But None Like You

Much has been said about writers and their cats: some helpful authors go so far as to recommend that you have at least one if you hope to do any serious work. The presence of a furry companion who is happy to endure all manner of inane chatter, plot summarizing, rhetorical questions, etc., without comment, who supports the essential writerly habits of staring out of windows, sitting still for long periods of time, and napping, is invaluable.

But there are cats, and there are cats. Animals —like people—either get you or they don’t. They are interesting or they aren’t. I’ve had numerous pets in my life, but only one soul mate: Frankie the cat. Named for Frank Sinatra, one of my favorite unapologetically ill-behaved and handsome entertainers, I encountered Frankie at the local humane society when he was a mere kitten. “There he is,” I said, pointing. “That’s my cat. Frankie.” A brown tiger with a white ascot and paws, he was asleep inside a large metal cage with one paw tossed casually over his face.

He was a symbol of the commitment between me and my then boyfriend: we weren’t just co-habitating, we were raising a cat! And we discussed his various attributes with the starry-eyed attitude of new parents. Everything the little fucker did was cute. We even invented a made up vocabulary of terms connoting cuteness for Frankie. As he grew into an adult cat, complete with a dazzlingly long, striped tail, there was just an exasperated “Fra-a-a-n-kie!” in response to all of the naughty shit he did. His greatest hit, by far, was wrestling the remains of a Thanksgiving turkey to the floor, and then hissing furiously from inside the turkey’s carcass. He destroyed every piece of furniture I ever had. He peed in all of the corners of not one, but four different apartments, and when I was newly single and dating (he was about six at the time, roughly 42 in cat years), he put on the most ridiculous territorial display ever seen on meeting my new partner: literally sitting between us on the back of the sofa, and wrapping his long stripey tail around my neck.

For seventeen years, he greeted me in the morning with a meow, joined me for movies on the couch, sat on my yoga mat when I tried to stretch, and was just generally omnipresent, into everything, and there to greet me when I got home from work.

All of that is over now. I have had to say farewell to one of my dearest friends and companions. After he was anesthetized, I briefly considered bolting out of the vet’s office before she could return with her awful cocktail—but I knew I would have been doing it for me, not the sleeping tiger cat on my lap. Still such a dashing old fellow, even in reduced circumstances. I can’t quite believe he isn’t here, a constant presence in my household, taking the edge off the loneliness of being a writer, and reminding me to take a little down time now and then for a bask in the sun.

In honor of his passing, I am breaking my rule about posting photos of my cat. (Okay, I did post this one once. But how could I resist?) Here he is, in better days:

I’ll miss you Frank. I’ll miss you awful.