Two Old Survivors

“I’m ready for a new cat,” my 97-year-old Mom tells me.

“Dixie,” my mother’s last cat, had died two months earlier. Back when the beloved cat was still alive, mom had said it was her last. But she’d said the same thing about Dixie’s predecessor, “Curry” and before that, “Lucky.”

To be clear, Dixie was only “beloved” by my mother. That cat used to scare the bejesus out of me with its screeching. I swear this cat knew my mother was deaf and vocalized at a hair-raising volume. And I’m a cat person.

Dixie was a very pretty cat; I’ll give her that. She was a Bengal or what I sneeringly refer to as a “designer cat.” My cats have been either strays or shelter animals, and I take issue with paying for a bred animal when so many others need a home. Whatever. But my mother adored her, and Dixie was a huge comfort to her for well over a decade.

At age 14, elderly for a cat, Dixie got cancer. My mom kept her alive for awhile, but eventually the cat was so thin and meowing so piteously that my mom knew she had to be put down.

That was it; the last cat.

Still, I wasn’t surprised when Mom wanted a new one. For someone born in 1924, my Mom is in pretty good shape. But most of her friends have died; we lost my Dad four years ago, and a cat staved off loneliness. Also, as she likes to point out to me, cats are never judgmental or critical. “That cat really loves me,” she has said about each one. In fact, over my Mom’s bed, there’s a framed New Yorker cartoon of an old lady sitting imperiously in her own bed, surrounded by mournful-looking family, saying, “Everyone out except the lawyer and the cat!”

This time when she wanted a new cat, though, I hesitated. I knew full well who would end up with the kitty should something happen to my mom. And in my household, my husband has issued a four-mammal rule. There are the two of us, and we already have two cats. He threatens that if a third cat comes into the house, he’s moving out.

Meanwhile, Mom said she kept seeing Dixie around every corner and imagined she felt the thud of her landing on the bed. She needed a new cat. Relenting, I agreed to take her to a shelter to pick one out.

“But Mom,” I said, “I think you should get an older cat.”

“Why?” she asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Ummm… well…” I didn’t want to directly address her mortality, so I said instead that older shelter pets had a harder time being adopted, and it would be a kindness to give one a home. This was true, of course, though it skirted the bigger issue.

I was worried about another thing. What if the shelter refused to allow a 97-year-old to adopt? I figured I didn’t have to reveal her actual age, and besides, my Mom does have 24/7 aides at home, so the actual cat care — feeding and cleaning the litter, wouldn’t fall to her.

To be on the safe side, I called the shelter ahead of time. I told them I was bringing in my elderly mother, and that we would like to be shown only elderly cats.

“Wonderful!” the woman at the shelter says. “You want a senior cat!”

“Maybe we shouldn’t use that word with my Mom, though.”

“Got it,” the woman replied quickly. “We’ll call them ‘mature.’”

I should mention that my mother is legally blind — her eyesight stolen by advanced macular degeneration. But I steered her into my car, buckled her seatbelt, and stowed my own cat carrier in the backseat. Mom didn’t know where hers was.

At the shelter there were a surprising number of tricky curbs to navigate but when we went in, the volunteers were ready for us. Maybe I should have revealed my Mom’s age. An enthusiastic young man whisked us from cage to cage, waxing on about each cat. My mom couldn’t see any of them, couldn’t keep up with the volunteer, and certainly couldn’t hear much of what he was saying.

“Maybe I should take two cats,” Mom said, after picking up that two of the cats were bonded.

“No, Mom. One cat.”

Finally, I asked the young man to bring a chair for my Mom into the biggest room with cages. Perhaps, I suggested, we could bring the cats to her. He complied, and that’s when we met “Shamu.”

Shamu was a very big boy. At the shelter they claimed that his name came from the cute little squeaking noise he made during his meow, but I’m pretty sure he was named after the whale. Anyway, he was placed on my mother’s lap, and he immediately relaxed and started purring.

“What a handsome boy!” my mother said, delightedly petting this head.

As I said, she’s legally blind. Shamu, bless him, was not handsome. A good chunk of one ear was missing, and he had a scar over his left eye — remnants, I supposed, of a dark time in his life. He was also kind of mangy, and shed all over my mother’s blue slacks. But he had a nice disposition.

“How old is he?” I quietly asked the volunteer.

“Ten years, four months,” he said. “Oh and he’s has FIV, a kind of feline AIDs. He’ll be fine as long as he’s not with another cat.”

Shamu, meanwhile, had settled into my mother’s lap, although it must be said that his haunches were hanging off her thighs. He nuzzled his head into my Mom’s sweater.

“He’s perfect,” I said.

Shamu was so big he would not fit into my cat carrier. The shelter gave us one of theirs. As I filled out the adoption paperwork, promising never to declaw the cat, let him outside, and keep him up to date on his medical care, shelter employees and volunteers kept coming up to us.

“Shamu is such a great cat!”

“We’re not supposed to say this, but Shamu is my favorite cat here.”

“Oh Shamu! You are so lucky to get him.”

My mother still has all her marbles and then some. “Do you think they’re paying them to say that?” she whispered to me. At that point, a voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Attention! Attention please! Shamu has found his forever home! Shamu has been adopted!”

The staff cheered. I wondered if they did that whenever an animal was adopted, or if it just applied to old, sick animals who had been waiting a long time.

It’s been about a week and Shamu is settling nicely into my mother’s home. He likes hanging out on a blanket at the end of the bed. He’s pretty quiet. He purrs a lot. My mom thinks he’s wonderful. And she’s renamed him. Shamu is now called “Comfort.”