Guys, as I understand it, are supposed to love dogs and hate cats, or, at the very least, be ambivalent about them. Cats are supposed to be “chick pets” just as “Sleepless in Seattle” was supposed to be a “chick flick.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to start out on the wrong foot here – I LOVE dogs. All dogs. Big. Little. Fluffy. Wrinkled. Slobbering, slovenly, sharp, sophisticated. I love them all. But there is a place in my heart that dogs have never seemed capable of entering, and when I lie still in the dark of night and listen carefully, that place purrs.

I have had cats for as long as I can remember, and I have had all sorts of them. Feisty, flaccid, frisky, feral, and even one that was so deranged it actually pooped on my chest while I slept… but that is a totally different story. Each, much like a dog, came pre-packaged with a distinct personality, but with cats there is something more behind the eyes. An intelligence, if you will. They say dogs have the intelligence and emotionality of a two-year old child. I say cats have the intelligence and emotionality of a two-year old Machiavelli with a sprinkle of Marquis de Sade for flavor.

There was a line in the movie, “Meet the Parents,” where Robert De Niro tells Ben Stiller, “…cats make you work for their affection…” And it’s true. 99.23% of cats will not readily accept you from a sniff of the hand. You must prove that you are worthy of giving this self-important creature pleasure, lest you be ignored, at a minimum, or ripped and bloodied for more spectacular failures. Somehow, I had always been able to toe the line, proving my worth to just about every cat I had encountered, and I felt better about myself for it.

One day, I woke up and realized that I had not had a cat for a couple of years, and somehow that was not at all acceptable anymore. So I looked through the want-ads and found a litter of kittens being given away. When I got to the house, I was met by 5 very playful balls of fuzz, but one stood out for some reason, and the other four seemed to disappear into the scenery. Perhaps it was because he was the most bold and curious; perhaps it was some sort of subliminal connection that we both felt; perhaps it was because he was gray. Whatever the reason, I am sure that fate had a great part of the decision.

I took the little 7-week old feline home and began the process of caring for him like any responsible young-adult would. He spent most of his time in my lap or arms, ate most of the same food I ate, and pretty much never left my side. He became fond of scaling my leg like some sort of denim-covered Sequoia, which was about as cute as it could get, until summer came around the jeans were traded in for shorts. He was, in a word, rambunctious. So much so, I actually named him “Booger,” but I usually ended up calling him, “Ouch, Asshole!”

I was sure that he would miss the socialization and acquisition of cat-skills with not having a sibling or other cats around to model, so when he wasn’t sleeping, we would play. Games like “Bowling the Kitty Across the Bed,” “Scotch-Tape on the Toes,” and “Pillow Walloping” we among my favorites. Oddly, the cat never mentioned his, but I was sure these little games had a great deal to do with the animal he grew into.

It didn’t take long for me to realize two things. Number one, “Booger,” and “Ouch, Asshole!” were horrible names. This occurred to me when an old friend came to visit and began calling my cat “Booger” as if it were nothing more unique than “Fritz,” or “Fluffy,” and it disturbed me. Number two; this cat had distinguished himself as a Class-A Curiosity in the feline world, graduating him from pet to roommate and entertainment source almost overnight.

Among the peculiarities that made him a Curiosity rather than just your run-of-the-mill weird cat were his absolute love of water, which we only discovered after he had taken to sleeping in the sink and refusing to move until we turned the faucet on him. Needless to say, this did not have the desired effect of permanently scaring him from his nest, but rather inured his position as King of the Sink. The cat was a cross between a Maine Coon, known for their intelligence and size (a good friend of mine calls them the SUV of the cat world), and a Norwegian Forest Cat, known for their intelligence, size and thick coat of long silky fur. The double-dose of smarts made him always seem to be looking disdainfully at you, to the point that for much of our life together I was pretty sure he was a person reincarnated erroneously in a cat’s body, but with the same sensibilities and inner monologue as a human. Half the time I could hear him saying things like, “WHAT are you doing, you idiot?” or “Do you realize how demeaning it is when you call me that?” Perhaps that was just me, though.

Although “Pookey” (as I had come to call him) was perfectly happy to eat cat food, wet or dry, he was also very keen on whatever I happened to be consuming, and he would, without fail, sample anything I placed before him. This also proved to be an endless source of amusement, but over the course of time I discovered that he liked both bell peppers and onions (scarfed from the floor after dropping a bit of pizza), as well as chocolate-chip cookies, which he would bat out of your hand and chase down as it rolled away like a mouse, and spaghetti. But, his absolute favorite food was bread. He would get downright territorial and aggressive over a slice of sourdough, and on numerous occasions we would wake to an entire loaf of sliced bread laying on the kitchen floor, completely eviscerated, the plastic bag shredded and crumbs everywhere. The amazement and hilarity overshadowed any anger or frustration, making it very difficult to reprimand him, and this behavior became just another facet of life with “The Pook.”

