Beatrix was quite the con artist. When my daughter, Lacey, and I went to the shelter in hopes of adopting a cat, the shelter was chock full of cats. It was heartbreaking, because there were just so many that we would have loved to bring home, but we could only have one. Beatrix, or Pogo - as she was known at the time - was this massively fat, pretty cat that put on quite the show for us in her cage. As all of the other cats merely looked at us, Beatrix acted coy by rolling around in her cage, rubbing her face against the wire so we could rub her cheeks, and reached her paws out to us through the bars. When we were getting to know her more in the greeting area, she was purring loudly and kept jumping onto our laps and snuggling us. Oh yeah, she picked US. So we brought her home.
She was so round that we were unsure if she could actually fit into the cat carrier. Really. No exaggeration. She was always and indoor cat and had been declawed by her previous owner (a horrible practice that I certainly do NOT condone), so let's just say she was not very active. I'd say her most vigorous activity was eating. She loved to eat. She demanded to eat. She ate slovenly, with her mouth open, food dropping anywhere and everywhere. Our dog, Hank, loved that.
But, trickster that she was, Beatrix was actually aloof. Yup, we quickly learned that all that love and affection that we had received at the shelter was just a ploy. She played us and we fell for it. The reality was that Beatrix did not like to cuddle. Or snuggle. Or like to be picked up. While she did spend most of her time in Lacey's room, probably because that's where her food dish was kept, she did not appreciate unwelcome guests - such as myself - in her area. Whenever I would walk into the room, she would glare at me and then stare at my feet until I stepped back over the threshold.
All of that seemed to change three years ago when Beatrix developed fatty liver disease out of nowhere. She stopped eating and quickly dropped a lot of weight off of her 16 pound frame. She was starving. She went from being morbidly obese to anorexic. After months of hospital and vet visits, blood tests, ultrasounds, a feeding tube for a month, and constant, dedicated care from Lacey, she made a full recovery. Beatrix's countenance changed after that. She seemed to understand that we really did love her and proved it by nursing her back to health. She allowed us to pick her up. She was more attentive to Lacey - she would wait for her to come home from work every night and would be excited when Lacey awoke in the mornings. She even watched Gilmore Girls with us. Every evening, she decided that it was cuddle-time with my husband. She would settle herself right on his lap and stay there for hours.
Last weekend we noticed that the eating and drinking had stopped again. The sparkle was leaving her eyes. She was present but not really there. Tests confirmed what we had suspected and we just couldn't put Beatrix through a harrowing experience again just for our sake.
So, we let her go. We miss her. We're grateful for the time we all spent with her. Wherever she is, may she be enjoying the most elegant, endless feast.
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