Autumn, 1998.
I'd never had a cat in my life. In fact, I used to hate cats, because one killed my beloved rabbit Pina, back when I was twelve. Pina was the beloved of the three brothers, of which I am the youngest. On any day, you could walk into the house and regard a sleeping brother on the couch, supposedly watching television, with Pina lying in the chest, fast asleep as well. My God, she was beautiful. My God, she was killed by a stray cat.
So what am I doing driving to another city to pick up a stray cat? I don't know, something along the way in my life snapped me out of hate (maybe it was the one time I did mushrooms?), and here I was on my way to pick up the kitty I urged my then girlfriend (now wife) to help and feed when she was in distress.
I could not believe just how easy she was to love! So elegant and dignified, yet grateful, no ****ing ego whatsoever! And so, my ego dissolved right right in front of her, and just for her.
Her name is Chimay.
One night, late at night, I felt something was wrong at home, nothing deadly, but my presence was needed just the same. I actually explained my hunch to my graveyard shift companions while I was putting the keys in the ignition. When I got home twenty miles away, Chimay was sitting quietly in the porch stairs, waiting for me, with a thorn stuck half an inch into her cheek.
Then she got pregnant, a horrible episode, since she couldn't crap right and dragged her open hind legs on the floor, leaving streaks of **** all over the place. I yelled at her and she looked at me with eyes that said "What do you want me to do?!!"
And then, on April 11, 1999, I went out and got stinking drunk, got home and crashed on the bed. When I woke up the next morning, Chimay was beside me in the middle of a pool of blood, purring in a Sphinx position, while five tiny bodies were exploring my body under the sheets. The payoff, the jackpot, call it what you will. Even as I was dying for something as simple as a glass of water, I dared not move as to not break the magical spell we were living, all seven of us.
I broke my own house rules and went way out of my way to keep Chimay and her children comfy, and in the end, I kept them all! Yuri, Movi, Naima, Chilmoles and Bebita. Chimay suckled them until one night she plopped belly up, purring, and they ignored her, at eighteen weeks. The book said nine weeks is the average, Chimay doubled up.
Two years later, we rescued an abandoned cat, Yeyé. On Day Two of Yeyé’s arrival, I caught Chimay gently teaching Yeyé the ways of living as a cat, with an ambush that was more like a caress.
They got the full vet treatment, the best food we could get, Feliway, etc. I figured Chimay would be with me for at least eighteen years. If lucky, twenty five.
Little by little, one at a time, Movi, Naima and Yuri left, incredibly painful events, but Bebita and Chilmoles stayed with her mother and me, then my girlfriend, who finished college and moved in.
March, 2007
Cue years and years of carefree bliss. Then one day a few weeks ago, Chimay got sick. The vet fixed her breathing, her tummy went wrong. The vet fixed her tummy, her breathing went worse, a downward spiral. Yeah, you guessed it, leukemia. She responded to nothing and disintegrated before our eyes within two weeks.
On her last vet visit, this very good man was gentle in his news while him, my wife and me caresses Chimay: she had hours. But no, he did NOT put my beloved Chimay to sleep, he told us to take her home in her last hours and gave us ten strong doses of Diazepam for the IV.
We got to take Chimay home and give her what she loved most in life: her IKEA sofa in front of the fireplace with Billie Holliday. She was not distressed, she went peacefully, with her children around, of course that includes her human kids (my wife and I).
My wife's sister and her boyfriend arrived to just BE and help.
When Chimay crossed the bridge, we opened a bottle of champagne, toasted and reminisced about her, exchanging stories like disaster survivors. Then we opened a bottle of single-malt scotch, which I ended up finishing by myself, all the while pressing my open palm on Chimay’s body, covered up by a beautiful mexican textured shawl, while listening to the most personal music my collection could attempt to muster (Bob Dylan, Roxy Music (Avalon), Brian Eno (By This River), REM (Murmur), Beatles (Sgt Pepper’s), Beth Orton (Shopping Trolley), Wilco (Airline To Heaven), Van Morrison (Astral Weeks), frequently assaulted by irregular spasms of bottomless grief.
What sense does any roadmap make without my compass? My Chimay?
For a couple of days, my wife and I took vitamin-B complex injections, then took it in pills, as the gel injections are incredibly painfull. Then I started taking lactobacilus acidofilus pills, to replentish the intestinal flora. The best tribute for Chimay is not only to live, but to struggle to live well, with pro-biotics, until it becomes a struggle no more.
My wife and I are trying to boost the nutrition of our remaining cats. We are also creating a memorial park in our desertic front yard, which we’ve taken for granted for the longest time. My wife has about forty plants going, today I just finished a bonfire sculpture connected by a winding twenty-foot stone line to Chimay’s final resting ground, a quartz/granite pyramid. We’ve got a job to do still, we intend to fully fix up the place and do a party for Chimay. To appreciate and keep on living in these spaces we always took for granted.
As a family, expand and enrich spaces we (both) stupid humans always took for granted.
If you’ve made it this far, PLEASE check out my Chimay tribute page:
http://web.mac.com/eurobar/iWeb/Eurobar/Chimay.html
¡¡¡CHIMAY!!!
