His Name was Spooky

His name was Spooky, and he taught me everything I've ever needed to know about unconditional love.

He came to us late in the evening, in the middle of winter, through a hole in our foundation and thus into the crawl space in the basement. A small, swollen thing caterwauling so loudly I assumed he was a pregnant female about to give birth. His stomach was hugely swollen, so my assumption can be forgiven.

Whoever left this cat to fend for himself in the middle of winter can not be.

Because Spooky, above all of the cats I've ever known and cared for, was all about the love. He loved everyone and everything. If you even looked at him he started purring. He wanted very little from life beyond people who loved him and enough food not to starve. That's why his belly was so swollen, he was literally starving to death. And if there was ever a cat not prepared to hunt for himself in any season, it was Spooky.

Spooky, not to put too fine a point on it, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. In his entire life Spooky never caught so much as a bug. Where most cats are natural survivors Spooky was not. And yet, somehow he managed to find a family that would love him.

Not that it was easy at first. At the time, two other cats owned us, a huge Maine Coon we called Beasty Boy, and a pure black cat named Trilby, who my husband declared my familiar. Beasty, like most Maine Coons, was very territorial. He didn't like stray cats in HIS house, and he most certainly didn't like them eating HIS food.

"It'll get better," I told my husband.

Well, it didn't. Every time Spooky came in to eat, Beasty stalked him. It wasn't an outright attack but a slow, careful stalk that ended in flying fur and Spooky's hasty evacuation to the outdoors. We didn't want him to be an outdoor cat, but with Beasty around, it's not hard to understand why he didn't spend much time indoors. Just long enough to get warmed up and to eat. Who wants to hang around where there's another cat twice your size who wants to kill you?

Obviously Spooky needed an escort to the food dish, and for years after Beasty died (another sad story), either me or my husband had to go with him to eat his dry. He would yowl until you got up and went with him. That the threat was long over didn't matter. Spooky wasn't good at learning things, but once he learned them, he couldn't unlearn them. Eating is dangerous, Mom or Dad have to come with. Period.

Have I mentioned the yowling? Not enough. He yowled so much my husband nick-named him the Squawky Talky. If there was *anything* not right in his world, he yowled. If he wanted to go outside, he yowled. And we didn't want him out, the outside world for a cat of Spooky's limitations was not a safe place. But Spooky liked to hang out with his buddy, Paul. Over time I learned the best place to look for him when he escaped was in the back alley with Paul.

You see, Spooky loved other cats. He really did love everyone. As long as you weren't trying to kill him, you were cool. He loved you.

Spooky, being a white cat, was prone to genetic disorders. We learned this after yet another pricy vet visit. All white cats are almost always female, and almost always have two different eye colors. Spooky, as an all white male with blue eyes, was a rarity. He was also partially deaf. We didn't realize that until the vet told us that all white cats with blue eyes are at least partially deaf. Which did explain some of his behavior. It's hard to be at the top of the food chain when you can't hear properly.

One of his congenital disorders involved his teeth. Basically the roots dissolved. In the end, he lost most of them, and had to be (God forbid) on wet food for several months. He endured two very difficult dental procedures. The first one came close to killing him. I will never forget sitting in the waiting room at the vet hospital and it was taking way too long. They said I could pick him up at two PM, and now it's nearly four. Finally they came to get me and the first thing out of my mouth was, "Is he still alive?"

"It was touch and go. He was in so much pain, it kept bringing him out of the anesthetic, and there was only so much we could give him."

That was the visit where I learned that Spooky had lived for years with a tremendous about of pain. The experts had no idea his teeth were so bad, so I tried not to beat myself up for not knowing, still, I didn't understand.

"But he loves being petted around his mouth, how could he stand that?"

"He's a cat," the vet said, "they are very good at hiding pain."

And for Spooky, there was no question he would endure the pain, for some love. Even just a little love.

If my black cat was my familiar, Spooky became my heart. I'm an older women with arthritis, and do a series of stretches every night. I made it a habit when I got down on my yoga mat, to play with Spooky. A cheapie fishing rod with a catnip fish on the end was his favorite. Together, we destroyed that toy. (I got two, since he loved it, but the new one wouldn't do, it had to be the old battered one.)

You see I knew that if by a certain time of the evening I wasn't on my yoga mat, Sp0oky would yowl. And yowl, and yowl, until I got my old body down on the floor to play. Yep, I had a cat as a work-out buddy.

At one of his many vet visits, we learned that at some point before we'd adopted him, he'd broken his pelvis. Which explained why he wasn't much of a jumper. Even now it brings tears to my eyes to know this cat, who was so full of love, was going through the world so very broken. Constantly in pain, but never letting it get him down.

As my arthritis worsened, I took my cues from him. Sure, I'm in pain, but the world is still a great place, filled with love. Pain you can ignore, love is everything.

His name was Spooky, and he taught me so much.

As luck would have it, Spooky became dangerously ill while my husband was visiting his brother 3,000 miles away. I took him to the hospital, they sent him home, and then I brought him back the next day. He never left. A few days later I got the call, fortunately my husband had just got back from the airport. Together we drove to the hospital to put our beloved Spooky to sleep.

Now, I'm one of those no nonsense women who outwardly at least looks pretty tough. And I broke down like I never have before, in front of my husband and the vet.

"My baby, my baby," I sobbed as I held his lifeless body.

His name was Spooky, and he taught me that love was and is the most important thing in the world.

His name was Spooky, and he may not have been a very smart cat, but he knew that. He knew that.