Memories of Piggy

I feel a little better emotionally prepared today to tell some favorite stories about Pig, who died two days ago at age 13.

Greg picked Pig initially at the humane society because she was the only kitten who wasn't making a lot of noise. As soon as her got her in the car to take her home, he realized how mistaken he was on that front. She fit in Greg's hand and was basically a ball of black, brown, and tan fur (a tortoiseshell).

Initially, her name was Grendel, after the monster in Beowolf. No one knew what Greg meant when he explained that, because Greg didn't know any other English majors at the time. Her name became Pig, because of her appetite.

Pig was eventually spayed and front declawed. Before that happened, Greg lived in a townhouse apartment with open carpeted stairs. He remembers sitting in his living room, watching her use her little needle-sharp claws to climb up the stairs backwards, hanging upside down.

Upstairs in the townhouse, there was a rather thin wooden railing around the stair opening. Pig loved to walk along the top of the railing, even after the day when Greg was sitting in his living room and Piggy fell from the top floor to land on the carpeted first floor. Greg says she laid there winded for a minute and then got up, acting out the traditional cat posture of "I meant to do that."

Once Greg and I started dating, I told him that I thought Pig would love to look out his screened front door (his windows were kind of high up and Pig loved to look at birds). I set her up on a chair in the doorway and Greg and I started to watch TV. A few minutes later, we both heard Pig meowing rather frantically. We figured out that she's leaned against the screen and fallen out the bottom of the screen where it was torn. Poor Pig had never been outside and she was completely freaked by finding herself on the front porch.

When Greg and I moved in together, Pig had to adjust to having another cat in the house (my cat, Butterscotch--who died four years ago) and to a new house. It was not easy for her. I don't think she even came out of the spare bedroom for the first two weeks. However, when we moved to an apartment in Wisconsin and they were starting from neutral territory, Pig was the brave one who explored all of the floors of the townhouse first.

Pig and Butterscotch fought a lot initially. Greg and I used to hate it when we'd be in bed, absolutely sound asleep, and the cats would chase each other completely across our bodies. There was inevitably a paw or three that would hit you right in the middle of your chest or stomach and suddenly, shockingly steal your breath.

I pretty much have always gotten up in the morning earlier than Greg. Pig and I quickly developed a routine of her waiting on the floor by the bathroom cabinet until I finished putting in my contact lenses, then she'd get intense loving for at least three or four minutes each day.

We used to say that Pig was coming to 'have sex' when she'd get these fits where she demanded intense petting from various people--Greg, me, my mom, and my sisters, especially.

Before she developed diabetes, Pig was quite a fat cat. When Butterscotch got sick, we didn't even realize that she was eating all of his food until we noticed how thin he'd gotten and how she was really porking up (bad pun). We put her on a diet after his death and she was in much better shape until she really got thin from diabetes.

Pig was always very gentle with our girls, though I think she resented how these squealing things took up our laps when she wanted to sit down and get some love. One of her last routines was waiting until Allie and Julia came downstairs right after waking up. They sit on opposite ends of the couch, usually with a blanket over their legs. Then Pig would jump up by Allie and settle down for a period of intense petting while the girls watched morning TV and ate some breakfast.

During the last night she was alive, Pig had gone downstairs to the basement to use her litterbox (or try to) and then she stayed downstairs, hiding under one of our futons. I went looking for her when I got up and she came out so I could pet her. I knew I was probably saying goodbye.

I carried her upstairs with me and she had a little drink of water. A few minutes later, I woke the girls and they settled on the couch. As sick as she was, Pig still went over to the couch as usual to get some love from Allie. I had to lift her up because she was so weak.

We loved her so much.