Who knew the physical embodiment of unbridled joy and unconditional love was a shaggy black cat?
In that miserable summer of 2009, something good happened. Scenter's cats/familiars came into my life.
They were already six years old. At the time, I remember thinking I would be replacing cats between the 2016 and the 2020 election cycle. I remember thinking if I could get ten years out of them, that would be about right.
Well,
Brûlée checked out during the week of the 2018 midterm election, the very middle of the presidential election cycle. And now, I've lost Vincent as we come up on exactly ten years.
Having those two cats in my life
made a huge difference. They taught me love was possible again after losing
Copernicus and
Sophia. When Cuddly Hubby went to work in another state in 2013, the feline contingent in our household was an important source of morale and support. Brûlée was the more extroverted. Similar to Copernicus, he liked to supervise suspicious humans. Vincent, on the other hand has been our big, black, shaggy ball of love. He has been my emotional support animal.
Both of them became my feline electron cloud — not always right next to me, but probably nearby drifting around the house in close proximity. Cuddly
Hubby might be on the couch watching a football game with no cats in
sight for a couple hours. I would walk in the room to ask him something,
and within a couple minutes, two cats would appear. Then I might wander
into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I would hear Cuddly Hubby
counting down from the living room, "5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1.
There are no cats in the living room." But there would be two cats in
the kitchen, watching me make tea.
In many ways, Vincent has been the perfect lap cap. He liked
laps, and would
come greet me at the computer to be up in my lap while I typed. He
would curl up next to me on the couch when I was knitting, or watch me from the couch while I spun yarn or wrapped holiday gifts. I joked that he loved crafts! Back when he could still navigate stairs and hop up on the bed, he slept in my arms most nights, just like a teddy bear.
Vincent greeted me. In the mornings, he would be ready
for his morning tuna. His plume-y tail would be held high, and he would
wave it back and forth. Back in the day, both Brûlée and Vincent would queue at
the top of the stairs in the morning, and the three of us would be a little parade to
the kitchen. And when we arrived, Vincent
would dance around in a figure-eight — the bee dance — until the tuna appeared. Vincent
showed his joy in life, and I showed my joy back to him. There were times when I came home, either from a teaching trip or from
being out at a guild meeting or Mensa event, and as I backed down the
driveway I would look in our big front windows to see if cats were
waiting. When they were — especially if both were there — I would pause
and take in the moment. Two happy cats to welcome me home. I was
delighted to reciprocate the greeting.
Vincent
was definitely the
keeper of the joy and the love. Although he was a
black cat, Vincent was the opposite of ominous. If you had wanted to breed for personality, Vincent would have been your stud muffin. I wasn't sure why Bruce
had given him that name. Then one day, I heard an NPR interview with Ron
Perlman. He was talking about playing the beast in the
Beauty and the Beast
television series from 1987-1990. The name of the beast in that series
is Vincent. In other words, this is somebody who looks scary, but isn't.
Vincent also means "conqueror." He definitely conquered my heart.
Cuddly Hubby and I would joke that Vincent was the unplayable
Dungeons and Dragons character — poor scores in Intelligence, Wisdom,
Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. (How he could have that negative
modifier to Dexterity, we don't know, since you get a bonus to Dexterity
just for being a cat!) His only good trait was Charisma. I would remind
Vincent to please keep up the points in Constitution and to use his
Healing Power of Love feat every day.
Vincent has has a legendary run in the bonus rounds. In 2012 he came down with pancreatitis. I took him to the veterinarian on a Monday and he was on intravenous medication until Friday. But he bounced back. In 2013 he had a series of seizure-like episodes, the very first one being about an hour after midnight on the new year. They became less frequent and ultimately went away. In 2014 Vincent suffered a serious vascular issue in his back, causing paralysis. We gave him medications for months on end, slowly tapering them, and he recovered. He has suffered relapses over the years; some of which were worse than the original episode. I originally wrote this post in December of 2015, during a very bad relapse when I thought Vincent had reached the end. He even had a one-day recurrence of seizures on a Friday in 2016 when it looked like he might not last the weekend. I never set foot in the man cave in 2016 because every time I was about to leave, Vincent had a relapse. But then we found the magic pharmaceuticals. Vincent went
through all of 2017 and three-quarters of 2018 without a relapse. He went eleven months without being in the veterinarian's office. I am
very, very grateful for the good year that was 2017. But I've lost
track of the number of times I've given Vincent the "goodbye" speech.
Vincent suffered a relapse in October of 2018. For the last eight
months, he has been just barely nominal. Some days were good — he could
get around and was interested in eating and soaking up love. He even
managed a new adventure — a two-week trip to the Maryland man cave so I
could see Cuddly Hubby and attend Maryland Sheep and Wool. Other days
were not so good. Like Copernicus before him, he became expensive and
inconvenient as he needed more medications as well as weekly physical
therapy. I became both his care giver and a knitting teacher with a
travel schedule that took me out of state eleven weekends in the first
half of 2019. On at least one teaching trip, the cat sitter made visits
three times a day. But Vincent had such a wonderful temperament that he
took it all in stride, charming the veterinary technicians and the
Maryland cat sitters. And there were times when I came back after
teaching where he curled up in my arms at night and purred and purred
and purred; he was so grateful I was home.
Quietly, Vincent has persisted. His mobility reduced with each
relapse. Accommodations were necessary. I added two pet gates to prevent
Vincent from attempting
stairs, when it became clear those were no longer safe. I moved the
litter box from the basement to the main level. Then I replaced the box
with a shallow tray when Vincent couldn't get over the lip. He became
the
furry turtle — capable of moving from one place to another but never
quickly. Still, he would see me in the den, walk all the way down the
hall, down the one step, and put his front legs up on my bench to
signal me to pick him up and put him in my lap. He learned to use a step
stool to get up and down off the couch. I would sit to watch television
or knit, and Vincent would come over to slowly and carefully climb up
to be next to me. He became a second shadow. I began sleeping downstairs on the living room floor in January, since
Vincent seemed to do better the more time he spent with me. But I could also see
he was in his hide-y hole more, eating less. Weight was slipping away. He had good
days and not so good days. His veterinarian mentioned
that if he were human, he would be using trifocals. Age was overtaking
him.
His body became more fragile everywhere, except his heart. His veterinarian, Dr. Friedlander, would examine Vincent and listen with her stethoscope. Then she would remark with just a hint of surprise that his heart was still strong. Of course it was! That's where he put all his build points. He was all about the love!
Brûlée and Vincent connected me back to
Bruce. I have nothing of Bruce's stash or knitting, not even any of his single socks from the sock guild, as he seemed to get through one sock a month but not the full pair. His solar wind sock on display at The Whole Nine Yarns was destroyed by moths and sunlight. But for almost a decade I had Bruce's cats. I still had that connection, however tenuous. Now they are gone, too. My grief is a big knot of the loss of Bruce and Brûlée and Vincent. I need to remind myself the love is real, and those connections are never broken, merely less obviously displayed in the physical world. But I also know there can be love again. Brûlée and Vincent showed me it
was possible. I will always be grateful for that important lesson.
And now, they have both been returned. Thank you, Scenter, for allowing me to borrow your knitting-compatible familiars.
I've already started my journey towards new love. The eras of my adult life:
Copernicus & Sophia: August 1989 - June 2009
Brûlée & Vincent: July 2009- June 2019
Ozymandias & Ramses arrived on Sunday 2 June 2019.
Thank you, Vincent, my beloved love bug, for lasting long enough for me to begin the new journey. You will always be dear in my heart.
