Stela
It’s a lovely day, but I’m barely a part of it. I’m preoccupied with thoughts of Stela, our tortoise shell cat, who will have to be put to sleep tomorrow.
I say “have to” because she has cancer, which produced abscesses which grow worse by the day, exposed, raw, and I’m sure increasingly painful for her no matter what we do.
Stela still purrs, but she’s lost a lot of weight, she simply can’t leap here and there as she once did because of the abscesses.
And if you know anything about Stela, whom I have nicknamed “the bandit” since the first week we took her in during the New Orleans era, you understand that Stela without that kind of mobility is like a bird with clipped wings. In short, she’s already suffering, and I can’t justify her suffering any more.
People who claim that cats - any animal really - are only affectionate or personable insofar as they know who feeds them never met any of my cats, certainly not Stela.
And Stela's very much her own cat. She’s the smartest dingbat of a cat I know; certainly one of the most cunning. She *knows* when she’s up to know good, perched someplace she shouldn’t be, digging into something we’ve tied up, etc, and - in true bandit fashion - makes an exaggerated run for it when she’s about to get nabbed. Stela’s adventures are the stuff cat legends are made of.
We took Stela off the street close to a decade ago when she was still a nimble street beggar, pizza shop raider and professional garbage sifter for at least a year before she started cozying up to Mina. Stela had this ridiculously big head lolling about on a skinny pipe of a neck and small scabs on her head from plastic allergies. Her “owner” (who irresponsibly let her in and out of her Magazine Street house when she didn’t play nice with the dogs) put out flyers, but we responded with middle fingers.
The suggestion that we take her in was one of the few really informed bits of advice that Leilah Wendell gave us during our Westgate rental days. Leilah, whatever else her shortcomings, is especially compassionate toward animals, and so she covered for us when the “owner” made half-hearted attempts to locate our new girl. I still own Leilah a debt of gratitude for that, because I can’t imagine that era without our beautiful bandit, the one all our friends threatened to steal from us when we weren't looking.
So, Mina and I took Stela in, got her up to speed on vaccinations and skin treatment, bought her a porcelain dish and spent quite a few days pulling her down from window sills and curtains when she was mewling like mad, looking for a way to escape (you open the front door now, however, and she’s scarcely interested - she eventually figured out who breads her butter).
I named her Stela, after the concept of an Egyptian ‘Stelae’, but New Orleanian vets simply assumed that we didn’t know how to properly spell it in honor of her supposed namesake in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. She’s never been all that terribly Egyptian, however. Stela, to my mind, is far more like a Halfling rogue (for Dragonlance fans, think Tasslehoff Burrfoot). A dubious compliment, but a compliment nevertheless. She has more personality in her tail (especially when she’s freaked out) than most of my co-workers do in their entire bodies.
Petting wise, Stela leaps up like a little horse followed by a little “buck” in the rear. Hysterical stuff. The other cats learned this by example.
Marking wise, Stela's mouth has something of a weird Charlie Chaplin effect - one side is lighter beige, the other side is dark. She also has the prettiest coat patterns of *any* cat I’ve ever seen. An absolutely gorgeous cat.
Even when she inelegantly, yet endearingly plopped on someone’s leg (usually Mina’s, or mine when I was reading) and draped her two front paws on either side while resting her head squarely over the kneecap. Mina and I dubbed this Stela’s “bear rug” posture.
And Stela coos like a pigeon. Loudly. In fact, even after a painful wrestling with her neck guard this morning, she cooed at me as I petted her on the way to work and I told her that I loved her like a million times, bandit or no, beautiful or no. She loves the sound of our voices.
It was a routine vaccination that ultimately got her - it contained an irritant that gives certain cats in "rare" circumstances fibrosarcoma. Mina discovered an abscess under her fur shortly after the 2003 fire. That it to say, extreme stress helped it manifest more fully.
But we've also had Stela at least two years longer then any of us expected. I'm still very thankful for that, for they have largely been happy, cozy times for her.
I know in my heart of hearts that I have to let go while she can still have those moments. I can’t keep her hanging on, worsening by the day; all because I dread the day I lose her cooing, mischievous, beautiful, affectionate self forever.
