Yesterday I was about to leave the house to get my headshots done, when the phone rang.

It was Cynthia. She said, "I don't know the right way to tell you this," and I knew. "Is it Monty?" My little Monty had died the day before, the 13th. She said that she had been hoping to get my mother and ask her the right way to tell me, but there is no right way.

This is what I was afraid of, this is why I didn't want to go back to California for so long, I didn't want him to die while I was gone. I'm going home in four days, why couldn't he have waited?

Cynthia said that he didn't suffer at all, that he seemed fine and was in good spirits the day before, but his kidneys must have given out, and he crawled under my bed and went to sleep and didn't wake up again.

My boy, my baby boy, my first cat is dead. I had other cats growing up, of course, but when I graduated college in 1986, I wanted to get my own cat, a cat for me the grownup. So I went to North Shore Animal League and looked at the cats and picked him. I don't remember why, I don't remember what struck me about him, but I was right, he was the best.

He came with the name Chester, which I immediately changed, naming him Monty after Monty Python, and brought him home to live with me and my roommate in Hoboken. He was a year old.

When I went to London, he stayed with my roommate, and then my boyfriend, and when I came back home, Greg and Monty and I were a little family. We went on to get Milo and Elvis, but Monty was top cat, the alpha male. At least until he started to get urinary tract infections and ended up having to get his penis removed, and after that the other cats beat him up all the time. I guess after castration, you're the world's punching bag.

He liked to sleep on my pillow and pillow and purr in my ear, when we lived in Brooklyn, he could climb the grates and stand at the top of the window, looking out. He loved looking out the front windows as well, and when I would come home at night, when he would see me he would start meowing at the top of his lungs, "Mew! Mew! Mew! Mew!" It was really rather embarrassing. But it wasn't because he was so happy to see me, it was because he was saying, "What are you doing in my TV?"

He was such a good boy, my monkey. When I moved to New Jersey, he started to show his age--at the time he was 12, which seemed awfully old at the time. He started to get a little wobbly on his hind legs, finding it more difficult to get around, but it didn't really start to get worse until last year.

Then he started to find it difficult to jump up to the sink, though he still insisted on drinking out of it and refused any water left in bowls on the floor. I pushed a chair up next to the sink, and then a box next to the chair when he couldn't even jump up that far. He got a sore on his cheek some months ago that wouldn't heal because he kept scratching it, but I knew that if he had a cone put on his head he would just fall down more than ever and refuse to take things easier.

I kept thinking that he was losing his hearing, but my God, he could hear the tiny crackling of the plastic around the top to a Ben and Jerry's carton from yards away, and would race to get his share of the ice cream. He loved the cheese from my chicken cordon bleu, and I always called him the steak shark, because he would go wild when I had steak. He pulled the chicken carcass from the trash about four times this Thanksgiving. The only time when the other cats couldn't bully him was when there was food in the offing--food made him very brave indeed.

He had the worst breath known to man. He wasn't that fastidious about the cat box. He purred too loud, so when he slept on my pillow, he kept me up all night. When he sat on my lap, he refused to settle down, but just kept wandering around and kneading and purring. He was boney, he had abour three teeth left, a terrible flea allergy and skin problems. He wandered around complaining all the time. He was a crotchety old man, wandering around yelling at kids to get off his lawn.

He has been with me growing up, from just out of college until almost 40 years old. He just turned 20 this year, 2004. He was my best boy. I wish I had been there when he was dying, I wish that he hadn't died alone, but if I had been there, it's not as though I could have kept death away. It was his time, and he had to go. But I wish he had waited. I was going to be home in just a few days. Why couldn't he have waited for me?

I used to have four cats, just three years ago I had four cats, now I only have one. It can't be them bad kitties anymore, because there is only one bad kitty left. Goodbye my Monty, my best boy. I loved you most of all.

Today's horoscope:
Beware the return of a bad old habit. You know the signs, and you remember how to stop before it gets out of hand. Focus your energy toward tasks that need to be done.

One year ago today:
O'Neil is not known for brevity in his stage directions, he is more than a little bit controlling in how he wants the show to be produced exactly, which means that they just go on and on for pages and pages.

* Yesterday / Index / This Month / Tomorrow *

* E-Mail / In the Belly of the Hedgehog / My Big Fat Ass *

Graphics by the resolute Saundra!

This page was written by hand. My hand. Only pussies use HTML editors.
Last Updated Thurs 15 January 01:10:09 2004