In 1987 I was home from London, living in Weehawken with Greg, and Monty seemed lonely. We were gone at work all day, and we thought that he maybe would like another cat to play with, so we went to the North Shore Animal League, which was where I had gotten Monty the year before.

There was just this wall of cat cages, and my favourite was this little female cat that I called a jellybean. I don't remember which one was Greg's favourite, but there was another cat that was neither of our favourites, but we both liked him enough to take him home.

He was a one year old grey tabby and he came with the name Kevin. Honestly, though, who the hell names a cat Kevin? We changed it to Milo, after Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth.

Monty and Milo got along well enough until Monty had an operation a couple of years later, and Milo staged a coup and ended up as top cat.

Milo was never my favourite cat. The thing is that the other three have such strong personalities, and he didn't as much. He was awkward and had terribly poor social skills, never as natural about getting petted than the others were. Monty has always been great at seeing where your hand was and situating himself is perfect petting position. Milo always would sit in exactly the wrong place, where you would have to strain to pet him.

He didn't particularly like being kissed on the head. I would kiss him anyway, but he would always duck a little, like a kid who thinks he's too big do get kissed by his Mom. He had a rusty little purr, too, like he had read a book about purring and was trying it out, but wasn't really very good at it.

He was awful to Monty on a regular basis. I would be in bed and Milo would be on one side and I would pet him, then Monty would be on the other side and I would pet him, the Milo would walk around the bed and sit real close to Monty and stare at him until he hissed and ran away. I always said that he cared more about Monty not being petted than he did about being petted himself.

He got along well with Elvis and Baldrick, though, both of whom came to me as kittens, and whom he would wash and cuddle with when they were small. He was a little Mom.

I never understood, though, how when I had visitors, they always ended up liking Milo best. Both when my parents visited me in Brooklyn and when Melody stayed with me, they ended up claiming Milo as their favourite.

Of course, part of that is the fact that no visitor ever laid eyes on Elvis, I think, but I always wondered why on earth anyone would like Milo best?

Milo was huge, he was always just this enormous cat, not fat so much as big and solid, a linebacker kitty. About a year and a half ago he started dropping weight at an astounding rate, it just melted off like snow. And it was when I realized that perhaps he wasn't quite well, that he might actually not live forever, that I also realized how very much I loved him. Not as a consolation prize for being the least lovable cat, not in spite of his personality flaws, but for exactly who he was. And I always had.

I then started making certain that I always petted him when he wanted petting and never pushed him off my lap when I was trying to type or something. I wanted to make certain that whenever the last time I saw him was, that I wouldn't regret not petting him more or loving him more.

Recently, he started to sleep under my covers, which I really found so charming. He would nose his way under the covers and cuddle next to my stomach or in the crook of my knees. The former was usually an error, though, because Baldrick likes to sleep next to my belly above the covers, which means that he would sit on Milo and they would all leap up and all would be ashes.

It seems that he was winding down, like a toy, but it was happening so slowly that I didn't really notice the difference. He didn't fight with Monty so much, and was getting very thin, but he ate heartily and seemed happy.

He liked to keep me company in the bathroom, and he was the cat who figured out that my door doesn't latch properly, so he would always shove it open and go upstairs to the Callahan's door and yell until they let him into walk around and meow and meow and see if Bonnie had dropped any food under the table and sit on the couch if anyone would let him.

When I went to bed Tuesday night, I picked him up off of the pile of clothes and tried to get him to go under my covers where he belonged, but he would only go a little way in. He lay down as best he could--it was hard because he was all angles, and I petted and petted him, and scritched him on the head in the way that he liked, and kissed him and kissed him, and he let me. I think he was too tired to pull away. But he purred and purred so loudly, that I don't think he minded. He got up after about ten minutes and went back to try to drink some more.

When I woke up yesterday morning, he wasn't on the pile of clothes, but instead he was sitting in the bathtub. He used to like to drink out of the bathtub, sitting on the edge and lapping the water as I bathed, and he also liked to lap up the puddles left behind. There was a little puddle from the day before when I showered, and he was huddled over it like he was over the water bowl before.

I picked him up and cuddled him and tried to see if he would eat, and he wouldn't, but he jumped up on the sink and drank from one of the bowls of water there. He sort of dipped his face in a few times, but then he started to lap.

I kissed and cuddled him for about ten minutes before I went to work, started to go, and then came back and did it again.

At work I burst into tears about five times, which is always embarrassing, but mostly I was okay. It was only when I was telling someone about it that my throat would start to close and my voice would get all high and I'd start trying to smile so it wouldn't look like such a big thing.

I called Cynthia first to tell her how he was, and to ask her whether she could go down during the day and pet him. I didn't say say goodbye, but that's what we both knew that I meant.

She told me later that she went down twice with Katie, who went down twice more, and he was in the bathtub at first, but then on the bed with all of the other cats around him, cuddled close. Even Monty, which sounds impossible, but she swears it's the truth.

