Janice Williams Loves Austin

I need to get back to blogging. I intended to write earlier today on the 2nd anniversary of this blog, but that celebration somehow slipped by. Now it is 4 in the morning and Mark and I are still up cleaning house and making pies and such in preparation for the visit of his Dad and his wife, Pam. They have never been here for Thanksgiving (well, very few have) so it is a special occasion. They will be down tomorrow from Tyler. They are very thankful, as are we, for the new member of the family– Austin — their new grandbaby. Austin was born a few weeks ago and has been a pretty sick little baby, in and out of the hospital, but he is home and better now. He lives in Washington D.C. with his mom, dad, and big brother Kristofer. I was going to post the sweet latest picture, but sometimes pics in email won’t let you save them and that was the case with this one. Er.

And when I wrote “New Member of the Family” as the headline, I wasn’t intending to write about Austin. I was going to write about Phil.

Phil the Cat

Phil was born in June and, along with his brothers and one sister, was abandoned at the animal shelter when they were a few weeks old. At the city animal shelter, they destroy animals under 8 weeks, so it was curtains for Phil. That is, until the sweet folks at Austin Pets Alive came along and took him and his family away. They do all they can to find homes for animals that would be euthanized. Austin Pets Alive will put their kittens on display at PetSmart for adoption. Phil was there with the others in his litter and most of them got snapped up, but Phil got sick somehow, possibly from a pet visiting the store. So he had to stay with a foster mom, Margaret, and get better.

Mark had spotted Phil on Craig’s List and went by PetSmart and didn’t find little Phil there. He inquired and found out about his health. We went out to the farm he was living on and visited him a few weeks ago and fell in love. So, we agreed that if he got well and wouldn’t transmit anything to Willie, we would love to have him join our family. Last week the doctor gave the all clear and Mark went to pick up our new baby boy on Thursday.

We did not name Phil. The foster mother named all the kittens in the litter after band members of the rock band Radiohead. We were unfamiliar with the members and asked which one was Phil. Phil is the drummer! How appropriate. I don’t believe in changing a kitten’s name so he will remain Phil. We have called him everything since he got home:  Little Bit, Baby Dumpling, Phillip, and even Nathan Jr. a time or two. He has the loudest purr I’ve ever heard so we call him Jackhammer sometimes, too.

Since Nathan died, we have missed having a cat curl up at the head of the bed. Willie is quite happy to be near us, but not that near. Little Phillip adores being by our head and I mean BY OUR HEADS. I woke up three times in the night Saturday night with him draped OVER my neck while I slept on my back. That’s close. He seems entirely content to be with us and sticks close by when we change rooms. And then, of course, he jumps up on whatever we are involved in. He has opened windows and changed settings on our computers we didn’t know we had. I worked 30 minutes last night trying to get my home studio to play audio and finally discovered Phil had stepped on the mute button.

Phil, so far, appears to be a talker. Willie has been our talking cat up to now, but Phil seems more vocal. We’ll see if that lasts.

So far Phil has met his Aunt Katie from across the street who will take good care of him if we ever leave home again (and she was ready to kidnap him and take him home on sight) and he met Aunt Terri who lives next door. Other than that, we’ve kept him to ourselves so far, but he’ll meet Granddad and Pammaw tomorrow.

Mark has been snapping hundreds of pictures, but I don’t have them all available to me. We will have to make some videos of his laser-light-chasing and his wrestling matches with Willie. There was some wariness between the two and some hissing from Phil the first day, but they are fast becoming friends and Willie is playing like he hasn’t played in a long time. The first night, Phil had been playing all over the living room with a little toy mouse. After we went to bed, I heard those same sounds from the living room and Phil was with us so I knew that Willie saw that and thought it looked like fun and was giving it a go. At the rate Willie is playing, he just might shed those extra pounds the vet didn’t like on his last check-up.

After a week of sadness, I have got to get back into the habit of blogging.

Nathan Jr., the sweetest cat in the world, left this world Monday morning while the cold rain was pouring down. We got up early to make the calls that needed to be made. We had hoped to find a vet to come to the house to help us with this, but on such short notice, we weren’t having any luck. Our own sweet vet, Dr. O, had the day off, but she was quick to volunteer to come into the office to help us. I know they go through this on a regular basis, but their compassion and understanding was so overwhelming. It was the hardest thing Mark and I have ever gone through.

There are so many things about Nathan Jr. that we are missing every moment we are home. I can’t write about them now because I’ll get so sad again.

This has been the longest week ever. Mark usually has Mondays off except for his regular gig, but I took Monday off this week, too. Despite coming home and just collapsing back in bed and sleeping through the afternoon, it seemed like the clock just wouldn’t budge. Even when Mark went to his gig the clock crawled. Most weeks it seems like he walks out the front door and before I can even think about doing a load of laundry or accomplishing one project, he’s on his way home. This week I vacuumed and cleaned the carpets, did all the laundry and folded and hung it, cleaned the kitchen, cooked a casserole, cleaned the kitchen again, and still managed to watch TV, write email, Facebook, etc.

The rest of the week went just as slowly. I did get a little immersed at work most days and at least didn’t think about it so hard, but it didn’t make the time go any faster. But now the weekend has gone by a little more quickly, so maybe we’ll return to normal time passage soon.

Willie doesn’t seem like he misses Nathan too much, but he is sticking close to me every chance he gets and just isn’t that interested in going out to the patio.

Now that I’ve gone through this, I can appreciate more the ceremonies and rituals of human death that we go through. Having to make arrangements and go through a funeral even when you are not “ready” to do it does help in the grieving process.

We decided to have little Nathan Jr. cremated and keep his ashes. The Rainbow Bridge Pet Crematory is amazing (if amazing can possibly be the right word). Considerate, compassionate, and fast… They also sent brochures about grieving for a pet and sweet poems and stories along with a beautiful little cedar box containing the ashes, all neatly packaged and labeled.

Everyone has been so sweet with their offers of sympathy, too. I think the next time I hear that someone has lost a pet, I will make a casserole for them. Having the energy to find food for us was nonexistent. One friend sent a donation to the ASPCA immediately, which I never would have thought of, and another created a pet collar tag with a heart that says, “In Loving Memory of Nathan Jr” at PetSmart. I didn’t know those things existed. The cards and sweet notes and calls, too, have been very nice.

I am very grateful to have Mark to share this with. No matter how sweet everyone is and especially those who have gone through this, it is the here and now that is hard to get through and Mark was here moment by moment and knew how amazing that cat was.

Yes, we are going to adopt a new pet. I had thought we might need to hold off a little bit, but it is feeling more and more like this is something we need to do. Mark’s been on Craig’s list and found some very sweet prospects. We are not even certain it will be a kitten, there are some older cats that need a home, too.

The picture above was one of the last ones I took of Nathan Jr. He is a well documented cat and Mark is a great photographer so there are hundreds of pictures of him that show so many sweet aspects of his personality. I’m not such a good photographer, but I am glad I took a couple of picture last Saturday. He was so weak and Mark was gone most of the day, so I would take Nate to wherever I was to be close by. I had a lot of typing to do for the doctors, so I put him in the window. Willie got up in the window and enjoyed the beautiful day and the fresh air with him.

Nathan will never be forgotten. I had had a lot of cats in my childhood, but never a real pet and never a cat that shared my bed and my life like little Nathan has done the last 8 years. He will never be forgotten.