The rogue who stole my heart
I’ve loved animals since my childhood. The bond between us always felt natural — and it’s never faltered. When my parents moved us to southern Spain in the early 1970s, we brought with us my first dog, a smooth yellow Labrador named Rowdy, whom I adored. Rowdy contracted a flea-borne illness in Spain and my parents kept his death from me because they thought I was too young to understand. His sudden absence must have stirred something deep in me, however, for in the six years of our time in Andalucía, I took to rescuing captive dogs from neighboring farms — at the time, the region was very rural, not animal-compassionate — and tended to them in our gardens, healing wounds, nursing newborn pups, and plucking tick infestations from ears. When my family returned to the United States in my twelfth year, we adopted a dog, Shasta, who lived with my father to a ripe old age.
Cats weren’t animals I was raised with. While I liked them, as I do all animals, I’d was also a bit intimidated by them. Perhaps because I’d never had one. But when I settled down with my husband and we bought a home in a residential neighborhood, our charming old house came with feral cats in the garden. Thus started our 20-plus years of feeding, trapping, and caring for ferals. Some of the cats we spayed/neutered and re-released came and went. Others lived in the garden for years only to abruptly disappear. A few aged and passed without letting us lay a hand on them. All had names. All were loved and cared for by us. But none were ours.
Maus, a young Russian Blue, showed up one day out of nowhere. Already a year old or so, neutered and feral, as evidenced by his clipped ear, he was gorgeous, like a 1930s movie star in a grey cashmere coat, with piercing green eyes and an insouciant air. He’d disappear for days on end just as he’d arrived, and then he’d suddenly return. He never showed any interest in coming inside and indeed disdained our invitations.
I adopted a rescue Corgi puppy, my beautiful Paris, when she was nine weeks old. We took daily walks in our local park, where she discovered a mother cat with kittens hiding under a bridge. I rescued the first litter and then the second until I managed to capture and spay Mommy Cat. One of the kittens, my beloved Boy, eluded my attempts and grew up beside Mommy. I fed them every morning and evening during my walks with Paris until Boy was injured by a dog or a coyote. After taking him to the SPCA feral cat clinic for stitches, I brought him and Mommy home. They became my first indoor-only cats.
By then, Maus started to show up regularly. He’d decided to stay at night in our guest lodgings — a downstairs room facing the garden that we turned into his cat suite. He became part of our family, outside by day patrolling adjacent gardens and in his suite at night, where we set up a bed, a cat tree, and a television to spend time with him. He loved people, but was intolerant of other cats in his territory, so he couldn’t come upstairs (we tried several times, and he fought with Boy). He reigned as the undisputed prince of his fiefdom for years until middle age began to mellow him. He had his share of scrapes and brawls along the way. I couldn’t tally the nights I spent calling for him before he sauntered home unrepentant, always hungry but otherwise rather satisfied with whatever mischief he’d been up to. And of course, he ate his fill and fell fast asleep to do it all over again.
Whenever we traveled, we hired a live-in cat sitter. Boy and Mommy hid the entire time under the bed, averse to strangers, while Maus was his cavalier self, except he came home promptly when called by the sitter. He always behaved himself while we were away.
Maus moved upstairs after my Boy passed. For nearly two years, he slept on our bed every night and came home before dusk. He had an unvarying routine and was irrepressible, jumping onto my laptop as I wrote and erasing parts of my work in progress. Yowling from inside the kitchen at night when our feral visitors came to dine on the deck. He loved chicken burritos and insisted we had to share. He sprawled on the sofa after dinner to groom himself and purr. He liked having his ears rubbed and the underside of his chin stroked, reveling in being told what a handsome boy he was. Most of all, he liked being the only cat in residence.
In Maus’s senior years, Blackie arrived — another visitor out of nowhere, only he was emaciated and desperate, prompting an epic détente. Despite Blackie’s fragility and nervous temperament, he faced off with Maus until they reached an agreement to share, providing Blackie lodged at night in the vacant cat suite and granted Maus full rights in the garden. When Blackie was diagnosed with the eye sarcoma that took his life, Maus thawed. Sometimes, they’d lay together on the deck, without Maus issuing his warning snarl. Toward the end of Blackie’s life, he came inside to never leave until the day of his euthanasia. Maus let him stay under our bed and didn’t disturb him. Instead, he slept right above the kitty bed where Blackie was resting.
Today on a heartbreakingly clear July afternoon, the rogue Russian Blue who’d decided we were his guardians left us after a courageous battle against intestinal lymphoma. He’d been ailing for months, losing his prowess but not his innate majesty. As he passed in my arms under euthanasia, he rested his head at my heart and he let out a final little sigh. He always sighed before he drifted to sleep at night. He liked to sleep with his head on my heart, which he stole as a pirate will do.
To love a cat is to accept their mystery. They don’t submit to us; they deign to receive and give when and if they’re willing. Maus returned all the love we gave him in abundance, and he doubtlessly lived more years healthy and happy with us than he might have otherwise as a feral. Yet he gave the impression of utter self-reliance. The vet who helped us with his passing told us, “Some cats want to go when the hour comes; they know it’s their time. Others fight to their last breath. Yours fought because he wanted to stay with you.” She’d marked his indominable spirit in the brief time she spent with him.
Our decision to give Maus a painless departure before the disease overcame him is the hardest we’ve ever made for one of our animal companions. He seemed invincible, capable of vanquishing even a fatal diagnosis. He lived well over a month past his initial prognosis, continuing to visit the neighboring gardens after he slept till mid-morning in our bed and tripping over the fence to return home as soon as I called for him. But in his final week, he was weary. Unable to leap onto the fence, he sunned himself quietly in our garden, where he let the most recent ferals visit without reproach. His fierce spirit had visibly diminished, though he remained undefeated. We kept waiting for a definitive sign until the moment came when we knew. So stoic and uncompromising, noble and proud — he deserved to depart with dignity before he suffered the inevitable collapse of his body. While we didn’t want to say farewell and he didn’t want to leave, the hour we’d dreaded was upon us.
I’ve seen all my pets through the passage every living being must traverse. No matter the circumstances, the pain of their loss is always shattering. It never gets any easier, no matter how much I tell myself it’s the pact we make, to be with them from the beginning to the very end. And every time it happens, in midst of my grief, I remember once more what a gift it is to love and be loved by an animal. Maus was so unique, so beautiful and headstrong. He lived life to the fullest, and he lived it his way. He came to us as a feral and let himself be claimed by us in every way that mattered. He crept into our hearts with his gentle purr and his head on my chest.
May we meet again, my sweet rogue. You’re so deeply missed and will always be remembered. Tonight, the world is darker without you, but the garden awaits — eternal and sun-drenched, as you always liked it.
