About Ahab
Feb. 7th, 2009 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marydellThanks, everyone, for the sympathies - it really helped me to get through a sad day. To answer a few questions in one fell swoop:
I got Ahab when he was a half-grown kitten - the shelter said he'd had his leg amputated because of an "old injury" that hadn't healed right. I'm not sure how a kitten gets an old injury, but I suppose living in cat years makes a difference. My brother helped me to name him - we figured an amputee cat should be named after a famous amputee of literature or history, so it came down to Long John Silver or Captain Ahab, and Ahab just suited him.* He was a little lighter on his belly, like cats sometimes are, but because of the amputation his belly fur met up with his side fur in a line of demarcation, which looked kind of goofy. Even more goofy was his habit of trying to scratch his ear with the leg he didn't have, which would result in him making progressively more irritated faces until one of us would scratch it for him.
He was the friendliest cat ever--when I got him at the shelter they said all he wanted was to be held and petted, and to the day he died that was still all he really wanted. He loved meeting new people and would sit on the lap of anyone who would let him. He also liked the only dog he ever met, my brother's beagle Moostie, and he alarmed her by sniffing her and licking her in spite of her fear of cats. He wasn't very interested in the baby, or vice-versa, but last week Charlie decided to pet him a little bit, so they had a moment of connection.
He particularly loved my other cat, Mirabell, who was a few years older than him, and who looked after him like a mother (even though both cats were ex-boys - Mirabell was named after the hero of Congreve's <i>The Way of the World</i>. I was a very serious lit student type back when I got him). Ahab didn't have to manage his own baths until after Mirabell died a few years ago--he would just go stick his head under Mirabell's and Mirabell, the cleanest cat who ever lived, would get to work. (Mirabell is the lovely Siamese white in the pictures; Ahab is the tabby) I hope they're together in kitty heaven now.
I've been muddling along with cat allergies for a decade or more; when I was diagnosed, we opted to try to manage my allergies rather than give the cats to friends, since the cats were doglike in their devotion to us, and we were devoted to them. That meant washing my hands after petting them, changing my shirt after holding them, and minimal snorgling. Mike made up the difference and it worked out well for everyone. Mirabell, we put to sleep at age 14 after a series of seizures, probably from a brain cancer or hemmorhage. Ahab lost his appetite over the course of two weeks, and on Thursday stopped drinking water, and on Friday was diagnosed with kidney failure, and so we put him to sleep. Neither of them was sick for a day in their lives before the very end, and they both went peacefully with their preferred "parent" petting them--me for Mirabell, Mike for Ahab. So we were all fantastically lucky, and had good lives together. Unfortunately because of my allergies, I won't have another cat, but I couldn't ask for better ones than the two guys who spent their lives with me, and the gal, Moonlight, who I grew up with. So I'm at peace with it although I miss them, and probably always will.
More Pictures Here
*years later, the same philosophy led Mike and me to give our son, an upper-limb congenital amputee, the middle name Nelson.
I got Ahab when he was a half-grown kitten - the shelter said he'd had his leg amputated because of an "old injury" that hadn't healed right. I'm not sure how a kitten gets an old injury, but I suppose living in cat years makes a difference. My brother helped me to name him - we figured an amputee cat should be named after a famous amputee of literature or history, so it came down to Long John Silver or Captain Ahab, and Ahab just suited him.* He was a little lighter on his belly, like cats sometimes are, but because of the amputation his belly fur met up with his side fur in a line of demarcation, which looked kind of goofy. Even more goofy was his habit of trying to scratch his ear with the leg he didn't have, which would result in him making progressively more irritated faces until one of us would scratch it for him.
He was the friendliest cat ever--when I got him at the shelter they said all he wanted was to be held and petted, and to the day he died that was still all he really wanted. He loved meeting new people and would sit on the lap of anyone who would let him. He also liked the only dog he ever met, my brother's beagle Moostie, and he alarmed her by sniffing her and licking her in spite of her fear of cats. He wasn't very interested in the baby, or vice-versa, but last week Charlie decided to pet him a little bit, so they had a moment of connection.
He particularly loved my other cat, Mirabell, who was a few years older than him, and who looked after him like a mother (even though both cats were ex-boys - Mirabell was named after the hero of Congreve's <i>The Way of the World</i>. I was a very serious lit student type back when I got him). Ahab didn't have to manage his own baths until after Mirabell died a few years ago--he would just go stick his head under Mirabell's and Mirabell, the cleanest cat who ever lived, would get to work. (Mirabell is the lovely Siamese white in the pictures; Ahab is the tabby) I hope they're together in kitty heaven now.
I've been muddling along with cat allergies for a decade or more; when I was diagnosed, we opted to try to manage my allergies rather than give the cats to friends, since the cats were doglike in their devotion to us, and we were devoted to them. That meant washing my hands after petting them, changing my shirt after holding them, and minimal snorgling. Mike made up the difference and it worked out well for everyone. Mirabell, we put to sleep at age 14 after a series of seizures, probably from a brain cancer or hemmorhage. Ahab lost his appetite over the course of two weeks, and on Thursday stopped drinking water, and on Friday was diagnosed with kidney failure, and so we put him to sleep. Neither of them was sick for a day in their lives before the very end, and they both went peacefully with their preferred "parent" petting them--me for Mirabell, Mike for Ahab. So we were all fantastically lucky, and had good lives together. Unfortunately because of my allergies, I won't have another cat, but I couldn't ask for better ones than the two guys who spent their lives with me, and the gal, Moonlight, who I grew up with. So I'm at peace with it although I miss them, and probably always will.
More Pictures Here
*years later, the same philosophy led Mike and me to give our son, an upper-limb congenital amputee, the middle name Nelson.