We had our tech, and when we got home I came in upstairs, then said that I was going to go down, "to see if any of my cats are dead." Somehow I knew that he would be when I left the house in the morning, but I had forgotten by the time that I got home. So when I said that, in a cheerful tone, I thought that he wouldn't be, I thought that he still would be there.

I went downstairs and looked in my bedroom, and then in the bathtub, calling his name, but he wasn't there. The doors to the cabinet under the sink were open, though. And I knew. And I looked in, and there he was, lying on his side like he never did, he always preferred the cat as meatloaf or ball of kitty positions, and I said his name and he didn't move. And the tears just started to pour down my face.

I petted him, and he was cold, but not too cold, and his nose was wet. I knew that he was dead, but I needed Cynthia to check and tell me, because I kept thinking that I felt something, but then it was my own pulse in my hand and I wasn't sure.

I went and stood at the foot of the stairs and called Cynthia, and then just started to sob like a kid. Fran came to the top of the stairs, and I told him, and he came down and held me and I sobbed on his shoulder like I've never cried in front of another person, not since I got that call from my mother when I was at work and I knew that my father was dying, because even after he died I did all of my crying in private.

Afterwards, Fran said that when I was crying in his arms, Elvis and Baldrick were sitting at my feet staring up at me. I told him that was because they hadn't been fed yet, but maybe it wasn't.

So, Cynthia came down and we went into the bathroom and she checked him and kept thinking the same thing, you can't tell whether it's your life you are feeling or not. So we picked him up and he was all limp and I held him the way he liked best to be held, sort of sitting on my arm with his head against my shoulder and my other hand holding his arms, and I kissed him and kissed him, and Cynthia and I talked about what a good boy he was, and I told her all the stories that I told above, about how he was never my favourite and how awkward he was sometimes, like an alien in a cat costume, but how much I ended up loving all of those things about him. This cat that neither Greg nor I wanted the most, ended up being the cat that I wouldn't have traded for anything. The cat that I would give anything if he could come back again.

Because he was dead, of course. It seemed that he couldn't have gone too long before, and I said that I wished that I had been there and that I wished that I had taken him to the vet, and Cynthia said that he would have been so unhappy if I had taken him, that this way he was in his home with his brothers, surrounded by them until he needed to be alone, not all full of needles, not having to ride in a cat carrier and go to a strange place. And if I had been home, cats like to die alone, he was able to do what he wanted, go be alone.

And I had said goodbye to him in the morning. I knew that was what I was doing, that is why I went back again, because I really did know. And I am a person with three cats. I don't want to be a person with three cats, I have had four cats for eleven years. Of course, I don't mean that I want another cat, I want the four cats that I have always had. I want Milo.

But I wrapped him in a brown towel that I don't use anymore, one of the ones that I inherited from Kathy when I was a sophomore in college that I have been using to line the cardboard box that Monty likes to sleep in, and put him on my back step between the door to my house and the door to outside.

And I went upstairs and drank two giant screwdrivers on a completely empty stomach, and Fran drank his beers and Cynthia drank coffee, and the three of us sat up until 3a talking about pets that we have had and things. It was a wake, I guess. We drank to Milo.

I went downstairs at 3a, after drinking two giant screwdrivers on a completely empty stomach, and I was cold stone solid sober. And completely wide awake. I went to bed, and it didn't take me too long to sleep, but right before I fell, I thought I felt Milo slip under the covers like he always did, and I thought that maybe he had stayed just for one last night before going to his long home.

Goodbye, my little Milo, my funny, awkward, big mouthed, bullying, good good boy. I will miss you so very much, and so will the Callahans and your brothers. I will see you again someday, because a heaven without cats just isn't heaven.

I've too much time to want more time but I still do
Afraid of one shining moment I might lose
I've been known to run round just to see myself move
I've too much time to want more time but I still do

I drive too far to think there's no place like home
Any small town takes care of its own
And the middle of my nowhere could be a back road for you
I drive too far to want to go home but I still do
Too much time to want more time but I still do

I'm too old to think love's just gentle and sweet
Any romance'll make your heart skip a beat
And I used to hope for heroes, some days I still do
What you can't keep is still a hard thing to lose
Too much time to want more time but I still do

I've seen too much good to think the bad won't go away
It's a hard life but there are very soft days
And I used to want to be rescued, some days I still do
And no place like home, some days it's still true
What you can't keep is still a hard thing to lose
Too much time to want more time
Too much time to want more time but I still do

--Cosy Sheridan

Milo
1986-2001

Today's horoscope:
Today you are balancing stability and change on the job. Vary your routines a bit, but take care of essential duties.

One year ago today:
"I guess there's something about you, Patrick, that brings on my PERIOD!"

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Last Updated Wed 21 February 17:56:09 2001