Dusty

Ten years ago, when I lived with my father & my mother lived in an apartment, Sybil, my mother's sister, saved a cat named Dusty. He was a stray in Florida between 2 & 5 years old. Sybil took the cat to the vet & Dusty was diagnosed as FIV positive. So he could die from a common cold. The doctor headed toward Dusty with a shot to put him down & a woman who knew Sybil stepped in front of the doctor & said, "No, no, no . . . you don't understand. This woman will FIND a home for this cat." Several phone calls & flyers later, Sybil called my mother in tears over the fact that this poor cat couldn't live outside & no one would take him. So my mother took the cat.

She had no idea. This creature stepped out of the carrier & was scrawny & ugly & had a huge head on this tiny little body. And he meowed & it was the most wretched sound any human heard. The doctor in Florida simply said that since Dusty was a stray, he'd gotten into many fights & the reason his head was so big was a buildup of scar tissue. In Maryland, the doctor just looked at this cat & cried. He was starving & dehydrated & his face was full of puss from an infection. $600 & a few weeks later, he was well fed, well hydrated, & the puss from his face had been removed which relieved pressure that had been on his vocal cords & his voice became very beautiful - which was a good thing too . . . he was quite the talkitive cat.

He lived happily in the apartment, where I occasionally visited my mother. He was always talkitive & always very sweet to me. One day while I was at the apartment, he caught a mouse & my mother was very happy to be rid of it. Dusty was an excellent mouser. My mother would visit Philadelphia often to see Brian & had friends care for Dusty. The first time, my mother got back & the friend who had been caring for Dusty told her that she'd forgotten the apartment number, but she called Dusty's name & Dusty answered loudly enough for her to find her way to the correct apartment. We always referred to Dusty as a dog in a cat suit. You generally think of cats as lazy creatures that lie around the house & keep their affections toward you to a minimum. Dogs are the cheerful ones that greet you at the door & beg for food at the table & jump into bed with you. Dusty was a dog at heart.

When my mother moved, we were filling up a group of cars with boxes & we realized we couldn't find Dusty. After a thorough search, we found him hiding in the cabinets under the sink, hunkered down & refusing to come out. We came to the conclusion that Dusty was abandoned. Someone moved & just didn't take Dusty with them. But we took him. He was a happy camper in the new apartment. I was visiting more often & loving Dusty more & more. In the apartments, there was no basement, so the litter pan went in the bathroom. Logical, right? And this made Dusty realize what the bathroom was for. So every time my mother or I went to the bathroom, Dusty would slip in with us & go in the litter pan. Peeing was social with him I guess. I always found it quite amusing.

For the next move, Dusty was still very nervous, but had a little more trust that maybe we'd take him with us. My mother moved into a house this time. And Dusty was still with us. This time there was a basement & Dusty got two littler pans. And I don't know if this is natural in cats or if this is another Dusty quirk, but he always went #1 in one pan & #2 in the other. He was just that organized. Then I moved in. And Dusty put up with all my pets. I had hamsters & fish. He noticed the fish a little, but didn't seem to want them. The hamsters scared him. They would run around in the little ball & bump into him. For my mother's birthday I would blow up maybe a hundred balloons & scatter them over the floor, but with a hundred, it's less of a scatter & more of a sea of balloons. The hamsters LOVED to roll through the balloons in the ball & kick them all up in their wake. Dusty was not fond of the balloons at all. He would stand at the end of the stairs & cry, looking for a path through the balloons. He never tried to MAKE a path . . . he never quite understood the science of the balloons . . . he just found them invasive & a little scary. And he was so happy to see them go. He was very tolerant of the hamsters, he let them crawl on him & share the floor.

One night at 2 in the morning, I heard the hamsters fighting.

"EEEEE!!!! EEEE!!! EEEEE!!!!!!!!!" *thumpathumpathumpaTHUNK* "Oh oh, Dusty! WAIT! . . . . . . . . Riiipleeey???"

I went downstairs to learn that John, the albino hamster, had escaped from his cage & our marvelous mouser came running down the stairs with John in his mouth. My mother got Dusty to drop John, but John split. Later I found him under the computer hutch. Dusty was only trying to do his job. And a good job he did.

Then I got a bird. Again, Dusty was soon afraid of the prey that had moved in. Niles was always so mean to Dusty & Dusty never tried to eat Niles. Barely even noticed him most of the time.

Once, Dusty had a trip to the doctor & got X-rays & we found out that he has a BB in his stomach & one in his left hind leg. He had quite the history when he lived outside. And he was done. We'd leave the door hanging open, & he'd walk up to the threshold, sniff about & decide that he didn't particularly want to go back outside. He loved us. He loved his home. He was there for us all the time.

I miss him begging for food at the table

I miss him running into the kitchen at the sound of the can opener even though we never use the can opener to feed him

I miss shushing him in the morning when I'm awake & my mother is not.

I miss him contantly asking for food

I miss when he used to get mad & sneeze on purpose several times. I miss making fun of him for sneezing cause he was mad - & the sound of his sneeze.

I miss him greeting us loudly at the door when we got home at the end of the day.

I miss him being under our feet in the kitchen, tripping us up for attention.

I miss calling him "the half-on, half-off cat" because he would so often sit with his front half ON something, like papers, & his hind half off of it.

He was a quirky, loving, lovable, one-of-a-kind cat.


Yesterday, Thursday March 13, 2008 between 6 & 7 pm, Dusty passed away.
He had cancer. He had fluid in his stomach & chest. We had him put down. He lived a good ten years with us. We loved him. We got him to give a good wholesome purr before he passed. We kissed him on the head, we said goodbye, we petted him until he was gone & for a little while after.

Please say a little prayer for him.

Dusty

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