Molly's  Story

Words and their products have long been a very important part of my life—reader, English teacher, librarian, bookseller—so I suppose it is only natural that it is words I turn to in life’s “moments.”   The death of our dear calico Molly and the ensuing grief and loss comprise one of those “moments.”  I feel the need to tell Molly’s story and for that, I need words.

PART 1:  In which Molly chooses us. 

            Where did it begin?  To quote one of TV’s Golden Girls,  “Picture this:  Naples, Italy, a drizzly, chilly evening in October 1993.”  A small bit of fur and bones crossed in front of our car as we headed down the steep, winding road from the hill on which we lived.  There were lots of street cats in Napoli and our hill had its share. I warned Nat to go carefully in case the mother cat or other kitties would soon follow.  We saw no others and the one we had seen sought shelter under a parked car.  We continued on our way. 

  When we returned a couple hours later, we saw the kitten still under the same car and still no other cats in sight.  We parked the car, Nat went back down the road to see about the kitten and I went up to the apartment.  A few minutes passed and I heard the elevator arrive in our lobby.  When Nat entered the apartment, both hands empty, I assumed the street cat had quite naturally run from him.  Then he unbuttoned his jacket and there was the tiniest scraggly calico kitten I had ever seen.  She could barely stand and could make only the tiniest mewing sound, but with the warmth, she was purring. 

I despaired that the kitten would make it through the night.  She had obviously been without her mother’s care for a couple days; she was dirty and hungry and she had diarrhea.  We fed her a bit of watered milk first, then cleaned her.  Nat went down and scooped up a pie pan of dirt for an impromptu litter box while I carried her wrapped in a washcloth (she was that small) to try to keep her warm.  I made chicken broth and rice gruel, which had always seemed to soothe my former cats, and we padded a small hand basket for a bed.  To my surprise when we held the basket out to her, she stepped right in and curled up.  We set her and the pie pan in the room with us and went to sleep. 

To my great surprise, the kitten survived the night.  She had even figured out what the pie pan was for, had used it and had crawled back into her basket.  Things looked much brighter in the morning light.  We appeared to have a kitten.  This came as a surprise to us.  We had had cats before, but our previous two pets had been Old English Sheepdogs.  The second one, Samantha, had died just weeks before we moved to Italy and we had made that oft-heard vow:  no more pets! 

Well, if we were going to have a cat, it needed a name.  This kitten had a lingering physical condition that was being abetted by the ingestion of food on a more regular basis—intestinal gas of a strength that belied her size.  Bad wind!  Male vento!  “Male” in Italian sounds very close to “Molly” and Molly she became.  An inauspicious christening for one who would become so dear.

PART 2: In which La Principessa takes control.

             So, in spite of vowing to forego pets especially while living outside the country, we now had a calico kitten who, despite her rather precarious beginning, was perking up considerably.  She continued to eat, but only tiny amounts of the chicken gruel and a bit of milk.  She liked the comfort of her basket and was carried from room to room with me.

             When the second night came, we once again set the basket in the bedroom with us, near her now legitimate litter box, turned off the light and prepared for sleep.  Within a few minutes, I heard a tiny mew and felt a tug on the bedclothes, then another and another.  Tiny Molly had made the climb from the floor, up the dust ruffle and bedspread, onto the bed.  She walked right up to my face, placed her little cold nose against my cheek, lay down on the pillow beside my head, and began purring.  No attempt at relocation could displace her from that spot for long.  It was the beginning of a lifelong habit.  Nearly every night of her life since that night, she spent at least a part of the night curled up on my pillow with me, preferably with a paw touching me, and always purring.

             By the third day, routines had been established and we were all settling into our life together.  She stayed in her basket most of the time and I carried her from room to room, occasionally taking her out to cuddle and clean.  She was eating but not voraciously.  Because she was so small, we didn’t know what would be the best diet for her and we couldn’t have her seen by the vet for another two days.  That evening, we were having veal chops and that’s when we figured out she was probably older than her size indicated.  She caught a whiff of Nat’s chop, and in a flash she was practically in his mouth to have some for herself.  Whoa!  This cat was hungry!  We minced a bit of meat and she gulped it down…and she purred.  There was no more gruel after that!