His diet may have contributed, although he was never fat, to Pookey growing into a beautiful blue-gray solid-as-Sears 17-pound cat. He loved people, but was never an attention whore. If you wanted to pet him, he was more than happy to oblige you, and he would tolerate any technique or intensity quite happily, as long as he was being touched. But it was me who he embraced as kin, and for that I remain deeply honored. He would follow me, seek me out, cuddle me and clean me. I could pet him, hug him, hold him, and abuse him in just about any conceivable way, and as long as he was in physical contact with me, he would stay, unfalteringly, at my side or in my arms until I released him, purring like a Hemi in a ’68 Dodge Charger; never leaving on his own. I came to believe that he would starve to death before he would abandon my presence, and the years of this sort of companionship and proximity forged a bond I have rarely experienced with most of the people in my life, let alone another animal.

As life went on, my fascination grew with the odd animal I had befriended. Although a fair bit of anthropomorphizing occurred, he began exhibiting positively human tendencies. He had an uncanny ability to sense things. I could go into the kitchen and make myself a meal and he would sit quietly wherever he was, nary batting a multi-lidded eye at me, but if I went into the kitchen with the intention to make a meal and found something in the refrigerator I thought he might enjoy, he would be at my side, patiently awaiting what he somehow knew was coming. This preternatural skill most bizarrely manifested in his keen sense of all things elastic, particularly hair-ties. Pookey could be asleep downstairs at one end of the house, and if you were to remove a hair-tie from your hair upstairs and at the opposite end, he would, suddenly, be at your feet waiting for it, as if he had just loaned it to you and wanted it back. The look of contempt and insistence the cat could muster was enough to make you sheepishly give the blasted thing to him, at which point you would be rewarded with a 20-minute display of “Solo Catch.” He would take the hair-tie in his mouth and fling it into the air, chase it down, pounce on it, and repeat, until he was bored, at which point he would saunter over to his water-bowl, hair-tie clasped gently between his front teeth, and drop it in. After years of enjoying this behavior, my wife finally pointed out that it was almost as if he was putting his toys away like an obedient child. We decided that he understood that he had very few earthly possessions, but that he knew for certain that the water-bowl and food-dish were his and his alone, therefore, the newly acquired hair-tie should go with his belongings. Where else would he keep it?

Late at night we would often hear him exploring the house, but not in a “this is my home and I should know the layout.” It was more the socially-retarded visitor who looks through your medicine cabinet when he uses the bathroom. We would wake in the morning, unable to find him, and after a rousing round of “Did You Let Him Slip Out When YOU Came In?!” My wife and I would see him emerge from one of the cupboards, bleary-eyed and hungry. One night, while lying in bed, we heard a cupboard rattle, like the door to it was banging shut repeatedly. Quietly. Gently. But over and over and over and over… We could only imagine him hooking a claw from his forepaw under the lip of the cabinet door to pull it open, and just as it was wide enough for him to enter, losing his grip and being thwarted. “Shit…” bang, bang, bang… “Shit!” bang, bang, bang… “SHIT!” bang, bang, bang… Ok, so we anthropomorphized him a bit more than we originally let on, but hopefully, you are starting to get the picture.

It was about this time that some of our clothes (usually mine) began making their way into the strangest places. We would find a t-shirt in the middle of the living room floor, a pair of pants in the bathroom, and one time a 7-pound costume cloak that I had made of heavy-weight drapery velvet was scrunched into a ball on the sofa. This would only happen when we were out of the house or while we slept, so we never really knew what was going on. It amused us nonetheless. Finally, late one night, we were sitting on the couch, the living room lit only by the cold gray glow of the television, and out of the corner of my eye, in the darkness, I saw movement. I nudged my wife, and we watched in astonishment as the cat, dragging one of my shirts with his teeth, backed his way into the living room, and stopped in the middle of the floor. Our amazement turned to horror as we watched him gather the shirt beneath him and begin humping it like an over-amorous dog on Uncle Ernie’s leg. It was… disturbing, but sweet in a way. He was showing us his love, in the most primal, animalistic, embarrassing fashion conceivable.

