These shrines are for my cats and hamster.
Whiskars I.
She scratched me, unprovoked, more than once. My mother didn't like her for that, I think. I was only two or three.
She also slept in my brother's crib when he was just a baby. My father threw her out of it, because cats can suffocate babies. I felt sorry for her when I heard that, because I didn't think she should have been hurt for sleeping next to him, even if she could have accidentally killed him.
One day my mother said she ran away.
Later, I learned that she had given her to a neighbor who didn't have children.
Whiskars II
I don't remember this cat very well. In my neighborhood, there was a woman who thought she took care of the wild squirrels. She trapped several of the neighborhood cats and gave them to a pound to be put to sleep. Whiskars II was one of her victims. My mother confronted the woman, The Squirrel Lady, and cursed her, but the woman wouldn't tell her where she'd taken my cat to be killed.
Tom Hamster
My kindergarten teacher gave hamsters out to the students who were allowed to have one. I asked my mother to write her a note saying that I was allowed, and she did. We bought him a cage and a hamster wheel and all of the other necessities of modern hamster life. Looking back on this now, I realize how difficult that must have been for my parents to do, as we had just gone through bankruptcy.
I knew that hamsters only lived for about one to three years. Tom liked to chew paper, and I would usually give him a strip of green construction paper 'to eat' as dessert at night. Once be bit my finger by accident while I was doing this.
Tom always slept curled up in a ball. One night he was all stretched out, and I remarked on the difference. But I said goodnight and stroked his belly. The next morning, my mother told me that Tom had died. She said that my father had suggested going out at night and buying a new hamster to put in his place, but mother said she didn't think that would be right by me. I told her I was thankful they hadn't done that.
Whiskars III
We got him from a shelter after the death of Tom Hamster. He was an orange tabby. He didn't scratch or sleep in babies' cribs, but he did break a ceramic pumpkin decoration and run away twice. The first time, someone returned him, but the second time no one did. It was at least a few months later, when my father and I were out for a walk, that we saw an orange tabby who looked just like Whiskars. He was sitting under a car in someone else's driveway, and the house owners called him 'Peter.' I felt better knowing that he was alive and had a home.
Dinah
Dinah was my brother's cat. My first grade teacher was giving her cat's three kittens away to good homes. My mother sent a note in saying that I could have one. After a while, when no one claimed the second, she said she would take it for my brother.
My teacher was giving the cats to their new families on the night of the school science fair. We went and stayed for a time, because no one had claimed the third cat. My cousin was living with us at the time, and my mother felt sorry for the last, little kitten, so we took all three home.
My brother picked out Dinah. She was an unusual calico, mostly black with grey and light peach splotches. All three stayed with us until we moved out of state. At our new house, they became outdoors cats, and one day Dinah didn't come home. We never found her. My mother said she thought Dinah might have wanted to live in a house with only one cat.
I asked my parents later if they had only said that to keep my brother and I from being sad, but the assured me that they had looked for her everywhere and hadn't found her alive or dead. She may still be living in a house with one cat.
Oreo
Originally Dinah II, until we found out that he was a male. Living in another house, we adopted two kittens (siblings) from our friends. Oreo was my brothers. I'd known his mother before he was born, because she walked home with me one day. She walked criss-cross in front of me all the way there. Oreo did the same thing.
After we'd had them both for a time, Dinah began to act and look ill. His stomach expanded so that he looked like a bell when sitting down. He was incurably (and very sadly, preventably) sick. We had him put to sleep before the disease killed him.
Snow White and Baby
Snow White was the other cat that we adopted from the neighbors. She was my mother's. She was one of the whitest cats I have ever seen; the sun reflected off of her fur. Snow White was a very affectionate cat who loved to be pet. She survived her brother by about three or four years.
Baby was adopted by my brother after the early death of Oreo. A very small, black cat, Baby was well-loved. We did not have her long before both she and Snow White disappeared on the same day. We looked for them, but in vain. My mother and I believe that they were stolen.
I left their food bowels out for a long time, hoping that they would return. During that time, when my young cousin was visiting us and feeding the cats, I told her not to put food in the two bowels, because it would be wasted. She asked me why and I said it was because Snow White and Baby had run away. She told me, more than once because I suppose it seemed like I wasn't listening, "They can run back. They can run back."
Meow
Sister of Dinah. Meow was my cousin's cat, but we kept her at our house and after we moved. She was an amazing tortoise-shell tabby. I have never seen of another cat like her. She was a very good hunter, and regularly left us squirrels, rats, and birds. She lived with us for about ten years before she developed kidney disease. We bought her special food and medicine to try to slow the progression, and even looked into a kidney transplant (an idea that we completey rejected when we learned the donor kidney would be from another living cat who would then need special kidney care for the rest of his or her life). One day I looked at her. She had lost most of the hair on her tail, yet she groomed it to the point of irritating it, trying to keep herself clean. Always a dignified cat, she now had frequent accidents, which she was quite clearly embarrassed about. We had also just been given two young kittens, who made the situation a little worse for her. My mother and I realized that we were prolonging her suffering for our sakes. We had her put to sleep, and I watched this time. As soon as they put the needle in her vein (which was no easy task because she was always so dehydrated), she relaxed completely for the first time in months. I was crying full out, but I felt that we had made the right choice by putting her to rest, and the wrong choice by trying to make her stay alive past her time.
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