For you, Mom

Hey mom, I have a small secret I’ve kept from you. I don’t know if it will surprise you or not, but when I lived at home, do you remember how my cats would sometimes sit on the table? Zoey, Snickers, Rusty, Milly—all of them? Though Zoey and Snickers have passed on, I feel it is fair to tell you this.

While I did not encourage them to sit on the table, I did offer “senior citizen rights” to Zoey and Snickers as they got older. When Zoey began to lose weight and it became clear that her time was limited, I wouldn’t always take her off the table. Often, I’d find her on top of a newspaper or magazine, and I would think, “Well, it’s not like she’s truly touching the table…”

I only let her stay there most often if she’d resist me by rolling on her side, or if she ignored the water of the spray bottle. I just couldn’t find it in my heart to move her sometimes. Of all the good things she brought us, I wanted to give her some peace.

Though, one time, she sort of failed to adequately clean her paws after using the litter box, and got a little pee on the table. I remember I was quick to move her and place her in the bathroom with a towel—for her to dry herself with, as well as sit on. Then I used soap, water, and one of the cleaning bottles from the closet to wipe down the table several times. I felt bad, because I knew I should have scolded her more, but…I knew she was struggling, and that knowledge was overwhelming to me at times.

She’d been there in my room with me, through the years when I struggled to sleep. Through so much of my childhood, that the idea of losing her often broke me into tears, because I knew from previous experiences with the stray, sickly cats we’d helped before her, that a final vet visit would rip me to pieces.

She was the first stray to stay with us beyond a two-year timeframe. In the early years of my life, we usually adopted the sickly cats no one could care for. But Zoey, she was with us for eleven years, indoors only, and in many ways, like a sister to me. I know she was a cat, but she was mine, and I would have given anything to have more time with her.

So, yes, sometimes I allowed her to stay on the table. She owned my whole heart.

As for Snickers, he was more intermittent with his table visits. He wasn’t as much of an issue on the table as Zoey was. If he did go on the table, he’d usually wait until I left the dining room, and then go after any fake plants within his reach. Sometimes he’d go for real plants, like your Mother’s Day flowers, and then throw it up on the table.

I wouldn’t tell you when he threw up on the table. I’d just clean it and pretend it didn’t happen. And there’s another thing I didn’t tell you about him. Sometimes I’d bring him into the guest bedroom and let him sniff around. It’s just…when his time with us grew shorter by the day, I wanted to let him experience the “forbidden room” a few times.

I was home all the time due to covid and online college courses. I was his main caretaker, giving him steroids and anti-nausea medicines at scheduled intervals, and I just wanted him to enjoy his remaining time.

As for Rusty, while I may not live at home anymore, I can say that I started to give him some leniency with the table. He wasn’t (and still isn’t) a senior citizen, but he kind of got immune to the spray bottle and began hopping on the table so frequently that it got tiring to get up every minute to remove him. So, sometimes, I’d just put newspapers all over the top and let him stay there while I worked.

As for Milly, she didn’t get too many chances to hop up before I moved out, so that’s a plus for you, though I won’t lie—she did hop up a lot when she thought I wasn’t looking. At least you don’t have to worry about that now! Between her and Rusty, I have my work cut out for me, but I’m looking forward to their misadventures.

I love you.