Rest in purrs, sweet Philomena

Philomena Mariko Calico, ? - December 30, 2008

Philomena Mariko Calico was a story of calico flight. She came from poverty, chaos and despair and lived the kitty American dream.

I was in my early twenties and already had two cats, Kieffer Andrew and his wife Katherine Christiana (yes, all my cats have middle names. Loviefluffy’s is Candace.) when the tearful, urgent call came. My friend Kate, an organizer I had worked with in New Jersey who was now living in Brooklyn, had a cat situation. An older calico named Miss Peabody had been left outside a veterinarian’s office in a paper bag stapled shut with a note that said, “This was grandma’s cat. We don’t want her anymore.” See here for how to make sure this can NEVER happen to your pets.

The cat had been shuffled from place to place and eventually ended up at my friend Kate’s tiny apartment when her roommate “adopted” the cat. But her roommate was dysfunctional from an alcohol problem and could not take care of the cat… I think he had gone into treatment. Meanwhile Kate loved the cat, but Kate was horribly allergic, and this cat’s favorite thing to do was to be petted and/or sleep on your head, preferably at the same time.

Kate was in tears. I had two cats and a one bedroom apartment. But it seemed meant to be. So I set the date of July 3, right after the big election at Cooper Hospital, to pick her up.

My friend and coworker Lisa came with me. Somehow my mom ended up there too, I can’t remember how. We drove to Brooklyn, a very unpleasant part, under a bridge. The cat was hiding under anything she could. Kate was crying uncontrollably. Somehow we got the cat in the carrier and drove her out of the city and toward a beautiful suburb of south Jersey.

“It’s calico flight!” I said. I have never had any problem with anyone getting out of a neighborhood that is dangerous, cats, humans or other. Many of our Project MEOW cats go to live in the Philly suburbs in mansions I will never see the like of. I’m meow with that.

I named the kitty Philomena Mariko after two nurse leaders of the Cooper campaign. I called her Philo most of the time. She was the most loving creature imaginable. Since she had clearly spent most of her life with an elderly person, her idea of what to do was to lie on top of me purring as much as possible. We would read in bed at night and I’d balance the book on her while I petted with one hand. She loved to sleep on my head, curled around my face. Obviously, I am not allergic to cats. Once she accidentally put a claw in my eye in her sleep, but I was fine after a course of antibiotics. I never minded.

Unfortunately, Kieffer did not share my love for Philomena. On the first night she was at my apartment, he tried to kill her. I took her to the vet, explained the situation, and he told me that I had two options: find the cat another home or keep them separated. I never give up cats, so I kept her in my bedroom, which she loved, and the others had the rest of the house.

Later on when MR moved in, we bought a house and had Upstairs Cat and Downstairs Cat. He didn’t really call them by their names, they were Upstairs and Downstairs, but he was very good at providing all they needed while I worked and frequently traveled. When Philo got kidney disease, he helped me administer subcutaneous fluids to her. We called it “watering the cat.”

If the vet was right that she was 10 when I got her, she lived to be 22. Calicos often live a long time, and she lived with kidney and thyroid disease for five years. She was happy until the end, though she became demented and sometimes woke in the night unsure of where she was, meowing loudly.

One memorable Philo moment occurred during union contract negotiations with Temple Hospital. We were negotiating for two bargaining units, nurses and other techs and professionals, a total of 1550 workers. Temple liked to drag things out in overnight negotiations, and we had spent 96 hours solid at the Raddison in Trevose, PA, along with our 35 worker negotiating committee (one of my old union’s biggest strengths was our large, representative bargaining committees, elected by their coworkers) catching only naps on some of the couches in the hotel or on the floor of the conference room. Management thought they could wear us down, but we weren’t like that. We were scrappy, independent and tough. I sat second chair to Executive Director Bill Cruice, and I ran the organizing while he did the formal negotiations. That committee was bonded to me like glue: I had run the first contract campaign for the nurses when they joined the newly founded union, taking them from an average hospital to the highest paid and best retirement plan in Philadelphia. I had organized the other bargaining unit, so I was kinda like their mother duck. Back in those days I had what seemed like an inexhaustible fountain of energy, but after we settled the contract early one morning after 96 hours of really no sleep, I wanted my six hour nap before I had to go run five contract ratification meetings.

In the middle of that night, I heard someone crunching cat food. Philo was on my pillow, and there was a baby gate separating Upstairs and Downstairs at the foot of the stairs, but someone had lost weight recently on vet’s orders and learned to jump over the baby gate. I realized in my half hallucinating state that Kieffer had gotten in and was eating Philo’s food.

In my attempt to get him back downstairs, he attacked Philo, I had to separate them, and all were quite upset.

Not long after it was time for me to get up soon, and MR (my ex) had already gone down to prepare his breakfast. But I was catching a final bit of sleep when I felt a very hot liquid on my face.

Yes, Philomena peed on my head.

At least one of my dear subscribers has had a cat pee in the bed with him in it, but having a cat pee directly on your head is a different experience.

“MR! The cat just peed on my head!” I shouted down the stairs. I immediately jumped in the shower and I think he cleaned up the cat pee. Thanks, boo.

I told this story to my coworkers when we arrived, zombie-like, at the ratification meetings. One just could not stop laughing about it. Things that are funny if they did not happen to you!

Philo lived quite a bit longer, and died on December 30 of 2008. She ate Christmas turkey leftovers the day before she died. She had started coughing and we knew that due to kidney failure, fluid was filling her lungs.

We stayed up almost all night together, petting and purring and I cried. We watched the sun come up together through her favorite bedroom window.

I took her to the vet. My mom was with me, as she has been with the passing of all my cats. I am so blessed to have been there with every single one of them, loving them as they passed into the arms of G-d to wait for me on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.

MR is a devout atheist, convinced that there is oblivion after death, so I like to tease him that Kieffer, who was not his favorite cat, will come bounding across the Rainbow Bridge to greet him when he dies, heralded by a chorus of angelic meows and armed with an infinity of Fancy Feast cans that MR can feed him for all of eternity. This is his version of hell. He is hoping he is right about there being no afterlife. I’m sure that in heaven he would love Kieffer… right?

The night after Philo died, I stretched out my feet to the spot where she had often spent part of the night. While the rest of the bed was cold, her spot was warm.

You can not convince me that there is no afterlife, or no spirit life. I have seen it. I have felt it.

We were soulmates, so close, and I will miss her forever. She will be ready to greet me someday. I wonder if she has met my Dad on the other side. My Dad was not a cat person, but perhaps in heaven he is.

Rest in purrs, sweet Philomena. I love you furrever.