Grief is a funny thing—it ebbs and flows. One moment I could swear I’m fine—I’m going about my life, thinking about stuff, maybe even about adopting a new cat and then something—nothing in particular-- will suddenly come over me and the next thing I know, I’m bawling on the elliptical machine at the gym. The sadness is deep and diffuse; it doesn’t seem to even need a memory to anchor it. It just rolls in like the fog and lifts just as suddenly.
I worry that this note is going to be long and rambling and possibly very boring. That’s why I want to say the important part right up top: Thank you. For being there and caring. For understanding that Steenki was so much more than a cat (although he was plenty of that!) But if you have a similar friend in your life—someone who’s a weird mix of child, best friend, soulmate and the boss of you…. perhaps you’ll find some comfort and kinship in our story. Steenki’s and mine.
It was love at first sight. He was laying in a large cage in a pet store window. There I was, fresh off the boat, broke, completely ignorant of kitten mills and the million other valid reasons no one should ever buy an animal (as opposed to adopting). So I walked in to get a closer look. He looked at me with cool gold-green eyes and winked. How could I resist? I was completely besotted!
Dude cost $545 (plus tax) and I didn’t have work papers. Oh, and did I mention that the guy I was living with was deathly allergic to cats? None of it mattered. It was like magic.
Everything just clicked. I found an under the table job at a café and, despite making less than minimum wage, within a month had enough cash to purchase the privilege of taking this amazing, golden-bodied creature home. From then till the time I broke up with my ex, I cleaned like a maniac (to keep the dander in check). If you’re on this list, you kow me well enough to know how much I abhor housework! I loved every minute of it. I (who had thought myself a dog person till that fateful day at the pet store on St Laurent)
boggled at the magnificence that is a cat. His agility, his twisted sense of humour, the sudden sweetness that flooded my heart when this weird,
independent and self-sufficient creature showed me his vulnerable side. All I could talk about was this cat. I don’t think that really changed in the almost six years we got together. I’m not sure I can go back to my previous setting.
Of course, there were difficult times. I still recall the conversation I had with the customer service rep of the catfood company I called when Steenki wouldn’t stop farting and having diarhhea. “Try the chicken flavour,” she said. Yeah, right. Any flavour of that (and similar) brands of cat food gave him gas so noxious that when he used the litterbox, I had to bag it and take it outside right away! And so began the quest that would lead me to have a nationally syndicated column on CBC TV talking about holistic pet care. I learned how to read a petfood label. When the horrible 2007 petfood recall happened, Steenki and his 2 siblings: Elvis (cat) and Lucie (dog) were all eating home-prepared raw. We even had our picture in the Gazette! Steenki, of course, was only off-smelling those first few months.Once we fixed his diet, he took on the smell that I’ve grown to love as much as the air I breathe—a soft smell, like love and sleep and secrets. The name, however, stuck. Mostly because when my ex would say “that stinky cat”, he would come trotting in, mischief in his eyes.
There are many reasons Steenki means as much to me as he does. One of them is that we’ve been through so much together. He was there, right next to me, through immigration hassles. Through a messy breakup
and the burgeoning of a new relationship. Through times when work and cash were terribly scarce and times when it seemed like even having a clone of me wouldn’t get it all done by deadline. Through the adoption of first, a scrappy, troublemaking little kitten we called Elvis. And then the adoption of our dog, a gorgeous adult German Shepherd we named Lucie. 
Steenki was a benevolent tyrant—clearly the boss of everyone, but generous enough to share his slaves. Steenki and I stuck by each other through repeated bouts of puking (he ate too fast and his stomach wasn’t having it) and then deeper trouble with FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease). We spent Christmas eve 2007 at the emergency vet’s when Steenki blocked and was unable to pee. We had pet insurance that helped pay for surgery last summer to remove his penis in an attempt to enlarge his urethra. This was supposed to prevent him from ever blocking again. I guess we know now that it only bought him some time. It also made him prone to painful UTIs. The regular vet prescribed course after course of antibiotics that left him ill and funny-smelling. Plus he had to wear his hateful cone collar to prevent him from licking his bits sore. Eventually, my distaste for antibiotics and my stubborn belief in natural methods paid off: I discovered that cranberry extract and D-mannose would act as both preventive and curative for his chronic UTIs. I simply mixed some in with his food and he didn’t suffer from them again. This works for humans too, by the way, and has no side effects that I’ve been able to discover.