If you can find it in your heart to light a candle for one of the world’s most beloved troublemakers, that she parts from this world in as much comfort as is possible tomorrow night, I would be forever in your debt.
I say “have to” because she has cancer, which produced abscesses which grow worse by the day, exposed, raw, and I’m sure increasingly painful for her no matter what we do.
Stela still purrs, but she’s lost a lot of weight, she simply can’t leap here and there as she once did because of the abscesses.
And if you know anything about Stela, whom I have nicknamed “the bandit” since the first week we took her in during the New Orleans era, you understand that Stela without that kind of mobility is like a bird with clipped wings. In short, she’s already suffering, and I can’t justify her suffering any more.
People who claim that cats - any animal really - are only affectionate or personable insofar as they know who feeds them never met any of my cats, certainly not Stela.
And Stela's very much her own cat. She’s the smartest dingbat of a cat I know; certainly one of the most cunning. She *knows* when she’s up to know good, perched someplace she shouldn’t be, digging into something we’ve tied up, etc, and - in true bandit fashion - makes an exaggerated run for it when she’s about to get nabbed. Stela’s adventures are the stuff cat legends are made of.
We took Stela off the street close to a decade ago when she was still a nimble street beggar, pizza shop raider and professional garbage sifter for at least a year before she started cozying up to Mina. Stela had this ridiculously big head lolling about on a skinny pipe of a neck and small scabs on her head from plastic allergies. Her “owner” (who irresponsibly let her in and out of her Magazine Street house when she didn’t play nice with the dogs) put out flyers, but we responded with middle fingers.
The suggestion that we take her in was one of the few really informed bits of advice that Leilah Wendell gave us during our Westgate rental days. Leilah, whatever else her shortcomings, is especially compassionate toward animals, and so she covered for us when the “owner” made half-hearted attempts to locate our new girl. I still own Leilah a debt of gratitude for that, because I can’t imagine that era without our beautiful bandit, the one all our friends threatened to steal from us when we weren't looking.
So, Mina and I took Stela in, got her up to speed on vaccinations and skin treatment, bought her a porcelain dish and spent quite a few days pulling her down from window sills and curtains when she was mewling like mad, looking for a way to escape (you open the front door now, however, and she’s scarcely interested - she eventually figured out who breads her butter).
I named her Stela, after the concept of an Egyptian ‘Stelae’, but New Orleanian vets simply assumed that we didn’t know how to properly spell it in honor of her supposed namesake in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. She’s never been all that terribly Egyptian, however. Stela, to my mind, is far more like a Halfling rogue (for Dragonlance fans, think Tasslehoff Burrfoot). A dubious compliment, but a compliment nevertheless. She has more personality in her tail (especially when she’s freaked out) than most of my co-workers do in their entire bodies.
Petting wise, Stela leaps up like a little horse followed by a little “buck” in the rear. Hysterical stuff. The other cats learned this by example.
Marking wise, Stela's mouth has something of a weird Charlie Chaplin effect - one side is lighter beige, the other side is dark. She also has the prettiest coat patterns of *any* cat I’ve ever seen. An absolutely gorgeous cat.
Even when she inelegantly, yet endearingly plopped on someone’s leg (usually Mina’s, or mine when I was reading) and draped her two front paws on either side while resting her head squarely over the kneecap. Mina and I dubbed this Stela’s “bear rug” posture.
And Stela coos like a pigeon. Loudly. In fact, even after a painful wrestling with her neck guard this morning, she cooed at me as I petted her on the way to work and I told her that I loved her like a million times, bandit or no, beautiful or no. She loves the sound of our voices.
It was a routine vaccination that ultimately got her - it contained an irritant that gives certain cats in "rare" circumstances fibrosarcoma. Mina discovered an abscess under her fur shortly after the 2003 fire. That it to say, extreme stress helped it manifest more fully.
But we've also had Stela at least two years longer then any of us expected. I'm still very thankful for that, for they have largely been happy, cozy times for her.
I know in my heart of hearts that I have to let go while she can still have those moments. I can’t keep her hanging on, worsening by the day; all because I dread the day I lose her cooing, mischievous, beautiful, affectionate self forever.
If you can find it in your heart to light a candle for one of the world’s most beloved troublemakers, that she parts from this world in as much comfort as is possible tomorrow night, I would be forever in your debt.