Rest in Peace Booful Boy.
I got Orlando in the summer of 1983 when he was only a few weeks old. His mother wouldn’t nurse him as he was the only striped cat in her litter. My mom knew the owner and she also knew that I was single and living alone and so lonely…so she arranged for me to get Orlando. He was so scared when I brought him home he hid behind my china closet for two days. I slept on the couch so he’d know someone was nearby. Finally he came out and curled up beside my face while I was asleep. When I woke up he had peed on the pillow but I was so happy he’d come out from behind the china closet I didn’t care!
At first he was so tiny he could curl up in my shoes and go to sleep. That didn’t last long–he grew to be 16 pounds of muscle a big long strong cat. His nickname was The Big Boy. He looked like a wild animal but inside he was a total mama’s boy. I used to sing to him “Mama loves the Big Boy!” to a cha-cha tune. He pretended to want to go outside but if he actually made it onto my stoop he got scared and wanted right in again. His favorite things were sitting on my stereo looking out the window and making threatening noises at the birds and jumping from my kitchen table to the top of the fridge and surveying his “domain.” But best of all he loved to be brushed. After a while if I even opened the drawer where I kept his brush stuff he’d come zooming from wherever he was already purring before the brush ever touched him.
When he was two he started getting urinary problems. Eventually he had to have two surgeries one to remove bladder stones and one to create a larger opening for him to pee through. Unfortunately after that he would never use the litter box right again. But I had a tile basement floor and I loved him so much it never seemed like a big deal to mop up after him.
Orlando was a one-person cat and when I met my husband he used to jump on the couch between us when we were sitting there. One time my husband was playing with him and got a little too rough (didn’t respect The Big Boy’s dignity!) and Orlando ran out of the room and then about ten minutes later he dashed in again bit my husband on the ankle and dashed right back out! My husband was in shock but I was laughing like heck. Orlando had sat out there plotting his revenge for ten minutes!
Hubby and cat eventually reached an “understanding,” which lasted until we moved. Orlando was not happy in our new house and his urinary tract was giving him problems again. Eventually he started peeing on our wall-to-wall carpet and we’d have to keep him down the basement when we weren’t around to supervise. I felt terribly guilty having to shut him down there like that. I know he was lonely down there even though my husband made him a little “house” with a carpeted inside and his favorite toys right there. When I would come home he’d hear the door open and start crying and it would break my heart. We tried everything but we couldn’t get him to correct his toilet habits.
Then one day my husband came home and found Orlando really sick. I wasn’t home so my husband took him to the vet and they said he had thyroid cancer. When hubby told me I was devastated. I couldn’t imagine life without my cat. After all I’d had him 6 years longer than I’d had my husband! My husband didn’t want to make the decision to put Orlando to sleep so I wrestled with it all that night and the next day. Finally I realized it was the right thing even though it was so painful and I called the vet’s office and they said they could do it that evening.
So we went with our empty cat carrier. Orlando was so sick. He looked wasted and unhappy and had a big lump on his neck. Even so when the vet put him in my lap he started purring. It was so hard sitting there petting him knowing it was the last time. Finally we said we were ready. Hubby and I held and petted Orlando and sobbed while the vet gave the injection. In a few seconds it was all over. He let out one last breath and fell limp in my arms. It was both awfully real and surreal. He was still warm and heavy and it seemed like he should just start purring like he always did. Yet I knew all too well he was gone and he wasn’t coming back.
My heart ached as we placed him gently in his carrier. As my husband went to get the car I petted Orlando and whispered “Goodbye Baby I love you so much.” We brought him home and my husband dug a grave. We buried him wrapped in his towel with his toys and a few treats. I read Psalm 121 over his grave and just knelt there in the cold November air remembering my baby.
Orlando was more than just a cat or even a pet. He was my companion. He saw me through some of the worst most depressed days of my life and he was there to share some of the most joyous. Even now I still dream about him sometimes and when I walk past his grave I still miss him as much as I ever did. The Big Boy will always have a special place in my heart no matter how many other pets I end up having.
Here is a poem I wrote about the experience.
A Memorial for My Cat
Curled up under ground with his toys in endless sleep,
His old bones settle in a peaceful curve
And fossilize into an archaeologist’s dream.
Taking along the tears I cried into his fur,
He leaves me the custodian of his memory;
And when I go along no one will know either of us lived.
So I will watch the summers drift over him,
I will wipe the slush from his grave as he waits expecting me,
Turning to snow turning to rain as I journey back to the earth again.
S.S. Landis