Steenki was a demanding fellow, make no mistake. There was a lot to get done and get done right: special food, special feeding method, special supplements, a certain number of feedings per day (or you got your ankles gnawed!). Plus, I got attitude if I came home late—he’d saunter up to me shivering his tail and arching his back seductively, but the moment I’d try to pet him, he’d scuttle just out of reach! So I’d have to follow him around the house, bent over, trying to pet him while he alternately arched and glowered. Of course, I was always forgiven. And we’d end up on the sofa, cuddled in a blankie, basking in each other’s love.
I miss him so much, my delicious, evil cat. The cat who pushed plants off high places if you had the gall to ignore him and knit or talk on the phone. He never did this if I wasn’t in the same room with him. He’d wait to make eye contact—I’d usually be on the couch, phone to ear and he’d be high on the bookshelf. And then, almost in slow motion, he’d tip a plant pot over the edge. Even as I saw it coming and got up to try and stop it, the pot would shatter on the floor and Steenki would give me a haughty “told you so” look. And there I’d be, almost dancing with rage (plant pots are expensive!) but somehow also getting the joke. Dude was the boss of me, no question about it. What was shocking is how much I loved being his slave.
Perhaps that’s the essence of why Steenki meant so much to me. There was something in the way he looked at me that never wavered. Looking back at the hours I spent visiting him post surgery at the vet’s, singing “What’s new pussycat?” over and over till he finally fell into an exhausted sleep; the nights I stayed up with him when he came back home, rocking him and massaging his back because the painkillers didn’t take away all his pain;
the hours I spent ignoring my aching wrists as I crocheted him a cat bed with my love and hope in every stitch. And even when I was at my most sleep deprived or had to scrub barf out of the carpet (AGAIN) , I loved every minute… I marvel at that girl. Is she really me? I’m usually so selfish and fickle and petty. But Steenki didn’t think so. He looked at me and saw someone who was able to step outside herself and open her heart as wide as the ocean. And somehow, because he expected it, perhaps because he needed it, I became that girl. And once your heart has been stretched that way, it can never really go back to being closed.
How could I ever doubt myself when I had Steenki? When I could look down into those beautiful cool eyes and see someone who believed that not only could I take it on and come out on top, but that I could do it all AND be home in time for an afternoon nap (under our beloved pink blankie). Of course, I have people in my life that give me similar support. But people understand my failings. They understand the vagaries of recessions and bosses and deadlines and how the media is a nasty, unpredictable business. 
Steenki? He didn’t care for those details. He saw ME. Nothing more, nothing less. And looking into his eyes, feeling his purr vibrate through my own body brought me a sense of peace so profound that I still feel it. Even around the painful hole in my heart I feel it. A calmness and sureness that is the most precious gift that anyone can hope to receive. I don’t know what I’ve done in this life or the past to deserve something so incredible, but I am grateful. Through my terror that I will never have another friend like Steenki, I am grateful.
That’s the overriding emotion I feel today. Gratitude. Of course, I wish he’d stayed around to grow old and become the grumpy old man that he was under his catsuit. I wish I’d had longer to enjoy his company. But a friend like that must be in great demand. And I got six incredible years. And looking back, I can say with clear conscience that we made the best of the time we were given. He was a fearless and adventurous cat. He enjoyed chasing butterflies in the park and eating grass till he puked. He didn’t mind a harness and leash (though it was pretty clear who was walking whom). He taught his little brother how to groom himself and when we got the dog, he defended Elvis fiercely (“MY cat!” he was, no doubt, thinking). Although Abyssinians are supposed to be friendly, all my books say that they don’t do laps. Steenki apparently never got the memo. Or he ate it (and threw it up under the couch), but over the years, he became lapcat extraordinaire. And he seemed to think I was some sort of exclusive piece of cat furniture. His favourite was to walk all over me once I was in bed
(13 pounds of cat x pointy paws = very painful boobs)
and then lie on my chest so the movement of my breathing would rock him to sleep.
What I would give for one more night where, wrapped in blankets and Pat’s arms and the cats, I wake gasping from a dream of drowning in quicksand! Man, we had some good times…
Not having Steenki around is hard. But, as with everything about this cat, there’s been a thick slice of silver lining. I’m bowled over by you: my family and friends. By a husband whose tenderness and compassion take my breath away. By how many hands and hearts have been around to put Humpty back together as I teeter on my wall.
Thank you. You’ll never know how much it means to me to have you in my corner.
My beloved Steenki (May 5, 2003 – April 2, 2009), may you rest in peace. I hope you’re lying somewhere cuddled in a soft blankie, surrounded by your minions and all the organic chicken you can eat. I love you and always will. And I hope some day that you and I can be together again.
