I wasn’t looking for a cat when I met Yikes. I was a fun-loving single and didn’t want the responsibility. I didn’t realize how much I needed him until I fell in love with him in a pet store window and brought him home. Yikes was my best friend, my confidant, my comforter. He was there when no one else was. The days I would sit on the couch and cry about my latest break-up or whatever… Yikes would look at me with his soulful eyes and I swear he understood and wanted to make everything better.
Once when I went out with a guy, Yikes bit him! He had never done anything remotely aggressive like that before. It turned out that this guy was very bad news. Yikes somehow knew that. So Yikes was my protector as well.
We had our fun too! Yikes was an indoor cat but loved the outdoors and fresh air. We went for walks on his leash, and one of his favorite things to do was to stick to the window screen, Garfield-style. I remember being inside my apartment and I would hear people walk by my building and suddenly exclaim.. “Oh my gosh, look at that cat!” Yikes was a playful kitten and got himself into predicaments, but even back then he was a very good boy. I never had to worry about him batting glasses off the table or going oustide his litter box, nothing. OK, one time I came home to find a small 3-legged table on its side and the lamp on the floor broken… but I know that was just an accident that happened when Yikes was playing his little game of trying to walk the perimeter of the room without ever touching the floor!
For half of his life, it was just Yikes and me. Then I met my future husband. Rick liked Yikes right away and knew how special he was. When our family and Rick and I went on a trip together, Rick surprised me beforehand with a photo album full of over 100 very nice pictures of Yikes! It was to take with me because he knew how badly I was going to miss Yikes that week. It had to take him hours to get all those good shots and all behind my back. On the front it says, “We love you… Rick & Yikes. That album sits in our great room today.
It took Yikes a little bit longer to warm up to him. Whenever Yikes was displeased, he would give off this low groan/growl. We called him ‘siren kitty’ because he sounded like a very far away siren. Yikes’ warning siren would go off whenever he felt that Rick was infringing too much on our territory. I remember the first night my husband and I got back from our honeymoon… we got in bed, turned out the light. Yikes was on his side of the bed. My new husband carefully tried to slide in under and next to Yikes. Yikes started his ‘siren kitty’ noise and my husband said in a scared voice to me, “Turn on the lights, turn on the lights!” I’m not sure to this day what my husband thought Yikes was going to do to him!
Yikes finally accepted then eventually grew to love my husband. Yikes was our baby, and he continued to be spoiled and loved. Eventually we added even more to our family — a daughter, another cat to keep Yikes company (who Yikes just ignored), and a son.
Right before my son was born, Yikes was diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). It’s always fatal; it was a death sentence for my best friend. It’s basically a condition where the lungs fill with fluid. Yikes had his lungs drained, and the vet said how long it took his lungs to fill up again would determine how long he could live comfortably. It could be just weeks or up to 6 months.
Very sadly, his lungs refilled with fluid in just 3 weeks. We made the heart-breaking decision to let Yikes go at that time. The lung-draining procedure is very painful for cats and we couldn’t put him through that every 2-3 weeks. The alternative is that his lungs would continue to fill and he would drown in his own body fluid. Yikes was already crouching and gasping hard for air with every breath. When my baby son was just 3 weeks old, we let Yikes go. On that day we took Yikes outside for one last time because he loved the outdoors. It was a nice thought I suppose, but the humid weather just distressed him more. We did have one last good moment with him on that last trip to the vet. Yikes’ breathing cleared for a minute and he stood up on my lap and looked out the window and seemed fine for a few minutes. At that time we began to doubt what we were about to do, but I know that he was drowning even as we rode. I held Yikes in my lap during those last conscious moments at the vets. My husband was right next to us. I hope it was some comfort to Yikes to hear our voices at the end.
I’m sad that my son never got to know Yikes. My daughter who was 2 years old at the time, still remembers Yikes and talks about him 7 years later. My husband loved Yikes very much and I know it was heart-wrenching for him to have to bury him. But I also know my husband respected the special relationship that Yikes and I had
that can never be duplicated.
Yikes, there will never be another pet like you, another cat like you, and certainly never another friend like you.
You were the best everything.
| Yikes |
| Debbie |