastien was the underdog, easily beaten, easily duped out of his food. He broke his tail and one of his numerous toes (6 on each foot, polydactyly being common in Ithaca cats) in a co-op I lived in for several years. I discovered his extreme dependence and attachment to me, following me around, walking between my feet, sleeping on my back when I was in bed. When he insisted on walking onto people's dinner plates to get food, I trained him to sit up and beg. Stupid as he was, he learned how to beg with alacrity when it came to food.
When I was close to graduation, I adopted a kitten, a little grey/brown tabby I named Loki, to be his companion. Bastien accepted Loki almost immediately. At the end of that year, I moved down to Florida with the both of them in a carrier in the middle of the Ryder truch cab. We stopped off at South of the Border, a fireworks and tourist attraction in South Carolina. They roamed on leashes, careful and watchful, but happy to be out of the truck.
Bastien and Loki settled in to the one bedroom apartment I shared with Spoonboy. It was cramped, and they raced back and forth in early morning bouts of energy. When I moved into my own apartment, they spread out and claimed space. Bastien held his space at the head of my bed, sleeping next to me on a pillow or on my back, nestling in the crook of my knee during naps. He held whole conversations with me in his croaking voice, telling me he was bored, hungry, needing attention. He sat next to me whenever possible, cuddled under the covers with me to share my warmth. He suffered his baths and crawled on my lap for comfort when he was wet and miserable.
Last winter, he developed a mouth infection and stopped eating for two weeks. I nursed him back to health, dribbling water and protein shakes with syringes into his mouth on the hour until he had enough strength to eat babyfood off my fingers. He lost about 5 pounds, nearly a third of his weight, during that time. He slept curled up next to me under the covers, having no reserves to generate his own heat. After that illness, he gained energy, still skinny, but as energetic as ever. He played with Loki in the afternoons, followed me around, climbed in my lab any time I sat or lay still. He talked to me again in his cranky voice, telling me how much he wanted my attention, wanted more food, wanted to be next to me.
Four weeks ago, I was preparing to leave town for a national training. He snuck out of the apartment when I was doing laundry, aiming towards a confrontation with the building stray, and I scooped him up before a fight could commence. The week after my conference, I burned some rice in the middle of the night, and propped the door open with a fan in front of it to air the apartment out. When I realized I hadn't seen him after cleaning up, I looked around the area with a can of treats to rattle. I couldn'f find him. I repeated the act, widening my circle for the next two weeks. I never saw him.
Bastien was 13 years old. He had bad teeth, unable in his last few months to chew more than canned food. He was still a bit weak from his last illness. He has never been a dominant cat, always retreating from others under threat of confrontation. He had no idea how to find water in a tropical climate, particularly as a black cat in the unrelenting sun here. I suspect he wandered that night farther than he could find his way back, confused and lost, confounded by the myriad tracks of the 20+ strays in the blocks surrounding my apartment. I fear he died alone, thirsty, afraid and abandoned. I grieve for his loneliness during his death, as the one thing I intended was to be there for him and ease his passage.
Bastien was the constant companion for me through my time off from undergrad, entering a second major, graduation, moving across the country, learning to live alone, becoming a self-sufficient adult. He saw me through several relationships and bouts of celebacy and sluttiness. He saw me through several jobs and career changes. He comforted me through more than a few bouts of depression. He woke me up in the morning, he climbed up onto me when I settled in at night, and he made me realize there was something outside the books and websites I lost myself in. I took care of him, though not as much as I should have. I cared for him, as much as I bitched to him. He was Buddy, my boy. He took my kisses, he endured my tortures of baths and too tight hugs and kisses and playing with his freakish feet. He depended on me being there. He loved me overwhelmingly. He learned how to sit up on his haunches to beg treats for me, and never forgot his lessons on how to get french fries.
I think he was my best friend. I don't know if I knew that before he was gone.
Bastien let me shave him and give him a mohawk sometimes. He was a punkrock kitteh. I loved him. More than anything.