Not Just Any Cat

Today has been a very sad day, and the only way to explain why is to tell you a story.

Before I left New Jersey, I lived in a house backed by woods near the NJ Turnpike and one afternoon while I was out in the garden, I noticed a little white and brown tabby face with big, scared eyes staring out at me from beneath a nearby rhododendron. It was a young, really thin cat, too frightened to come to me, so moving slowly, I stood up, went inside and got a dish of cat food. Went back out, put it down and walked a distance away.

The cat crept out from under the bush, and it was holding one back leg high, and kind of bunny-hopping to the plate, ravenous. I could see an open wound on his outer thigh, and how skinny he was, so I put food out again and again, and each time he would creep out to eat it. After a couple of days I could sit closer while he ate, talking in my nice voice but not trying to touch him, and he would stay a while after he was finished.

He had a funny face, this little cat, sort of long and rectangular, and a deep, penetrating gaze like he was listening to what I said, and could actually understand it. (The first time my sister met him, and talked to him, he listened so intently and stared so deeply into her eyes that she laughed, amazed, and said, "Who ARE you?" because he wasn't like any other cat we'd ever met.)

I gained his trust, and he let me pet him. I picked him up, put him in a carrier and took him to the vet. Had him treated, tested, neutered, given his shots and named him Bunny.



There was never any doubt that he would stay.



Bunny had a great sense of humor, and a kind heart. When Dexter, (an abandoned cat who showed up at my door in PA), joined the family, Bunny was the first to make friends with him and the two became lifelong best buddies, always hanging out, playing and sleeping together.
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Although Bunny was a wiseacre, a lover and a sweetheart, he was never a completely healthy cat, and saw a multitude of vets. He still limped on occasion and suffered from stomatitus, which caused him a painful reaction to his own teeth. He would stop eating from the pain, go on antibiotics and I would syringe feed him until he felt good enough to eat on his own again. And then he would be bright and happy and back to his old, fun-loving ways.



He had several bouts in the last year, went to the vet and came through them all right but now I know that they were beginning to taking a toll on him.
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Recently, he went off his feed again, and so we began the medicine and syringe feeding, mixing up rich, tempting concoctions and feeding him 8, 10, 12 times a day. It worked -- he started eating again on his own, and then he didn't, and then he did again. Hope rose and fell these past weeks, over and over, because this was Bunny and he always made it through, he always tried hard and matched our efforts, he was game as anything and we could make him healthy again if we tried hard enough. We would. We could.

We couldn't.

Today, Bunny went to the vet for the last time, weak and fragile and in the end stage of kidney failure. He fought a valiant fight, over and over again, this little cat who came from somewhere, and gazed so deeply and trustingly into my eyes.
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He was a stray, semi-feral, lost and scared, and then he was found, and much beloved.
He was not just any cat, he was Bunny Wiess, and he was mine.
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Go chase butterflies, Bunny. It's spring, and there's no limping over the bridge.