             The vet confirmed that she was probably seven or eight weeks old and, with the exception of ear mites, was in good health.  Her coat had lost its ragged look, her eyes were wide open and bright, and she held her tail high.  She was in a good home and it was time for some training … ours!

             It may surprise you that it can be pretty chilly in southern Italy, but when the wind blows down from the mountains and across the bay, it is indeed uncomfortable.  Our apartment was high on Posillipo ridge, exposed to the full brunt of the wind.  Like most Italian homes, the walls were made of tufa stone and the floors were marble.  Despite stuffing and filling cracks and crevices around the huge windows, wind would blow through with enough strength to blow out candles—and this was a very nice apartment!  The heating system was old and the tiny radiators stood no chance against the cold wind and stone.  I laughingly said I feared stepping out of the shower onto the marble floor in winter for fear my feet would stick to the floor like a tongue to an ice tray.  I was only half joking.

             Molly didn’t like the cold floors either.  She soon learned how she could navigate between various points without ever touching the bare marble floor, a path involving rugs and chairs and tables and occasionally the radiator itself.  When she reached a dead end and couldn’t find a way to get to her desired destination, she would call for someone to come carry her.  Of course, we always did.  Who could blame her for thinking she was a princess?  And as a princess, she deserved her own place at the table.  In the early days, when she was quite small, she would perch on Nat’s shoulders and watch every bite from plate to mouth.  As she grew, the shoulder perch was no longer comfortable, at least for Nat, and she would sit in her own chair as we ate.  She would have liked to be ON the table, but by turning her chair around, she soon learned to stand with her paws on the chair back, watching patiently.  She was usually rewarded.  Training.

             In time, like all kittens, she learned to play.  Loosely crumpled bits of paper were her favorite toy.  At first, she simply chased them and batted them around.  Then, she learned she could catch them in mid-air.  Finally, she learned to return them to us so the game could continue.  We delighted in tossing the paper into a place that was not easily accessible and she seemed to enjoy the challenge of fetching it anyway and the triumph of returning it to our feet.  I spent a lot of time retrieving paper wads from under the sofa where they had been batted beyond paw’s reach.  Training.

             When spring came and the marble floors were no longer an assault to her delicate pink paws, Molly discovered new games.  Our apartment was arranged along two halls, a long one and a shorter one that intersected like a lower case “t”.  We added small sponge balls to the toy box.  She would chase after them down the long hall, skidding on the slick marble, her feet moving furiously.  Her fleshy paw pads sometimes squeaked as she rounded the corners quickly.  Even though she would play ball by herself, she liked a playmate and would walk into a room carrying one of the balls, drop it, and in soccer fashion, bat it toward one of us, issue an imperative “Brrrrrrrup!” and dash away expectantly down the hall.  Of course, we complied.  We were, by now, trained.

             She had been from the time we took her in a rather soft-spoken cat, lots of mews and calls and occasional chirps.  It was at the time of her first heat cycle that she really found her voice.  Our apartment was on the top/fifth floor of the building, safely away from other Neapolitan cats.  Molly announced she was in heat, not only to us but also to all the male cats in the vicinity.  She sat at the intersection of the two hallways—the point offering maximum reverberation against those stone walls and floor—and let loose with the loudest yowl one could imagine.  Believe me, the operatic spirit courses through Italian veins, feline as well as humans!  It was during warm weather, the windows were open, and we had quite a congregation of toms around the apartment for a few days.  That was her ONLY heat cycle!

             I didn’t work in Italy so I was at home with Molly most of the time.  She “assisted” me in lots of chores and was most interested in cooking, mainly for the end result.  One day, she watched patiently as I made and iced chocolate cupcakes and then we moved on to other tasks.  Or at least, I did.  When I came back into the kitchen, there, exactly in the middle of one of the cupcakes, was a perfect paw print, much like the plaster of Paris handprints made by generations of kindergarteners.  I wish I could have saved that cupcake with its royal crest.

