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| Max at the Cabin, 2007 |
First, some background. Just before moving to India, Max, a.k.a. Maxine so that the vet knew she was a she, was diagnosed with a cancer, operated on, and seemingly recovered. We had decided to leave Max in the USA with Zander as we did not believe either would make the trip to India, nor would they be comfortable with their long hair. So, both of the girls went to Montana with Alli's folks, and the boys came to India with us. As I indicated in our last edition of the Babbler, both of the girls passed away last year. Max's cancer came back with a vengence, and it has taken us a year to ponder a proper eulogy for Max. Alli had made some notes of things to remember, but to date has not posted. Perhaps, that is why I woke up remembering her - Max was letting me know that she needed to be remembered.
Losing Jasmine was a huge hit to Alli. It took the wind out of her sails for a few weeks, and she did not want to even think about going and looking for a new cat right away. Zander was ten at the time, and she was enjoying the run of the house. However, Zander had always been the "other" cat as Jasmine had never forgiven Alli for bringing her home, and Zander developed on the fringe of life in the house.
Alli had told me the story of how Jasmine came to be with her - how they chose each other. As I recall the story, she was looking at kittens, I don't remember if it was a shelter or pet shop. Anyway, she picked up Jasmine who nuzzled into her neck and began to purr - the bond was that quick, and it lasted 19 years.
A couple of months after Jasmine's passing, Alli awoke one Saturday morning and asked if I would go down to the Humane Society to look at kittens with her. I said sure as it is always fun to show some affection starved cats a moment of love. When Alli and I go shopping for her stuff, I quickly scout the offerings and point out items I think she would be interested in. So, I made a quick perusal of the kittens in the room, and when I turned around to report my findings, there in the middle of the room was Alli with a little ball of fur nuzzled into her neck, purring. I thought, alrighty then, I guess we're done here - the bond had been made, and we took Max home, but not before I asked Alli "Just how many toes does that cat have, anyway?". You see, Max was polydactyl, and she had at least six toes on each foot - a good snow shoe cat for Minnesota Winters.
Alli puts Max as having 26 toes on four feet. Her front feet had what appeared to be thumbs, and she could grip objects the way humans do, which was quite useful when she was walking the railing at the cabin. And, it appeared as if she had her feet on the wrong side. You know how a child's feet look when they put their shoes on the wrong foot? Well, that is how Max's feet looked.
Ok, another digression to set the stage for Max's home coming. Picard was in the house, too, and for those of you who remember Picard, he loved a new toy. Once, while we were still living in Great Falls we bought Picard this motorized ball with an infectious giggle. The ball had pegs sticking out of it, and it would bounce around the kitchen making its noises, which.drove Picard crazy. He would pounce on it, bark at it, and had way too much fun chasing it around the kitchen. We could only set the ball down for two minutes before Picard was too crazed to control himself. He loved a new toy, and he hated squeaky toys. Cats were purrrrfect!
We took Max home, and Alli was planning the process of nurturing a new cat into the house when we were met at the door by Picard with a very expectant look on his face - "Did you bring me a toy?". As far as Picard was concerned, Max was his. They grew into the best of friends. We took Max to the cabin with us, and she and Picard would romp and play and fall asleep on top of each other. While we were driving to and from the cabin, Max slept on top of Picard. When Picard passed in 2006, Max went into a depression which lasted about a year - she missed her buddy. It was during this period that Max began to groom me. As we sat in the family room watching TV, Max would sit behind me on the top of the sofa, and she would lick my hair. I think that I became her new Picard bud, and obviously I needed some nurturing and grooming. I must say, being groomed by a cat is a fairly weird feeling.
Max was a mouser, and our house in New Hope needed a good mouser. Prior to Max's arrival, we had rescued over seventy mice from the house for relocation to other environments. After Max's arrival, well let's just say there was a new sheriff in town, and the mouse harvest went way down. Jessie came into the house next, and when Alli returned to work we began our relationship with Megan to be with Jessie while we went out for date night. Megan was 12 at the time, and there were a few phone calls about what to do with what Max just brought up out of the basement. Once, we came home to both Megan and Jessie sitting on the couch in the family room, feet up, Max was on the floor by the TV with a big paw holding down a still alive mouse. I put on a glove and walked over to the cat to remove the mouse so the kids would get off the couch, when Max and mouse went upstairs into the living room. Chasing her down, I wrested the mouse from her control, and she sauntered off. The mouse then escaped my grip and was loose on the carpet again. Max laid down in the middle of the living room and began to groom herself. She looked up at me as if to say, "Dude, you wanted it, you catch it!", and so I did. Never expect much from a miffed cat.
