Absence of Shade

In case anybody ever reads my posts, here, I apologize for early distractions. I've lost my closest companion, today.

After over seventeen years in my family, my old girl, Shade -- a domestic shorthaired cat -- has gone to her maker. She taught me a lot about cats, and plenty more about myself.

I'm absolutely sure that she was conceived under my window, in Newport News, Virginia, while I was waiting to marry the man I loved. The marriage never happened. I broke it off, myself, because I could not leave my home country, not even for the love of a good man. I believed I was incapable of a lasting love, and then this cat and her one surviving kitten entered my yard and my life.

Shade's mom was a stray, a feral cat with a sleek black coat, golden eyes and a snaggle tooth. Shade was the spirit and image of her mother, born, we believe, on or about Independence Day, 1987.

By the end of the summer, her mother had left the neighborhood, but Shade had become a fixture in the home where my parents and I lived. She was the one member of the household who seemed to enjoy my singing, and purred loudly when I sang from Porgy and Bess to her -- especially "Bess You Is My Woman", as I changed the lyrics to "Shade, You is my Kitten".

Shade insisted upon grooming my hair, fussed over me when I was ill, and maintained physical contact with me whenever she could. She greeted me enthusiastically each time I returned home, even when she was not hungry, and sat in my lap as I wrote or painted, often adding her own contributions to my work.

She was far from perfect: she often deliberately missed the litter box, she clawed sections of my wallpaper in my new house, and she was ill-tempered around other animals. She was extremely possessive of me and of several articles of my clothing, plus she was demanding and particular about her foods and her sleeping accommodations -- she required her own pillow at the head of my bed and refused to eat nearly everything unless it had been proven safe by me.

As anybody who has ever lived with cats can tell you, every cat is a diva. But some overcome the worst of that, to become loyal and loving friends.


There is no way to describe to somebody who has not loved an animal how it feels to receive the affection of one small beast, and certainly no way to put into words the emptiness when that companion has gone.