Bella

We hadn’t intended to get another cat when we went into the Robinson Petsmart that day in March, 2014. Angel, our beautiful, mercurial calico died on October 17 the previous year. Traci found her at the same Petsmart early in 2000, the year we were married. A two-year old cat whose family gave her up after a move (of so the tag said), Angel had been at the store for months. Traci stopped by the store on a whim and took pity on the forlorn calico.

Angel hid for three days after Traci brought her home. Moves, strangers, and other cats were the bane of her existence, but with us she could be feisty, dominant, and withdrawn, but also affectionate and intuitive. She was also strikingly intelligent (most of the time), vocal, and playful.

Angel was with us through three moves. She comforted me when Bitsy, a cat my sisters had rescued after a fire in Honeoye in 1990, finally succumbed to his injuries 13 years later. She was a constant presence during a brief, disastrous stint at a university in West Virginia and the subsequent move back to the Pittsburgh area. For thirteen years, she was a constant, if somewhat antisocial presence in our lives.

By 2013, she was showing her age. Thyroid problems and failing kidneys took a toll, and our efforts to mitigate her problems with a prescription dialysis administered at home came to naught. Angel spent her final months on the bed in our apartment’s guest room. We might have been able to prolong her life for another month or two, but we decided that to do so would be cruel.

Both of us were there when she was euthanized, and her death affected us like no other animal’s. Although both of us had grown up with animals who were lost to cars, gunshots, disease, and old age, this was different. Angel was our one and only pet, and though she was approaching 16 when she died, neither of us was remotely prepared for the shock of her loss.

Traci took it particularly badly, as she had been Angel’s favorite human. I was haunted by the memories of Angel’s final moments at the vets, but I had close circles of friends at the Community College of Allegheny County and the local cycling community, and I had started to pursue a major project that would ultimately take use to Syracuse four years later. Though I deeply felt Angel’s absence, my process of mourning Angel was perhaps just a bit easier than Traci’s.

“Blue Smoke”

Robinson’s Petsmart is directly across from Best Buy, which was where we were headed. Neither of us had seriously entertained the thought of bringing a new cat into our lives, though we discussed it occasionally. We entered the store on a whim. Of the many cats in the store, one in particular caught our eye: an eight-month-old gray tabby. The description tag fancifully called her color “blue smoke.” She was small and slender, with spots on her belly that blended almost imperceptibly into her sides and back, and she seemed extremely relaxed.

In some ways, the opposite of our intense Angel with her feisty personality and strikingly unique colors.

I’m not sure either of us was truly ready to make her a part of the family, but we decided to adopt her anyway. Both of us burst into tears on the spot; some were of joy, but I believe that both of us recognized that this was another goodbye of sorts, a transition certainly but another farewell to Angel.

Angel’s death had traumatized us, so much so that as we left the store, I was grateful that our young new friend would be with us for fifteen years or more.

Skittles

Angel hid under an amour for three days when Traci brought her home. Bella showed no such trepidation. A little tentative at first, she soon began to explore her new domain. Within hours, we learned that she could in fact be as laid-back as she seemed.

She also bounced off the walls. Literally. My family had a veritable menagerie of cats–at one point, we had six simultaneously–most of whom we got quite young. I was used kittens’ antics, but I’d never seen a cat with so Bella’s energy before. Traci joked about taking her back within a week of getting her. I nicknamed her skittles, and skittling seemed an apt verb to describe her antics.

Her energy expended, Bella would then settle or flop into place. It was as if her bones themselves became flexible. On more than one occasion, she’d simply faceplant onto the floor or couch in slow motion. Once properly rested, she’d tear through the apartment, ricocheting off the walls with aplomb.

Isabella Grace

Angel was largely the epitome of grace and dignity. She once crashed into a window while attempting to catch a bird. Her ego was most bruised and she was a fast learner.

Bella simply didn’t care. She’d roll of the side of the bed, fall off the bathroom cabinet, or slide on a hardwood floor seemingly without a care. For as playful as she could be, she was laid-back and almost devoid of the kind of self-consciousness that cats reputedly have.

It added to her charm.

Puppy

Traci’s watch vanished shortly after we got Bella. An intense search revealed nothing, but shortly after she bought a replacement, we spotted a glint from within the large intake register at the bottom of the stairs: Her watch. There was only one possible culprit.

We caught Bella walking down the hall upstairs with the hair catcher from the shower in her mouth; soon, she was relocating a variety of small objects. We bought her some toy mice to keep her more in line. We could hear it rattle as she carried it up the stairs, down the hall, or into bed, often in the wee hours of the morning. On a whim, I started tossing it; she’d chase it, pick it up, and bring it back to me like a puppy. We’d play until her final weeks.

Snuggles

Bella always wanted to be around us, though she wasn’t clingy. She enjoyed our company without drama. However, she wasn’t much of a cuddler at first. As I mentioned before, she’d often flop over wherever she was and sleep for hours (it often took her some time to wake up). One evening, not long after a massive weekend growth spurt where she seemingly doubled in size, I picked her up on a whim and put her on the ottoman near Traci. Bella curled up against Traci’s leg and stayed put for hours. I repeated this a few times, then it became habit for her to join one of us of her own accord.

A long bath indicated an impending marathon session of Bella time. I once timed her at six hours, and she’d spend most of the night in bed with us, though she was an early-riser, and we rarely woke to find her in bed.

She preferred feet and knees to laps, though that began to change in her final year.

Quirks

In playful moments, Bella would toss her head from side to side. We quipped that she was “broken.”

She could only push doors open. She’d stand on her hind legs and use her weight, but she never quite grasped the need to pull them open (Angel was adept at this, so much so that she could pull folding closet doors open).

Bella did however know how to flush toilets. The rattle of the handle attracted her attention, and it wasn’t uncommon for us to hear the toilet flush when we were downstairs in Dormont.

She was masterful at relaxing. She’d sometimes go so limp that a hind foot would peek out under her back, a phenomenon we called “fifth foot.”

She was usually quiet, though she possessed quite a set of pipes, but she was prone to what we assumed to be intense nightmares. She would often squeak when she was in a deep sleep; sometimes she’d wake with a start and a loud series of cries. On a few occasions, she launched herself across the room or the bed.

Angel was insistent on trying our food. To refuse her was to invite an attack. Strawberry cake filling, salmon, ice cream, chicken, and beef were on her menu.

By contrast Bella was indifferent about human food, except Redi Whip. The sight of a mug of hot chocolate would almost invariably trigger a Pavlovian response.

Until her final months, her tail was almost constantly in the air. She was seldom in a hurry, walking slowly from room to room or leading us to the food dish.

Perfect for us

Quirky enough to be interesting, gentle, quiet, cuddly, playful, laid back, and loving without being clingy, Bella was our social girl, and she loved to be around us. She had her share of health issues in addition to the two occurrences of cancer, yet she always bounced back remarkably well. We think her calm disposition helped her rebound after her surgeries and infections.

Unfortunately, the second round of cancer was simply too much for her.