A year ago this morning, I woke up to realize my cat Mickey hadn't come in during the night. Admittedly, I wasn't terribly worried at the time. There'd been a few mornings where he stayed out all night and didn't wake me up by jumping on the bed and walking around. I don't remember if I worked that day or not, but I do remember that by evenng, I was getting worried, even going outside and looking for him and calling for him. By the next morning, I was really worried. As the week progressed, I was scared and starting to lose hope. Despite the search, calling out, spreading his litter to apread his scent, he never came home. It's been a year now since Mickey went out and never came back.
I felt horribly guilty for awhile too. Shortly before he went out, he'd been antsy to go out. I didn't want to let him out at the time because my roommate was in the shower, which means I would have had to let Mickey out through the kitchen door. But when my roommates take showers, they close the bathroom window, which is about the only way that Mickey could get back in the house unassisted. So I wanted to keep him indoors until the bathroom was vacant again. Unfortunately, Mickey couldn't understand that. He was antsy, and was roaming around my room acting up, trying to get me to let him out. At one point, he knocked over my laptop. Worried about the damage, and upset with Mickey who I felt should have known better, I picked him up, looked him in the eye and said, "Bad kitty!" Mickey avoided me for most of the rest of the night. For a little while, he seemed to calm down. By 11:30, I'd remembered he wanted to go out. I had him come into the bathroom with me, and I opened the window wide for him to go out. He was hesitant at first, but I picked him up, snuggled him, told him I loved him, and helped him out the window to let him know it was okay. But still, up to that point, our last interaction was confrontational. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I scolded Mickey with the words "Bad kitty," or "Bad Mwuss." (Mwuss was a nickname I gave him.) I felt horribly guilty that he wandered off thinking I didn't love him anymore or that he thought I was kicking him out of my life.
He was also having health problems. About three weeks before that night, he'd had a visit from the mobile veterinary service, and was diagnosed with a thyroid condition. The vet told me that the medication was something I could find in a human pharmacy, so I was under the impression that it was something I could just pick up, that it was over the counter. After failing to procure it, I received a call a couple weeks later from the vet asking for an update, and I expressed my problems. It was THEN that she explained that it was not over the counter, and that I simply had to tell her where I was planning to buy the medicine from. I told her from an online pet supply retailer, they corroborated the prescription, and my purchase was approved. A few days after Mickey disappeared, his thyroid medication finally arrived. So, I also still feel a little guilty about botching his care so badly. I worry he wandered off and disappeared to die. He was losing weight and not eating like he used to. And wandering off to die alone is something cats will do. As he was fourteen years old, I frequently told Mickey that I wanted him to die at home by my side so I could know and bury him. But he was a cat. Even if he did understand my words, his instinct would still be to die alone, the result of my negligence.
It's also possible that the coyotes got him. We get coyotes out here once in awhile, and I heard them howling that night, and a few nights afterward. Side note, genuine howls of coyotes really do sound like teenage boys trying to howl like coyotes. It's bizarre, but it's true. Strangely enough, if this was his fate, I'd be most okay with this option. Mickey was a hunter, and brought me numerous trophies of varying species, all of them mammalian, thankfully. For a coyote to have picked him off would mean he died the way he lived, a part of the circle of life. I only hope he thought of me in the last moments before his pure survival instinct kicked in, only to have failed him.
Whatever happened, Mickey has been gone over a year now. I held out hope, because it's not unheard of for kitties to disappear for an extended period of time only to return suddenly. There's been news stories of this happening several years after the cat disappeared, but most anecdotal stories say it's about a year later. So, I wanted to believe that Mickey was going to return. Maybe he was serving a stint in the feline ROTC, or something. I just wanted to have a reason to keep believing he would come back. I even balked at ever talking about him in the past tense. But it's well past time to concede the odds that Mickey is most likely dead now. That I'll never see my fuzzy little buddy again.
For those who don't the background info, though, I first met Mickey in 2012. I was looking for a place to live in Mount Vernon, and I checked out this one house that had a room available. I got there late at night because that was what worked for the landlord, as well as me. The night I checked out the room, I talked in the living room with the guy for a few minutes. During that time, this tabby cat was walking across the room, curious about what was going on. I asked what the cat's name was, and he said, "Mickey." I crouched, got the kitty to come over to me, pet him a few times, and then picked him up carefully. The homeowner was impressed. He said the cat never let strangers pick him up. He also said that must mean I have a good character.
