Feline Friday: All the Cats I've Loved

 

 

Damien, Winter 1990, perched in the window of our old home

From reading my blog, one might get the impression I only have eyes for my sweet kitty Lily, her late sister Tinsel, and my daughter's kitty, Rory. But that is not at all the case. Over the course of my life, I have loved many, many kitties. 

This is Damien, the first kitty we adopted after we were married and moved back to Iowa. He grew to be a very large, muscular kitty and was a bit of a spitfire, in between bouts of gentleness. Damien would attack unprovocked, once launching from the floor to my upper arm where he sank his teeth in deeply. Knowing so much more now than I did at the time, I believe we caused his agression by choosing to have him declawed. It was a decision I will always deeply regret.

In spite of his occasional naughtiness, I loved him dearly. It never once occurred to me that having Damien living in our house might be incompatible with the new baby who would arrive in January of 1993. Having grown up with cats, I thought I could manage his agression and keep him away from the baby once she arrived, but my parents eventually convinced me otherwise. So on the day Bailey was born, they swung by the house and picked up Damien to go stay with them "for awhile". The plan was that when she was older, he'd certainly come back home.

Time went on and Damien stayed at my parents' house. We saw him frequently on visits where we introduced Bailey to him and supervised them closely. All was going as planned.

Then one day my grandpa stopped by my parents' house and unexpectedly opened the back door to let himself in. Damien darted out and down the back steps with my dad in hot pursuit. Dad grabbed him before he went far but in return, Damien bit his hand hard. Long story short, Dad ended up in the hospital for 3 days on IV antibiotics. Thankfully, he fully recovered, but both of my parents were wary of Damien from that point on. Understandably, of course.

I still wanted Damien to come home but after The Great Escape, chances of that happening diminished. We saw firsthand how serious a cat bite can be, and no one wanted to risk our toddler girl suffering one. 

Shortly after the incident, my parents decided to put Damien in their unused fenced dog run. This was upsetting to me but I understood their trepidation about having him in the house. He was safe in the dog run with a large, spacious, and insulated house, a shaded yard, and plenty of squirrels in the trees overhead. 

One day not too long after this new arrangement began, my parents called to say that they'd found Damien dead. There were no obvious signs of illness or injury. I was devasted, and it still brings me to tears just thinking about him. My dad buried Damien in the yard.

I called my vet in distress, looking for answers about what could have happened. He speculated that Damien had died from a sudden blood clot: "Those big guys will sometimes throw a clot", he told me. To this day, my vet still mentions Damien when we see him. He was a legend in his time.

THIS POST, written nearly 12 years ago, sums up how I feel about Damien. I have enormous guilt about how his life evolved. Still, we did the best we knew how to at the time. 

Damien will always hold a very special place in my heart.