For the Love of Cats

An homage to our furkids then, and now.

This is going to be a long read. Perhaps the longest story I’ve ever written here. I grappled with whether I should turn it into two stories, or even three but I couldn’t do that and here’s why: All of our cats, past and present, are part of our family and to break this up and “parcel them out” just didn’t seem right. So for those of you who stick through to the end, my sincere thanks.

My husband and I have shared our lives with cats for over thirty years. Without overstating it, they’ve saved my life in more ways than I can count and have been instrumental in maintaining my sanity. Or what passes for it.

This piece is a personal tribute to these magical, mystical and always intriguing creatures, who, for those of us who love them, return our love tenfold. If you are blessed to have a cat or multiple cats in your lives, you will “get it.”

We have three cats. Dooley, eleven, Conor, four, and Lorna, two, AKA “The Baby.” All are adored and spoiled beyond measure.

And then there are those furbabies that we lost, who are still missed to the point where it hurts physically, to talk about them. Nonee, Maggie, Red, Andy, Pokey, and Jolie. So many years. So many memories.

Both my husband and I grew up with dogs. In my household, we normally had two at a time. As “dog people,” we never really thought about cats much. Now, that seems inconceivable to me.

I’d heard people talk about cats in a negative context. Cats were “sneaky” or “selfish.” They were standoffish and didn’t want nor need affection. That, as it turned out, was bullshit. Cats are nothing of the sort. They’re as loving as dogs, as giving as dogs and incredibly intelligent. Like dogs, they sense our moods and instinctively know when we’re hurting…when we need those extra “kitty kisses.”

It wasn’t long after we were married when my hubby and I were introduced to the joy of being owned by cats.

We were living in a vintage apartment building in Chicago and had just returned home after a night of mixing and mingling at our favorite watering hole. It was the wee hours. We were tired and a little buzzed. Thankfully, the bar wasn’t far from our apartment so it took us just minutes to get home.

My husband pulled up to the curb in front of our building and when we got out of the car, I heard a sound that I couldn’t immediately place. Like a little squeal. I looked around and then down at the street. Aha! A little gray tabby cat was looking up at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of hope and fear.

I didn’t know what to do! As an animal lover, I couldn’t just turn away. My husband, who also loves animals, but like me, had little knowledge about the whys and wherefores of cats, had already started for the door of our building. What was I to do but follow?

And what was that little kitty to do but follow me? Which she did!

I stood in the lobby looking at her through the glass door, guilt flooding through me. My heart was breaking.

After several minutes, when I saw she wasn’t going to leave, I thought, “screw this,” opened the door and let her in.

Because I wasn’t sure about bringing her upstairs to our third-floor apartment, I settled her in the building’s laundry room for the night. I fed her some tuna and made her as cozy as possible. She started to purr, rolled over to let me rub her satiny-soft belly and I fell in love.

The next morning, my husband, being who he is, wasted no time in telling me to “bring the cat upstairs.” A moment to be remembered, indeed. From then on, she was ours.

After taking her to the vet to be checked out, we learned that our kitty had recently given birth! No doubt, someone had abandoned her and her babies as she gave no signs of being feral.

We looked around the neighborhood for her kittens but had no success. It pains me even now to think about what might have happened to those babies.

Our next quandary: What were we to name her? One of our favorite movies at the time was the contemporary remake of “Cat People.” One of the characters was named “Female” pronounced “Fu-Molly.” So from there, we came up with “Nonamee” pronounced “No-Nomee.” As in “no name.”

Eventually, we just called her “Nonee” for short. Convoluted, I know, but we were new cat parents!

What can I say? Nonee lit up our lives. She was full of fun and love and mischief.

Nonee lived eighteen years and was with us when we moved into our home, along with our second cat, Maggie, a beautiful calico girl who we adopted at The Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago and Red, a gorgeous long-haired boy with fur the color of a sunset.

Some neighborhood kids found Red, a kitten then, in a drainpipe and knowing we were “cat people,” brought him to us. Immediately, as we watched those kids climb the stairs with that adorable orange ball in tow, we were hooked.

Maggie was a love-muffin who had a taste for crusty bread and head squeezes from my husband. Although to the best of my recollection, she and Nonee and Red were not cuddlers, they all got along just fine.

Red loved to “jump the walls” and wake us up with nose nips. He would sleep between my husband and me and if we didn’t awaken precisely when he wanted us to, meaning he was hankering for his breakfast—ouch!

During this time, I was part of a massive layoff at the ad agency where I worked in downtown Chicago. Being in the far western suburbs, I had taken the commuter train to work and didn’t see the need for having a second car.

Nonee had started to go downhill. That’s the thing with cats. Once something goes wrong, it goes wrong fairly quickly. One day, when I was home alone and my husband was at work, our beloved first kitty took a turn for the worse. I called the vet and my husband, who said he would leave work immediately and come home.

As the minutes ticked by, I panicked and ran from room to room with Nonee in my arms, feeling as helpless as I’d ever had in my life. She was going and there was nothing I could do.

I cried and paced and wailed as one possessed. And at some point, our Nonee convulsed one last time and passed in my arms into what I hope is a place where we can be reunited one day.

For weeks after, I sobbed, hating myself for not being calm during her last moments, I felt I’d let her down. To this day, I haven’t forgiven myself. I hope she has.

That’s the thing about taking an animal into your life and heart. At some point, you know you’re going to hurt and hurt horribly, but the love you give and receive makes it all worthwhile.

