Thou met'st with things dying, I with things newborn
-- The Winter's Tale, III.iii.112-13
I don't usually know my cats' precise birthdays, although almost all of them have been spring kittens, but I remember the day that Minerva (the all-black) and Mathilda (b+w) were born.
The phone rang very early that morning. A reporter we knew in London wanted Rik to tell him everything he could about Dunblane, a douce wee toun in Scotland that had suddenly become a very sad place. Dunblane was a family home to Rik, so on and off through the day he talked the reporter through a race to the airport and then the drive from Glasgow to Stirling and north.
It was wrenching to learn what had happened in just the sort of place you imagine everyone will always be safe.
But we were glad to be able to feed as much background about the place and the dear people who live there as we could to a journo who would be reporting to North Americans.
Somewhere mid-afternoon, among all those phone calls, came one that wasn't about Dunblane. Ada, one of the friends who works with our sainted vet, called to say that the kittens I'd agreed to adopt had just been born, and we could take them home in five or six weeks. Even though we didn't meet Minnie and Tildie that day, the call sticks in my mind. It was an odd moment turned towards the future in the middle of such present fear and sadness.
And so they did become my future. They are my senior cats now, Minnie, who miraculously survived major trauma when she was not yet two, and Tildie, to whom nothing bad has ever happened (knock on wood). Minnie, who really was tiny before her trauma, is now a magnificently spreading maxi-cat, whereas Tildie is still lean and long and leggy, as she always was. They are both showing their age, but then who isn't?
Minnie has always been the queen of the house. Even when she was tiny, she had some ineffable sense of self, some preternatural confidence, that everyone else (including me) defers to. Tildie has always been nervy, anxious, sometimes needy, and yet she is the senior cat that every newcomer has turned to for mothering, which she actually does quite well. Even so, whenever I hear something crashing to the floor in the distance, I just know whose incurable curiosity and nerves have just broken yet another dish. Tildie!
This is birthday month for all the others too. Guinevere, the charming runt who is also computer cat and counter cat, who helps the Genius when he comes to fix the machines, will be thirteen. The sweet butterball Olive and the fearsome magnificent Philibert will be eleven. And little Gracie -- who is actually now almost as big as maxi-Minnie -- will be three! Lord, how did I get here?
I know two other cats whose fourteenth birthdays happen about now, lagatta's Renzo and brebis noire's sweetheart Mädchen, who turned fourteen on 9 February but then left us on 3 March, and left a lot of friends at Bread and Roses very sad.
A kind commenter wrote to me a couple of years ago to remind me that our cats and dogs -- and wotthehell, our guinea pigs and elephants -- don't know how long they live, only how well. Such a good thing to remember, and something they will actually tell us every day if we remember to ask. I don't serve teh kittehs cake, but I will ask them tonight: "Did you have a good day today, Minnie? Did you have a good day, Tildie?" And they will both go paw paw paw, purr purr purr, and Minnie and I will cough each other to sleep.
My heart always to the broken-hearted of Dunblane. (Scroll down to the March 1996 monument, a very beautiful circle and standing stone in one of the most gloriously restored of Scottish cathedrals.)
Happy Birthday Kittehs!
Lovely skdadl. You've brought out the personhood and individuality of your kitties - and rightly observed and extended that same consideration to all of our co-Earthlings. :-) Long life and continued prosperity to Minnie and Tildie...and of course 14 is already supremely respectable.
It's true, Mädchen was well-loved and grieved by all, including her big brother (who will be 16 on July 14 - Bastille Day?). I'll find out today if he has developed diabetes in addition to kidney failure, but he has realised that yes, his heart can go on without his best friend and companion (with some pharmaceutical help from Mädchen's meds); there are other people to love (and head-butt) - and hopefully another summer season to enjoy.
Yes, I was thinking of our cat birthdays. I don't know Renzo's exact birthdate because he was a stray kitten; however at the clinic the vet assuredly told me how many weeks old he was, with a look at his teeth. He was older than I thought at he was wee and underfed. Thus I know that he was born mid-March 1996. I was sad thinking of Mädchen who was almost exactly the same age.
Renzo also had a horrible misadventure a little over a year ago - he went missing on Hallow'een Day, running out the door in late-autumn sunshine as I was taking advantage of the warmth to dry clothing in the fresh air. He didn't return until 5 weeks later, on the 6th of December (speak of dates commemorating violent acts!), looking like a death-camp survivor. Fortunately he seems to have survived relatively unscathed, though I do think the trauma aged him.
I was actually thinking of the irruption of "senseless violence" in quiet towns such as Dunblane where "nothing happens" because of ghastly events in a quiet area of Central-Eastern Ontario, where another killing of two women (and wounding of another) has occurred close to where the commander of the Trenton military base has been arrested as suspect in the stalking murders of (at least) two local women, and two grotesque rapes as investigation goes on about similar misogynist crimes.
Aww such sweet kitties they are. My Shithead aka Sir Scarf will be 14 on St. Paddy's Day. I don't know his exact b-day either, we chose St. Paddy because it's easy to remember. We've become incredibly close since Oz's passing and now I have learned his language. Sweetie says he clearly says 'mummy' and has become a suck, gone are his days of chasing wolverines up in the rocks of the Highlands.
Happy Birthday Minnie and Tildie!
Guinevere ... who helps the Genius when he comes to fix the machines
She's particularly strong when it comes to pest control. Who'd a thunk it?
See? You shoulda consulted her about the spammers. She has this move she does -- I still haven't figured out which key she's hitting, but man, does it have, ah, consequences.
Och, Toe, if I'd known about Sir Scarf, I would have put him in the post too. I'll do an update.