Max loved to play mouse ball. We got some play mice from the pet shop. I think they were made out of rabbit fur, or some such. Max would sit on the stairs to the sleeping area of the house (we had a split level, so we had stairs everywhere), and we would stand in the entry way and pitch the play mice to her. Max would use her over sized feet to bat them back to us through the wrought iron railings. Alli thought that Max was left handed after watching her play mouse ball, or it could be that she knew she could not backhand the mouse.
Another game with the play mice was to hide them around the house. Max would hunt and find them while we were at work. She loved the variability of this game, and she would stalk them once she noticed a new nose or a tail where it should not be. We kept buying mice as they quickly disappeared. We wondered where they went. Then one Sunday I got busy with a new vacuum, and I moved a bunch of furniture around to clean under, and I found a treasure trove of well used play mice.
Then there was the "Super cat in the Target Bag" incident. We came home from a foraging trip with many bags of stuff, which were put on the dining table to keep Picard from eating whatever might be in the bag. I went downstairs to relax from the exhaustion of shopping when the damnedest clatter broke out. Next thing I know there is the furry shape flying over me at great speed towards the back of the room, and then it zipped back over me and headed back upstairs towards the bed rooms. I caught up with a very frightened Max who had gotten her head though the handle hole of a plastic shopping bag. She had become Super Cat (put in your own Ta-Da) - totally freaked. It took a couple of days to completely piece together the story of what had happened as we had not found the contents of one of the bags, and we thought we had left something at the store. We had not, it was scattered about the living room and under furniture.
Oh, and then there is the example of what not to do with a cat. Alli's folks had a lot of fun gifting us stuff for the cabin, and one of those gifts was a bear foot stool, which we named Calvin. We got the bear after Max was grown, and she was making less frequent trips to the cabin. Well, I took her into the cabin from the vehicle, and I stuck her face in Calvin's face, and she voided right there on my leg. The girl had a weak bladder, and she lost it. Cat 1, laundry 0.
Sundays at our house, when we were actually home, were lazy feline affairs in a sunbeam with coffee, the paper, and McMuffins. The minute Alli unwrapped her McMuffin, Max was right there to help assure her that there was no waste of McNubbins. The counter to this was the mess Max made while drinking. She would scoop up some water in her paw and lick it off, while the paw was dripping all over the floor, and like normal cats she would also lap up water; however, she had a long tongue, and would get water all over the bathroom. The bathroom cat dish always looked like a pigeon had just taken a bath with all the water that was scattered about.
Little oddball memories include how Max loved to listen to me whistle. I whistle when I'm happy; Jessie sings, I whistle. At some point, not sure when, but Max would come and sit in front me when I was whistling as if she enjoyed the playing of the instrument. Regardless of where she was at in the house, she would come sit and listen to me whistle. Or Max on the kitchen counter listening to the ice melt in the sink - we don't know why that fascinated her, but it did. Or how she really hated to go into a cat carrier. Whenever she saw the cat carrier, she headed for the ledge behind the furnace, and we had a devil of a time getting her flushed out of there.
I visited Max just before her death at Alli's folks house. She had just completed her last chemo, and she didn't feel at all well. She wanted nothing to do with me, and I thought she might be angry with me for sending her to Montana. But a few days later as I passed through Butte again, she sauntered up to me with all the love of a cat missing her person, gave me a bump and wanted to be hugged. I new I had been forgiven.
Alli has her own memories of Max, and possibly someday she will share them. She has compiled a list of actions and behaviors that Max and Picard shared with our family. For me though, Max was probably more my cat than Alli's. For some reason, maybe it was that she bonded with Picard so much, she bonded with me. It was hard to remain my normally composed self the day that Alli's folks sent the email informing us of her passing. We knew it was coming, but we were still not prepared for it. I have never been around a cat who displayed as much emotion as Max. You could tell when she was hurting on the inside, when she was mad or depressed, or just wanted to be left alone to sulk. And you could see how excited she would get when a spontaneous game of mouse ball happened. I don't know, but I would swear she was more than a cat - she was a little human with a lot of fur, teeth, and claws.
You can never say goodbye to loved ones lost. You can only remember them. And this is to remember a little ball of fur that stumbled into our lives and left a hole in our hearts when she changed ranges.
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