I'd never had a cat in my life. In fact, I used to hate cats, because one killed my beloved rabbit Pina, back when I was twelve. Pina was the beloved of the three brothers, of which I am the youngest. On any day, you could walk into the house and regard a sleeping brother on the couch, supposedly watching television, with Pina lying in the chest, fast asleep as well. My God, she was beautiful. My God, she was killed by a stray cat.
So what am I doing driving to another city to pick up a stray cat? I don't know, something along the way in my life snapped me out of hate (maybe it was the one time I did mushrooms?), and here I was on my way to pick up the kitty I urged my then girlfriend (now wife) to help and feed when she was in distress.
I could not believe just how easy she was to love! So elegant and dignified, yet grateful, no ****ing ego whatsoever! And so, my ego dissolved right right in front of her, and just for her.
Her name is Chimay.
One night, late at night, I felt something was wrong at home, nothing deadly, but my presence was needed just the same. I actually explained my hunch to my graveyard shift companions while I was putting the keys in the ignition. When I got home twenty miles away, Chimay was sitting quietly in the porch stairs, waiting for me, with a thorn stuck half an inch into her cheek.
Then she got pregnant, a horrible episode, since she couldn't crap right and dragged her open hind legs on the floor, leaving streaks of **** all over the place. I yelled at her and she looked at me with eyes that said "What do you want me to do?!!"
And then, on April 11, 1999, I went out and got stinking drunk, got home and crashed on the bed. When I woke up the next morning, Chimay was beside me in the middle of a pool of blood, purring in a Sphinx position, while five tiny bodies were exploring my body under the sheets. The payoff, the jackpot, call it what you will. Even as I was dying for something as simple as a glass of water, I dared not move as to not break the magical spell we were living, all seven of us.
I broke my own house rules and went way out of my way to keep Chimay and her children comfy, and in the end, I kept them all! Yuri, Movi, Naima, Chilmoles and Bebita. Chimay suckled them until one night she plopped belly up, purring, and they ignored her, at eighteen weeks. The book said nine weeks is the average, Chimay doubled up.
Two years later, we rescued an abandoned cat, Yeyé. On Day Two of Yeyé’s arrival, I caught Chimay gently teaching Yeyé the ways of living as a cat, with an ambush that was more like a caress.
They got the full vet treatment, the best food we could get, Feliway, etc. I figured Chimay would be with me for at least eighteen years. If lucky, twenty five.
Little by little, one at a time, Movi, Naima and Yuri left, incredibly painful events, but Bebita and Chilmoles stayed with her mother and me, then my girlfriend, who finished college and moved in.
March, 2007
Cue years and years of carefree bliss. Then one day a few weeks ago, Chimay got sick. The vet fixed her breathing, her tummy went wrong. The vet fixed her tummy, her breathing went worse, a downward spiral. Yeah, you guessed it, leukemia. She responded to nothing and disintegrated before our eyes within two weeks.
On her last vet visit, this very good man was gentle in his news while him, my wife and me caresses Chimay: she had hours. But no, he did NOT put my beloved Chimay to sleep, he told us to take her home in her last hours and gave us ten strong doses of Diazepam for the IV.
We got to take Chimay home and give her what she loved most in life: her IKEA sofa in front of the fireplace with Billie Holliday. She was not distressed, she went peacefully, with her children around, of course that includes her human kids (my wife and I).
My wife's sister and her boyfriend arrived to just BE and help.
When Chimay crossed the bridge, we opened a bottle of champagne, toasted and reminisced about her, exchanging stories like disaster survivors. Then we opened a bottle of single-malt scotch, which I ended up finishing by myself, all the while pressing my open palm on Chimay’s body, covered up by a beautiful mexican textured shawl, while listening to the most personal music my collection could attempt to muster (Bob Dylan, Roxy Music (Avalon), Brian Eno (By This River), REM (Murmur), Beatles (Sgt Pepper’s), Beth Orton (Shopping Trolley), Wilco (Airline To Heaven), Van Morrison (Astral Weeks), frequently assaulted by irregular spasms of bottomless grief.
What sense does any roadmap make without my compass? My Chimay?
For a couple of days, my wife and I took vitamin-B complex injections, then took it in pills, as the gel injections are incredibly painfull. Then I started taking lactobacilus acidofilus pills, to replentish the intestinal flora. The best tribute for Chimay is not only to live, but to struggle to live well, with pro-biotics, until it becomes a struggle no more.
My wife and I are trying to boost the nutrition of our remaining cats. We are also creating a memorial park in our desertic front yard, which we’ve taken for granted for the longest time. My wife has about forty plants going, today I just finished a bonfire sculpture connected by a winding twenty-foot stone line to Chimay’s final resting ground, a quartz/granite pyramid. We’ve got a job to do still, we intend to fully fix up the place and do a party for Chimay. To appreciate and keep on living in these spaces we always took for granted.
As a family, expand and enrich spaces we (both) stupid humans always took for granted.
If you’ve made it this far, PLEASE check out my Chimay tribute page:
http://web.mac.com/eurobar/iWeb/Eurobar/Chimay.html