I took the room and moved in. And lived there for about four years. I learned that Mickey was adopted at a young age. He was adopted by the homeowner as a pet for his daughter, whose mother he never married. His daughter didn't live with him, but lived a few streets over with the mother. The mother didn't want Mickey living with her because she lived a little further out and heard coyotes howling sometimes. Go figure. The daughter used to come over frequently though, to play with the cat. By the time I moved in though, she was a teenager and was more interested in boys and her friends than her cat. Even though she never visited Mickey anymore, she was still adamant that daddy couldn't give him away. She was hoping to take him with her when she went to college, or something to that effect. My new landlord fed the cat, kept the water full, and maintained a litter box, even though Mickey usually did his buisiness outside, but wasn't super affectionate to the cat. He'd pet him sometimes, but he clearly wasn't emotionally attached to the cat. Over the time of my tenancy there, the cat and I became better acquainted. In fact we became good friends. Very good. So good, in fact, it became a source of contention. The landlord accused me of overstepping my bounds of being affectionate with the cat. When I first moved in, he allowed me to let the cat in my room. Then he disallowed that. Then he didn't want me encouraging the cat to come down the hall toward our bedrooms, followed by not letting the cat in at night. That one at least had a fair explanation: the hall floor was wood, and the boards creaked when I walked, so it woke him up when I walked down the hall, and he didn't like losing sleep. Problem was, Mickey jumped at my window to be let in, so that I was losing sleep. I swear I didn't teach the cat to jump on my window screen, he just did it naturally. But it got worse: the landlord soon didn't want me letting the cat in or out at all, regardless of time of day, then told me I was not to look at the cat, talk to the cat, or pet the cat at all. I was to ignore him completely. He said I was a good roommate, but I gave the cat too much love, and the cat was coming between us.
The thing is, the cat wasn't the only problem, the only thing coming between us. He was just the brown tabby M&M in the bowl. There were other problems. I wasn't allowed to check the mail because at one point, he offered to be a residence for a girl he worked with, so she could get her driver's license. He was hoping to score with her, and this huge favor was sure to put him in good with her. But the day some of the paperwork arrived, I checked the mail and sent that back saying "Not at this address." When he found out, he was pissed because I had unwittingly cockblocked him, and forbade me from checking the mail again, except when he was out of town on vacation. He canceled the HBO because he didn't want me watching smut like "Game Of Thrones," even though at the time, the only thing I ever watched on HBO was the annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. He didn't care. He blamed me for breaking the dryer, even though by the time it broke down, he'd owned it for ten years, and made me buy a new one for him. He drank an entire bottle of wine every night he had off, which wasn't a problem at first, since he worked five nights a week. But when he cooked on his nights off while drinking, there was a forty percent chance of him setting off the smoke detector at some point. And toward the end of my tenancy there, he intentionally got himself fired from his job so he could collect unemployment while he tried to start up his own independent work as a dump truck driver. The problem was, he couldn't get a quality truck. The only one he could get a loan for spent the majority of the time in the shop, which means he was home most days. And drinking most nights.
That wasn't the entirety of the problems, and he did have his good points too. I didn't hate him, but I had to move out of there before I did. But the cat was the most visible source of friction. And he frequently promised me that when I did move out, he would want to give me the cat, since he could tell I loved him, and that the cat loved me too. But as his dump truck woes increased and he got moodier, his commitment to that promise became threadier, to the point where it felt like he was dangling that promise in front of me to keep me in line. It was too much. I had to just get out. I loved Mickey, but I had to move. But I made sure that the place I moved to would allow me a cat if I decided to get one, just in case. I moved out, but I thought about Mickey everyday. I missed him.
It's worth mentioning too, that in the struggle to maintain my sanity and sleep schedule, I found a clever way to disobey the landlord. First off, Mickey figured the need to keep quiet as he moved about the house, and he could walk the floor without creaking. Also, I could open and close my bedroom door without making noise. And over the years, Mickey had jumped at my screen so much that there was a huge tear in it. So, in the last month or so, when Mickey jumped on the screen, I raised the blinds, opened the window, stuck my hands out the hole in the screen, and finally got Mickey to jump into them so I could pull him into my room through the hole. Then I'd quietly open my bedroom door and let him out so he could get some food, and close the door not to raise suspicion. Then, when Mickey wanted to go back out, (and this was something he would do when he wanted to come in and cuddle with me), he'd come to my door and lightly scratch it instead of meowing. He knew I could hear it, and I would silently open the door, and be ready to pretend to go to the bathroom in case the guy was awake and noticed. If he wanted to go out, I'd open the window and let him out again, and go back to sleep. It was sneaky, and would have gotten me evicted if caught, but the security deposit was already gone anyway. I was past caring. Anyway, after I moved out, and a new person moved in, Mickey continued in this habit, expecting the new guy to know the drill. Well, the new guy worked for one of the ferry services, and did not appreciate a cat waking him up. So two weeks later, I got a call from my Mount Vernon landlord asking me if I wanted to adopt the cat. He daughter's mother still wouldn't take him in, and he had to get rid of the cat or lose a new tenant so soon. I sprang at the chance, paid a pet deposit to my new landlord, and brought the little fella to his new home, where he lived with me, as my cat, for the next four years until that fateful night last year.
