While I love living in the mountains in a more remote environment, it can feel isolating at times. Maybe because of this, and the many days I spend alone in our house, our pets have taken on even greater significance to me. So when we woke up yesterday morning to find that our cat, Maya, had passed away during the night, it hit me really hard. She had been sick off and on for awhile, so it wasn’t completely unexpected, but it was still a shock. This is the first time I’ve experienced the death of a pet as an adult, and it wasn’t any easier. But I’ve found writing to be very therapeutic, and upon greater reflection, realized how much Maya taught me about love and adventure.
I adopted Maya in Truckee, California on a whim. I was preparing to move to southwestern Oregon, and a friend of mine volunteered at the Humane Society, and knew of my love of dogs. She convinced me to stop by the shelter in hopes I would adopt a dog. But as soon as I walked in, I spied a 6-month old calico kitten, with a distinct orange splotch down her nose. After looking at the dogs, I said to my friend, “I’m not interested in any dogs, but I think I want that cat.” Which is kind funny, because I never had any cats growing up, and really didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a cat. Her name at the time was Aurora, but a friend of mine said he thought Maya would be a good name for her and so it was. And so began a fifteen year love affair…
Maya quickly proved herself an excellent mouser. I was house sitting for some friends at the time, and the first night after I adopted her, I awoke at 2 a.m. in the morning to hear a crunching sound. That was Maya consuming the last of a mouse she had caught. Since she had been picked up off the streets, I guess she had already honed not only her hunting skills, but her eating skills and would catch, devour the mice, and leave their tails behind. A week after I adopted her, we made our first of many road trips, up to southwestern Oregon. I worked long days there, and she frequently seemed lonely. I remember talking on the phone, and hearing her yowling in the background. A friend of mine suggested it is better to have two cats, so they can keep each other company, and that thought was in my head one day as I was driving home on a back road in Oregon. I happened to stop at a small market in Selma, Oregon, and two little girls approached me asking if I would be interested in adopting a kitten. In a fit of impulsiveness, I took a small black kitten, who was eight weeks old, and put her in the back seat. I brought her in the house, and Maya immediately started hissing at her, but that little cat hissed right back at her. I wasn’t sure how this was going to go, and fearing the worst, kept them separated when I wasn’t home. But a mere eight days later, I walked out to my living room to find Maya curled up next to Zuni, grooming her face and tending after her. That would begin a 14-year bond between the two.
There were a few times I thought I had lost Maya for good. After three years in Oregon, I took a job in Cape Cod, 3500 miles across the country. As I was packing up, Maya sensed what was going on, and though I tried to keep her and Zuni confined, she snuck out as I was putting the last of the things in the car. I looked everywhere for her, calling her name, but as any cat owner knows, cats don’t come when called. I was on a very tight time schedule for reporting to work, and knew I couldn’t wait all day for her. In desperation, I called a friend asking if he would come back to my house and take her in, thinking I would have to leave without her. Just at that moment, she popped out of the bushes and started walking towards me. It was as if she knew, or maybe some greater Higher Power knew I needed her in my life, and led her to me.
Many people warned me about driving cross-country with two cats, saying it was the sure route to insanity. Several people suggested giving them sedatives, but in the end, I decided against it. Each of them had harnesses, and I attached short leads to them that would allow them to roam the back of my Subaru Forester, but not get into the front seat. I also put a small litter pan in the very back. While it’s true there was a fair amount of yowling the first couple of hours, after that, they settled in. I had some cardboard boxes in the back that I had thrown a blanket over, and Maya perched on top, intermittently napping and gazing out the window.
I stopped for lunch in Utah one afternoon, and thought she had given me the slip once again. I had left the windows down a small amount to provide air, but when I came back to the car, I couldn’t find her anywhere. I started to panic, wondering how she could have squeezed out the crack in the window, and suddenly spied her glowing eyes peering out from underneath the driver’s seat. During our 7-day trip, she spent a lot of time on the floorboards, which I guess comforted her in some way. She had a knack for wedging herself into small spaces, as I found out in Grand Island, Nebraska. The cats experienced their first thunderstorms there (we didn’t have them in Oregon), and she managed to wedge herself into a small space behind the headboard of the bed. Maya made another escape at my parent’s house in St. Louis, again as I was packing up the car to hit the road. I was trying to put some stuff in the back, and she made a flying leap out. Again, I thought she might have been lost forever, but more divine interevention occurred, as my mother was able to pluck her out of the nearby bushes.
Maya was unique in many ways, as I quickly found out when I lived in Cape Cod. I lived in a small bungalow with about five acres of open land and fields behind me. The cats loved roaming the fields, hunting mice, and enjoying the sun. I used to leave a window half open, so they could go back inside whenever they wanted. Friends warned me the coyotes would get them, but I guess they used some of those nine lives and their wits to keep them safe. That winter provide to be very cold and snowy, and the first time I let them outside after an early snow was a bit of a shock to Zuni. She sprang into the snow and immediately zipped back inside. But not Maya. She loved the snow and would prowl around those fields in snow up to a foot deep, leaving a trail of cat tunnels behind her.
She also had a penchant for unusual foods, perhaps the most bizarre being her love of potato chips. I discovered this early on, when I left a large bag of chips on the coffee table in the living room, and went into the kitchen to get something. When I came back, I found her inside the bag, with her butt and tail poking out the top. She loved chips all her life, and in the last months, when her health started to fail, and the vet needed to take blood, the only thing she found comforting was nibbling chips off the palm of my hand.
Maya saw a lot of the United States during her sixteen years of life, going from Truckee, California to southwestern Oregon, then across country to Cape Cod. We went on from there to Philadelphia, and on to Hancock, Maryland. It was back east that she learned to live with the canine species, first spending time with an exuberant golden retriever, and then Simon, our flat-coated retriever. I don’t know if Maya ever really loved the dogs, but she learned to coexist with them. After spending two years living with the hyper golden, we left the golden retriever and moved into a quiet, old house in Hancock, Maryland. I imagine she was quite relieved to finally have some peace and quiet, and can only imagine her dismay, when I brought home a big, bouncy black dog. She and Zuni hid under my bed for three days before finally venturing out.
Maya made her final big car trip when Bryon and I moved out to Colorado from Maryland. Again, she proved a steadfast traveler, as she placated herself by napping and sitting on the back floorboards. She became a bit more reclusive in her old age, preferring to nestle on blankets inside closets or back in the crawl space, but often would pop out and climb onto my chest or Bryon’s on weekend mornings to hang out. I noticed in these final weeks, that she showed up more frequently, as I would wake up in the morning to find her sleeping next to my pillow.
As my first pet I adopted as an adult, Maya taught me a lot about unconditional love. She quickly knew when I was feeling bad and would climb up on my chest to comfort me. She certainly used up every one of her nine lives, even outlasting a dire diagnosis five years ago, when the vet turned up abnormal liver tests. Two vets told me she had cancer and would die quickly, but she hung in there, and rallied several times to have many spirited moments during the last four years. Though we went on to eventually to add four more critters to our household, Maya will always hold a special place in my heart as my first. She taught me I was capable of making a commitment to another living being, to be there for them, through thick and thin, and in return gave me love and companionship every single day. I will always love you and always remember you, little Maya Papaya, may you be at peace.
