Max was one of my only "planned" kitties. I saw him at Boyd's Pet Shop on 55th & East Burnside, Portland, Oregon, in April, 1984 and fell in love with the little black kitten. He was only $10.00 and, when I put my finger in the cage to pet him, he purred as he nibbled on it. I had lost my Debbie cat and just had a black and white cat, Simon. I decided it was time to have another kitty in my house and my son readily agreed. Simon took to him right away. Max would be unlike any cat I had ever known or would ever know again. He was very social and slept with my son or me every night. He was very special in that he was a very "talkie" kitty. I could hold conversations with him as he followed me around the house or yard. He loved to play with any toy I would create out of string or paper, and he loved catnip most of all. I ended up with 2 more unplanned "foundlings" arriving that same year, within a few months. Muffin was a long haired Tabby that a young boy gave away to my son as his mother said he couldn't have her & they were going to take her to the SPCA, so we took her in. Then, in the early Summer, I was talking with my neighbor and heard a little plaintive crying sound behind me and turned around to see a little grey kitten coming towards me on the sidewalk. This was our 4th and last kitty, who had been separated from his mommy much too soon. My neighbor looked at him and said, "Ah! No more cats!", turned and went home. I bent down and picked up the little guy, who started to purr and suck on my fingers. We named him Benjamin and our family was complete. All four kitties were given shots and were fixed and all four kitties lived for nearly 20 years. Max lived the longest of all. When he turned 10, his whiskers turned white and he began to get a few white bits of fur around his face and tummy. I was walking to work from 1986 - 1987 and he would follow me to the corner of our street, when I would turn and tell him that he had to wait for me to come home. Every night he'd be waiting for me, watching for me from our yard, then coming to greet me. I got into the habit of drinking water from a glass and he would drink from my glass. I'd put fresh water down for him but he'd have none of it, wanting to drink from my glass only. He was a spoiled kitty, but I didn't mind. He would sit on my lap while I watched TV and would come into my room and stay with me when I started having migraines and had to lie in bed in the dark for hours on end. I could talk to him and he'd answer me. I often wondered if he was part Burmese, as he had so many of their traits. He had such a sweet disposition that, even when dogs entered our home, he adjusted, after a fashion. Of course, the dogs always knew who was the real boss! In the Summer of 2004, Max's health began to fail him. He became very lethargic, wouldn't really eat or drink and we knew he wasn't doing well. We took him to the Vet and she told us that he was an old kitty and his organs were failing. He was staying alive for us. We had to do the humane thing, although it just tore us apart. My son and I said our good byes to Max and I held him while they euphanised him. I could feel the life going out of his dear body and we stayed with him for a while, afterwards. I had him cremated and he is buried in our backyard under the bleeding hearts. Simon had passed just the month before and was buried next to the back porch where he liked to lie. Muffin had passed in the late Spring and was cremated and buried under the Lilac in the front yard. Dear little Benjamin had died suddenly on Valentine's Day, 2004, was cremated, and was buried under the roses in the backyard. It was a rough year. My renter had brought home 2 black kittens in 2003 who he named Mikie and Shadow. He ended up moving out in 2004 when he got married, but he left the cats with me as they couldn't have pets in their apartment. Dear Mikie died of unknown reasons in 2008 while I was staying with my sister in Corbett, but Shadow, my little black cat, has been with me since 2003. Her whiskers have now turned white and she comes and sits next to me on my bed when I'm watching TV, purring, wanting pets. She isn't like Max was, as she likes to sleep on her scratching pad at night or on the rocking chair, but she's my little girl and, when I've been on the computer for too long she will come up to me and cry, wanting attention from her mom. We watched a special tonight on National Geographic Channel about Cats and I learned that cats 1st became pets to people in the Fertile Crescent in Egypt, Turkey, then Cyprus, Syria, etc. In 2002, archaeologists found an ancient burial site in an ancient village on Cyprus. The grave is about 9,500 years old and is the grave of a man of some importance. It includes the skeleton of a cat! This is the earliest evidence of cats cohabitating with humans. People would've had to have brought cats onto Cyprus with them as there were only mice on the island when they 1st arrived. It was a wild cat in the early stages of domestication. There is also a cat cemetery in Egypt from @4,000 yrs. ago, at the height of their worship of the Goddess Bastet. What was interesting is that by that time, many of the cats were already yellow and orange. But! The researchers went away from Cairo to the Luxor region and found that the DNA of the cats there showed that the cats were still feral and that Egypt was, indeed, where cats first came to stay with humans. None of my cats have ever been pure bred so are, in some sense, still somewhat "wild things", not quite tamed, and I prefer it that way. I love watching my kitty play and seeing the wildness of a lion or cougar in him or her. I have shared the company of cats since I was a child, over 55 years. I have a sign near my computer that says, "Lord, help me to be the person my cat thinks I am." Out of all my kitties, I have four who are my favorites, though... Maynard (1964-1968), Sam (1975-1984), Debbie and Max. But I know all of my kitties will be waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge, along with all of my dogs (6). May they all play together joyfully until I join them.
Written December 2013

Thank you to Nancy Murray for Sponsoring my special kitty.