Rosie is Here

Thursday, we said goodbye to Rosie after fifteen years of feline companionship. She was the most elegant. All along Bill called her Roseth Ellen Kotrba. She knew her name, or maybe just the inflection of your voice when you said it. In any case, when you called her, she always came.

All the clichés apply. She had a good life. We didn’t want her to suffer. She was a loyal cat.

She saw other pets come and go, including one peaceful rabbit, Flopsy. Black and white Charlie (2008-2018) was a noble cat, but Rosie was regal. Only one time did she kill a goldfinch and heaven knows how she achieved that. Mary wrote an apology note to the birdie. It never happened again. She rarely stooped to hunting, but there were a few mice presented as gifts of love at the back door.

Mary was five and a half when Rosie came. Calvin was nine. Fifteen years is a long time in the life of a child and a cat. They grew up together. Rosie was part Himalayan and part Ragdoll and part Munchkin. I paid way too much money for her from a sketchy breeder in Burlington, Iowa. We all got kittens there, it was around the time my dad was sick and Janel, Susan and I all got chemo cats, as we called them. While I’m going down the melancholy track, Wednesday would have been my folks 65th wedding anniversary. Time is a slow-moving train. The fifteen years we had Rosie are the same fifteen years without my dad.

She played tea parties and pullback cars. She was a fan of Easter baskets and all things Christmas. Any box she could fit in, and even some she couldn’t. She was always keen to have her picture taken, she was a little vain deep down I presume. She knew she was the fairest, with her silky white fur and perfect black eyeliner. She appears in most of our first and last day of school pictures.

She caught her tail on fire more than once, but one time was particularly dramatic. Before you judge. . . as she got older, I did start to put the candle in a tall hurricane glass.

 There was also the time the guys who varnished the upstairs oak floor locked her behind the hall door with a whole three rooms of fresh polyurethane. I came home to all four long haired white paws and one long haired white tail soaking wet with varnish and little varnish cat prints all over the whole tarnation. Again, before you judge, I quickly wrapped her in a towel, and collected what I needed including mineral spirits, a scissors, and baby shampoo. I locked us both in the basement bathroom until she was clean. She was a little dopey from the fumes which actually made the process easier. I told myself convincingly that I was a good pet owner. The floor had to be completely redone.

She tolerated Oliver and Melody, who came in 2018. They were juvenile and did juvenile things. Those years she was Queen Rosie. She was done with playing and had moved on to more royal pursuits.

 She was a fixture of my morning and evening routines. I’m a creature of habit and so was Rosie. After kittenhood, Rosie was all about spiritual growth. She never missed morning devotion. Whatever I was reading, she was reading. The routine—cat treats, celery juice, coffee, vitamins, and then the kitchen table time. My centering time. Second cup of coffee. I would light a candle (hence the tail fires), do my devotions and plan the day. I journal. Through the ups and downs of writing about life, trying to stay in the here and now, I often wrote “Rosie is here.” Rosie is here. She was always there. She wanted to lie on papers and books, rarely on the wood of the table, and most preferably on the Bible or the bullet journal, seeking religious or organizational osmosis. Sleeping on the paper google calendar was also acceptable. Extra points for the grocery list. To attempt to slide the papers or books from underneath her was a gross injustice punishable by the termination of centering time, i.e. jumping down and grooming herself on the floor and smoothing the ruffled fur you caused. How embarrassing for you.  

The candle and the books and the beautiful white cat were pure and good no matter what the documented highs and lows were. Years of sunrises together there. Years of Rosie is here.

During the day she made appearances to greet the piano kids. She loved (?) to be dragged around by the littlest kids, never ever biting or scratching them. Although she was older and wiser than most of them, she was very tolerant.

 Oliver provoked her. Hiss. She would retreat, embarrassed for him. Later they would nap in separate corners of the bed. No other cat but me was ever allowed to groom her precious coat.

 At night, before bed, she jumped on the bed to learn a little French and wind down. That was lovely until I was habitually tempted to clean her eyes and then again, that was the end of that. I’m so embarrassed. Duh. Some live and learn and some just live. In the end her beautiful grey eyes were cloudy and her pretty irises had brown splotches.

Oh Rosie. You made it to the cat finish line. Well done my lovely. You got a little grouchy in the end, but age deserves respect and we tried to listen. You spent your last hours in the patch of sun on the screen porch. What could be better?

 I’m writing this on a train trip with Bill, and that’s a good thing because I don’t have to sit at the sunrise table without you for a few days. It’s all good. It’s all normal. This is the price we pay for loving God’s creatures.

Rosie, you will always be with us, and I don’t just mean the tumbleweed tuffs of white fur under every bed and dresser, or the footprints the sanding machine couldn’t remove from the upstairs hall floor. You were beautiful and gentle and always close by. An elegant creature. Without gratuitous drama, I think I can say that it will always be so that—Rosie is here.