We believe it was the cookies that brought on diabetes. We had noticed his litter box smelling of urine within a day or two of changing it, and when we emptied it out, there was a tremendous amount of liquid beneath the clay. So, off to the vet, and sure enough, low blood sugar, plus all of the indications of feline diabetes. The first few weeks of giving him twice-daily insulin injections were tough. He would see the syringe and bolt, and I know he resented being forced into submission just so he could experience the sharp pain of a needle piercing the skin at the scruff of his neck. One day, in the evening, he was having a bad go of it. It was obvious he was not feeling well. Slow, lethargic, his eyes a little glazed over, and he let me sit down next to him and administer the medication without the slightest protest. Within a few minutes he was back to his normal self, alert, purring, on the hunt for cookies (now completely removed from the menu). I think it finally registered with him that the shot was the thing that made him feel better, because from that point on, he never ran from the needle, and ofttimes he would seek me or my wife out, sit at our feet and meow, which we soon discovered meant that he was feeling the need for insulin. If we ignored him, or tried to play with him or give him food, check his litter box, etc. he would continue the behavior, following us around, until we administered the shot, and then he would quietly go about his business, “That is done, and I have things to tend to…”

Life with The Pook was great for years — peccadilloes, insulin punctures, and pizza. He was our roommate who provided love and entertainment in lieu of rent and food money. It was a perfect relationship, and we were all content. Right up until we had our first child. My wife and I discussed how things might change for Pookey (and for me) when our son was born, and I fought valiantly against the mere thought of our cozy little existence being altered. But deep down inside I knew it was true. I would try to convince my wife, or more accurately, myself, that I would still have plenty of time and desire to pick up the great lummox and carry him around for hours at a time just like I had for the past 15 years, and I truly believed that. But any who are reading this right now, who have children of their own, are shaking their head, knowing full-well that your pets, no matter how deeply cherished they are, play second fiddle to a new baby. I would learn that lesson in the most painful way possible.

My son was born six weeks early, and while he had no developmental problems, it was quite a surprise, and we were wholly unprepared for his arrival. In fact, he was born on the day of his own baby shower, but that is a tale for another day. Needless to say, my wife and I had to scramble to gather up the multitude of small things you need for a newborn, and during that hectic first week or two, The Pook was all but forgotten. Sure, he was fed, watered, and medicated, and we even managed to pick him up and hold him once in a while, but our newborn baby required attention, and had captivated us in ways we never even conceived of. If I am being honest with myself, I must confess that I saw the change in him. He was not as frisky, and the expression he once wore, of mischief and enthusiasm, was replaced by a downtrodden mask of sadness. Sure, I anthropomorphize, but he was, quite obviously, affected by the arrival our the baby.

Once things settled down, I made a concerted effort to spend time with Pookey, and to show him that he was still very much loved, very much wanted, and very much part of the family. But I fear that effort came too late. He just wasn’t the same.

One evening after giving him his nightly insulin, we went to bed, only to be awakened a few hours later by our roommate saying there was something wrong with The Pook. We rushed downstairs to see what was the matter, only to find him laying on his side, limp, eyes totally glazed, and breathing very shallowly. A million things ran through my mind as to what could have happened, but I kept coming back to the insulin. Had I given him too much? Did I double-dose him accidentally? Did my roommate or my wife dose him in addition to the injection I gave him? No. I was sure on all counts that none of that happened. We were very careful about the meds. I was the only one to give him the shot, solely because that way we could prevent this sort of thing happening. I was also sure that I had not double-dosed him, so it was not that either.

We scooped him up in a towel and rushed him to the emergency vet clinic near our home. He looked bad, head lolling, eyes vacant, mouth open slightly. I feared the worst. The clinic took us in immediately, and then took him to the back area for examination. The tech returned a couple minutes later, and my heart sank. I knew this could not be good news. He told us that Pookey’s blood-sugar was in the single digits, which meant his brain was so glucose-starved that irreparable damage would have been done. If we had gotten to him sooner, and given him a little of the Karo Syrup we kept on-hand just for this sort of emergency, we might have been able to save him. But as it was, even though they could probably stabilize his blood-sugar, he would never recover from the brain damage. I asked if I could say goodbye to him, and they brought him back into the exam room. I held my little gray best-friend as he died in my arms, and cried harder than I have cried in my life for not being there to protect him, to save him. For being responsible for this. For the hole that would forever remain in my heart.

I miss you Bubba. You will never be forgotten.

AFTERNOTE: It turns out that, occasionally, a diabetic cat’s pancreas will throw some insulin randomly — sometimes small amounts, sometimes large — and that this is most likely what happened with Pookey. We had given him his insulin in the evening, and then later that night he threw a large amount of insulin himself which made him lethally hypoglycemic. Knowing what probably happened helps, but it does nothing to ease the pain of loss and responsibility I carry with me to this day.