LOSS OF CAT UNLEASHES LIFETIME OF GRIEF By Ellen Zionts • For the Courier-Post • May 8, 2015   I never had a pet that was not taken away from me. When I was 6, I had a little puppy and that is when my parents found out I had terrible allergies to animals. I ended up in the emergency room getting shots whenever I pet one. I used to sneak out into the alleys when we lived in the city and capture little stray kittens and put them in baby clothes. I would be found out and the cat would be set free. After being widowed I met a man, Gary, who had a cat. He and the cat had a story. He told me he was a lonely bachelor working on a job site. A little black kitten kept tripping the alarm. The cat was wild. He captured her and put her in a box with holes in it and took her home on the bus with him. At the time, he lived in an apartment. A year into her adoption, the apartment house caught fire. Gary ran down the steps with the cat but she clawed at his jacket and ran back into the burning building. He thought she was a goner, but that night the firemen found her in the dryer, where she hid from the flames. That was one of her nine lives. The second was when she got locked in a storage shed. Gary searched the neighborhood for a week. He eventually saw the dog next door barking at the shed and there she was, somewhat dehydrated but alive. He named the cat Lucinda after singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, but she would only answer to "Kitty." so that was her name. Kitty didn't like anyone but Gary. He fed her the gourmet food that he cooked and she had the run of his house. He even cut a hole in the sliding screen door so she could run in and out and chase birds and critters that she would drag in for his approval. When we became an item, she would wake us by running over our heads in the bed in the mornings and sit in the open window making threats like little clicking sounds at the bird house in the tree outside. When Gary finally sold his home and moved in with me, Kitty came with him. My two grown children were my baggage and Kitty was his. I figured it was a fair deal because my children were very spoiled like Kitty and were demanding of my total attention when they came home. Kitty, as ornery as she could be, would not last that much longer, or so I thought. I got allergy shots every week for five years, but I still could not pet her without itching. When I first tried to ingratiate myself to her, I got her sushi grade tuna. From then on I was "in." When she moved into my home she seemed to love it. I have a big yard that goes right into the woods. She liked to hide under the house and watch the birds and deer and wild turkeys and the occasional feral cat that wandered by. A cat rescued in Fishtown had moved on up and had become quite the snob. Somehow, I became her favorite. In the morning she would come to my side of the bed to wake us because she wanted her food and treats. Cats know the sucker. I made her do this trick. I would say, "Be the Bunny" and she would curl up and make a flirty face and act cute. She would only do this for me. When we went away, we would get a cat sitter so as not to upset Kitty, who only liked to be in familiar surroundings. One time we boarded her at a place called "Exclusively Cats" so she would not be traumatized — but she would not talk to us for a week when we got home. I suppose because I had no more children to mother, I mothered this cat way beyond the pale of what a pet lover should do. Kitty got diabetes four years ago. Gary had to give her shots twice a day and after a while she could not make it to the litter box and would go on the floor. We eventually had to limit her to the kitchen because of her accidents. Kitty was 19 years old when she died. The week before, we knew it was bad because she was not eating much and could barely walk. We called the home vet who had been treating her and she was going to come on Monday. I held out hope. Monday came and Gary didn't call me at work, after the vet came to the house at noon. I was afraid to call him, but by 2 o'clock I did. He told me that he had to put kitty down. He wrapped her in her favorite blankie and buried her in the yard. The day after he went out and put leaves on her grave because he was afraid she was cold. This got me and I sobbed inconsolably. There is a strange silence in the house, a loss I never allowed myself to feel after my second husband's death and my children's departure. I keep thinking I have to go down and check and see if she has enough water, then I remember she is gone. I go to say, "Gary get up and give the cat her shot," and then I remember. I see her little cat toys and I am wracked with sadness. When my second husband died I was stoic. I removed his clothes and hid away other objects that had his DNA on them. I steeled myself from the grief you are supposed to let yourself feel. My whole life I had to push on and push through loss. My first marriage that ended in divorce, the death of my parents, the loss of my second husband, the departure of my children. I never could let myself feel because if I totally grasped the loss I was afraid I would not be able to function and I had to function, so I hid the reminders. I put pictures in drawers. I just kept thinking they were still just around the corner in my mind — that they were somewhere just waiting for me. Somehow the death of this cat made the walls fall away and I feel the import of all these losses and I am shocked at the grief. A little cat who never said a word but an occasional meow has released a torrent in me. I could never bring myself to visit any of the graves of my parents or my husband, after their funerals. But now I look out at the mound of dirt, adorned with flowers and there is no escape. This coward finally mourns them all.