I can't say if Mickey was good with kids, as I never saw him around children. But he was pretty friendly with humans, especailly after I came into his life and showed him how some humans could be toward cats. Also, he never brought dead animals in the house until me. A few times in Mount Vernon, he brought in a mouse or rabbit, which freaked the landlord out. Once he became my cat, in a new house and a new city, he REALLY became a prodigious hunter. So much so, that I started keeping empty Pringles cans around to put the dead animals in, to keep their corpses from stinking up the house. He really became both more independent and more affectionate after I got him out of that house. We pretty much had a habit of snuggling up on my bed and cuddling at least twice a day: once in the morning when I woke up, and again in the evening at some point. He drooled when he was happy, and he was happy with me. When my current roommate moved in, she introduced him to catnip, and he was hooked. He wasn't too friendly with other cats, but he could be civil, as long as it was understood that he was the alpha. He was okay with smaller dogs, like my other roommate's chihuahua, but did not like bigger ones. He also came to appreciate being photographed, both with a disposable camera and a smartphone. My Instagram account is mostly full of pictures of him still, his various cute poses, and anthropomorphic captions for his expressions. Independent but very affectionate, he was the perfect cat for me and the lifestyle I had with an insane work schedule.
Mickey was the first cat that was mine, as an adult. We had barn cats growing up, and some of them definitely were close to me, and many loved to be pet, but Mickey was the first one actually registered to me. He knew me for 8 years, just over half of his life. I was hoping to be his pet parent for half of his life, but that would have required him making it to age twenty. I'm glad to have had the time I had with him and the memories I have. And I'd like to share a few specific ones now.
One of my favorite early memories with him was when I was in Mount Vernon. One night I was folding and putting away laundry. He was still allowed in my room, and I saw him walk in, but thought nothing of it. As I'm hanging up a shirt, I suddenly hear an insistent, "Mrrrowr!" I turn around and see him sitting up on my bed, looking at me, and peering, poking his nose forward at me, in an expression that seemed to say, "I am cute and cuddly. Don't you dare ignore me. Whatever you're doing can wait. Pet me!" This would turn out to be his general attitude toward me doing any kind of housework.
Another time in Mount Vernon, he had just come in the house and was meowing while sitting up in front of the refrigerator. I made sure he food dish was full, and even watched him eat. After he ate, he sat in front of the appliance again, and resumed his meowing. As I walked away, he meowed again. Looked at the fridge, and then at me, back and forth. It had been a busy day, and I hadn't eaten anything, and wasn't really ready for dinner just then, but I realized that Mickey was making sure that I was eating too. He had had his meal, and now he was going to make sure I ate too. So I opened up the fridge, got some of my Christmas fudge out, bit into it, and made "MMMM!" noises. Mickey gave a me a look like, "Yeah, okay, whatever." And walked away.
When I was beginning to have problems with my gall bladder, I spent a night writhing in pain and had to go to the hospital. After having maybe three hours' sleep in the hospital, I came home a mess. I collapsed into my bed and was out within minutes. Mickey sensed something was wrong, and he climbed onto my bed, and perched himself right on my chest. He stared at me, and I pet him weakly, best as I could, before passing out. I awoke a couple hours later, and he was still perched on my chest, watching me. He hadn't budged an inch. The second time it happened occurred after the landlord forbade me from letting him in my room. Since he was home that day, after I got home from the hospital, I went straight to my room again. Mickey saw me stagger to my room, not well at all. When I woke up later in the day, I opened my door, and he was sitting right there, standing guard. He had been there the entire time I was asleep, having been sick. He was my little guardian.
One time, where I live now, I went away to convention for three days. I came home and he was missing. He hadn't been seen since the morning of that day. I was a basket case the entire next day, which thankfully I had off. I looked everywhere I could think, called out for him, nothing. Then, 10:00 that night, I thought I heard a meow outdoors. I thought I was hearing him all day, but I figured this was worth one last look. Sure enough, it was Mickey coming home! I picked him up, and snuggled him. He didn't leave my room that night.
Many of the other memories I have of Mickey are ones that happened frequently: snuggling on the bed, jumping on the arm of my chair, interfering with my typing on the computer, his flopping on the ground when I came home, his trilling meow when he came in with a freshly killed animal, him coming back in the bathroom window while I was in the shower, his soft eyes telling me he loved me, brushing his fur and getting so much out of it, and so forth. So much mundane happiness that I treasured every time (unless the animal he brought in was still alive!), that I still miss very much. I'll always love him. I nicknamed him "Mwuss" for the Disney parody pun of "Mickey Mwuss." He was a very unique cat, to the point I liked to say "There's only one Mwuss." Indeed, there will never be another like him.
I still hope against hope he'll show up, but in all likelihood, he is gone. He was a wonderful fur baby. I wanted to wait a full year to mourn and give him a chance to return. I don't know if I'll get another cat just yet, but I do know that I'll wait until after New Year's just because we're entering our busy season that can include 14-16 hour days. No time to home a new cat. I'll at least wait until then.
Goodbye Mickey. You weren't just a good cat; you were the best.