       Mostly, she was good company and we “chatted” as we worked.  As I look back now, I always talked to Molly and she was vocal in return.  Over time she developed a real vocabulary, differing sounds and tones that related to specific items or needs or feelings.  She would nearly always respond to my questions or greetings or statements.  Of course, I anthropomorphize, but for Molly and me, it was communication.  I miss that.

 Like all Italian women, Molly sought the sunshine. On cool days, she would move from spot to spot in the room finding the strongest sunbeam.  When the weather warmed, she moved out onto the terrazza, would roll on the warm tile, stretch, and then nap in the sun’s warmth.  On the rooftops of the buildings near us, I could see the old women, especially, coming out to the sunlight, moving a chair against a wall, and dozing in the same sun’s warmth.  It was a habit Molly never lost.

 Life was good in Italy.  Molly had found us, we had found Molly, and the sun was shining.  But in July, life would change for all of us.

 

PART 3: In which una scugnizza per la strada emigrates.

             Molly was, indeed, a stray urchin and had probably already expended one or two of her nine lives living long enough to walk in front of our car that drizzly night.  We suspect that the remainder of her litter had been killed by one of the very territorial tomcats that patrolled our hill.  Over that first fall, winter, and spring, she grew well beyond her humble beginnings.  She was well fed, well tended and thoroughly entertained.  WE were entranced.

          She kept a few of her street cat instincts.  She never liked being picked up against her will, but would very often climb into your lap of her own accord.  She often drank water by dipping her paw into the water bowl and then sucking and licking the water from her fur.  That’s how the street cats could get water from small recesses.  She had very agile paws and could pick up even very small things, again an inherited skill from her ancestors who were clever and ingenious at getting small bugs and lizards from stone walls and bits of food from the garbage bins.  Molly never outgrew any of those traits.

             We learned in midwinter that we would be leaving Naples and the Navy in early summer.  After due consideration, we decided that despite the limited job market, we wanted to return to our home on Kiawah.  There was never any consideration that Molly would not be going to America with us.  It’s a route many Neapolitans have followed before her.

             We began to investigate what would be required to actually bring Molly home with us.  As far as the US government was concerned, we needed a statement of health from an approved vet and then to go through the agricultural inspection at our port of reentry into the US.  Sounded easy enough.  We went to the Army vet, got the official papers and exam—and then the next shoe dropped.  There were Italian forms that had to be completed.  After two years in Italy, I was very familiar with the sometimes Byzantine manner in which Italian business is conducted.  It seems to be prescribed practice that one is never given all of the required steps at one time but in a succession of  “And now you must …” directions, sometimes giving you steps 2 and 3 after you have spent some time attempting step 4.  We were prepared.

             It sounded simple:  We needed an Italian regional vet’s signature on an inspection form and, because this was Italy, an Official Stamp.  One would have thought that stray cats were a valuable commodity in Naples!  We finally determined WHERE the regional vet’s office was (in the middle of a residential block someplace in Campodoglio.)  The vet would have the form, but we needed to purchase the Official Stamp and have it with us.  I went first to the Italian post office where I usually paid the gas bill (doesn’t that make sense?)  They had absolutely no idea what I was talking about—a stamp for a CAT?  Back to my Italian friends where I learned that I must purchase the stamp at a tobacconist, which is where bus tickets and legal forms and Official Stamps are purchased.  Thank goodness my Italian was passable and I was able to finally secure the L.7500 stamp.  We were ready for the Regional Vet’s inspection.

             We put Molly in her carrier and drove through Naples with her adding her yowls to the cacophony that is always a part of downtown Naples.  I went into the office while Nat guarded the car.

             There was no one else in the office when I arrived except for the vet (a man in a business suit) and three young women assistants.  Of course, I had to wait.  After a quarter of an hour, Molly and I were ushered into a business office, no sign of a clinic anywhere.  The vet took my papers from the Army vet, my Official Stamp, and began filling in the Italian form.  Neither he nor his staff spoke English, but they were armed with a paperback dictionary.  We proceeded easily through all the questions until he came to the “Description” blank.  Molly’s English-language form stated “Calico.”  Much flipping through the dictionary ensued, followed by a lot of quick conversation and questioning looks.  “Calico” in their dictionary translated into “stuffa”—“material.”  Did the crazy Americana have a fabric cat?  More discussion and shoulder shrugs.  I finally suggested that since this was supposed to be an examination, they might like to actually have a look at the cat in question.  “Va bene,” and I took her out of the carrier.  “Pezzata!” they exclaimed.  Molly was a spotted cat!  Back into her carrier and that was the only time they looked at her.  The form was finished, several ink stamps were forcefully applied, and the Official Stamp moistened and affixed.  The Italian bureaucracy at work!  (Getting permission for my mother to stay in the country with us for six months was a much more difficult task—but that’s another story!)