Not long after Nonee passed, we lost Maggie to Cardiomyopathy, a disease that affects the heart muscle. It comes on suddenly with very little warning. To help ease the pain, we added to our little family by adopting two kittens, Pokey and Jolie, at a shelter. All our cats are rescues, by the way.

These two adorable furballs had been fostered together and had grown very close so separating them was not an option. We also decided to keep the names they had been given in foster care.

Jolie was a sweet and affectionate tiger-calico, meaning tiger-striped with calico markings, and diminutive in size as she’d been sick as a baby. Pokey was cream-colored, with the most gorgeous blue-green eyes that looked straight into your soul.

Both kittens were afflicted with the herpes virus. Jolie, more so than Pokey. This is a very common virus in cats, especially in multi-cat households. It causes runny eyes and noses and flares up when the cats are stressed. Seasonal changes can cause the virus to manifest as well.

As an aside, because we made a commitment, all of our cats have received the best veterinary care possible along with a nutritious diet. We’ve been seeing the same vet for over twenty years and his love for his charges and empathetic spirit has helped us through some sad times.

So there we were. Me, my husband, and Red, Pokey, and Jolie. That’s a lot of kitty cuddles! But, if you know cats, you know that it’s hard to stop at just one.

Our brood of three made us laugh every day. Once, I was in the bathroom doing what one does there and I heard a scrabbling at the door and in pranced Pokey. He had figured out how to open the doors in our home! They don’t have knobs, they’re more like latches and he quickly determined that standing on his hind legs and manipulating them with his front paws would gain him access to any room in the house. We made sure to tell visitors to lock the bathroom door!

I found a fairly stable freelance gig during this period and also started volunteering as a “cat socializer” at our local animal shelter. Basically, I had to groom, cuddle and in general, interact with the cats so they’d be more attractive to potential adopters.

There was one cat that, when I left the shelter after my shift, I couldn’t get out of my head. He was approximately three years old and had been found during the winter. That’s all that was known about him.

He was a big, beautiful boy with cream-colored fur stippled with butterscotch that was terribly matted. He had the personality of a saint. Calm, cool, a real chill dude.

One day, I took him out of his cage for a cuddle and he turned and leveled me with a look that went straight to my heart. He had eyes the color of molten bronze and I will never forget that gaze. I see it even now. That first loving look.

I did my extra-special best to get this boy adopted, but nothing gelled. I would talk to my husband about him and we’d look at one another and say, “Should we…?” But that would mean we’d be caring for four cats. Could we handle it? Were we being irresponsible and possibly unfair to our other cats?

We discussed it. A lot.

One day, unbeknownst to me, my husband visited the shelter on his own to see this boy for himself. Long story short, he was immediately smitten and we decided to adopt the angel we would call “Andy.”

Because his coat was in such bad shape, the shelter shaved off most of his fur before we took him home. They gave him a lion cut! I think he was so relieved to be rid of those mats and when his hair grew in, it was thick and lustrous.

As responsible cat parents, we knew we’d have to segregate Andy from the other three so that he could relax and get to know his new home without being “molested.”

While the other three milled around — “Who is this interloper?” — we tucked Andy away in our den with a cuddly bed, a litter box and food and water.

The next morning we awoke to find all four cats hanging out in the hallway, as chill as you please! Pokey had opened the den door and sprung the new family member. From that moment on, we didn’t have to segregate Andy. That sweet boy had a calming effect on not only his three “siblings,” but on Mommy and Daddy, as well.

Andy loved to be kissed, right on the lips. He would raise his head for a smooch — and would always get one. He also loved to watch me put on makeup. He’d wait patiently while I finished and then would grab one of the brushes so I could stroke his face with it. We called it “giving Andy his beauty.”

Our sweet boy. My husband can’t talk about him, or even look at pictures. It hurts too much.

Andy, Pokey, Jolie, Red, Nonee, and Maggie are gone now. They’ve crossed the Rainbow Bridge, as we pet parents like to say. We have the cremains of the first four and regret that we didn’t do the same for Nonee and Maggie. You live and learn.

Thankfully, we have Dooley, Conor, and Lorna in our lives. When we’re feeling low, they give us a reason to get up in the morning.

Dooley, he of the beautiful silvery-gray coat, is a drooler. As soon as he settles in for a snuggle and some head squeezes, he commences to drooling. Sometimes copiously. We don’t mind. In fact, we get an enormous kick out of it. What better way to say “I love you” than with a little drool?

Conor is our “Ginger Man.” He has a beautiful orange coat and a strong, lanky body. Incongruously, he is also a soprano who lets loose with a high-pitched wail whenever he wants some food or attention. The first time we heard him warble, we were gobsmacked!

Such is the beauty of cats. Each one is an individual with their own quirks, moods, and temperaments and they’re always surprising us. Always evolving.

Finally, we have Lorna, our creme brulee-colored spitfire. She, too, is a wall-jumper and loves to make us laugh by racing across a room and executing a perfect verticle leap up a door frame! A bundle of energy, when she wants attention, she lets you know it. Often, when I’m working out, Lorna will grab me around the legs as if to say, “Enough! Did you forget I'm here?”

The unconditional love we receive from our animals is truly a blessing. I dream of a day when shelters aren’t full to bursting and abuse and cruelty are not only rarities but when they occur, perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I should go because I’m starting to ramble. There’s so much more I could share but I don’t want to overstay my welcome. If you made it this far, thank you for your patience.

One last thing: If there’s a Heaven, I hope it’s a place where my husband and I will be reunited with every one of our fabulous felines. What can I say? They’re my heart.

Sherry McGuinn is a longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

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