             Now, we just had to make the long trip home.  We bought a ticket for Molly to ride in the pressurized luggage compartment, fearing her feline arias in the passenger cabin.  Friends drove us to the airport and we waited for our flight.  In the terminal, Molly was absolutely quiet, cowed no doubt by the unfamiliar place, the smells and noise.  We decided to take her on the plane with us since she was still small enough that her traveling carrier would fit under the seat.  With trepidation, that’s what we did.  Throughout the nine-hour trip, there was never a peep from her.  Nat carried her to the toilet twice to make sure she was still alive.  She had never been so quiet for so long.  But she seemed fine and quite happy to be in her carrier.

             Arrival in New York meant that we had to go through the Agricultural Inspection gate.  We approached, proffering our sheaf of forms and Official Stamp.  The inspector asked what we had in the carrier.  We said, “A cat, and here are all the medical clearances and the Italian releases.”  He was thoroughly uninterested.  “Does it meow?”  he asked.  Not understanding, we stared at him blankly.  “Let me hear it meow and I’ll let it in.”  Now this was a cat that had not uttered a peep in nearly 10 hours and was not about to meow on demand now.  I looked at the inspector, he looked at me, and in my very best imitation of Molly, I meowed.  We were passed through the gate and back into the US.

             Molly recovered from the trip quickly and in a few weeks we were moved back into our home on Kiawah, Molly’s new domain.

PART 4:  In which Molly thrives in the Lowcountry.

             Her new home on Kiawah suited Molly just fine.  She had her trained humans to tend to her whims and needs.  There were no cold marble floors.  In fact, on cooler days there was actually warm air pumped into the house and by positioning herself just right, she could reap full benefit of that warmth.

             Best of all, there were decks and porches that not only allowed sun baths, but there were trees all around, and birds, squirrels and butterflies.  We hadn’t lived in Naples very long before I was very aware of the acute dearth of songbirds.  I would see pigeons and doves in the town squares and at dusk swifts would swirl in the dim light—but no songbirds.  I am sure the diminished air quality of the most populous European city had something to do with it, but I was also told that the bird populations were wiped out during and after World War II when there was very little to eat in southern Italy and even small birds were caught for food.  In any case, all the greenery and wildlife around the decks were a new experience for Molly.

 Molly never caught a bird—in part because we never made that an easy option and in part because I don’t know that she would have recognized it as a food.  Instead, it was a fluttery, chirpy critter that would capture her attention.  She would chatter at them through the glass or screen and flick her tail furiously as her watched them flit from place to place.  Blue jays, however, annoyed her—they chattered back at her and did NOT want her on the deck when they were in the vicinity.

Most annoying was Mr. Squirrel.  Not only did he have the audacity to actually set foot on Molly’s deck, he could jump to a nearby tree and then to the roof, from which he could taunt her with chatter of his own.  Oh, the malevolent looks she cast his way!  It became her morning “job” to go out on the deck as soon as we came into the kitchen to make sure he was NOT on her territory.

Butterflies were another story.  They floated and fluttered and danced and were dandy toys to pursue.  We are blessed with a lot of butterflies and moths here and although Molly did actually catch a few of them, she mostly just watched them and would feign a lunge in their direction to scatter them from the flowerpots.

The deck was Molly’s outdoor world.  There were herbs and flowers in pots out there, sometimes a pot of cat turf and sometimes catnip or catmint.  She liked the cat grass but routinely ignored the fresh catnip and catmint.  Instead, she had a taste for herbs, thyme and garlic chives in particular.

She never tried to leave the deck to get down to the ground thirteen feet below.  We figured that because our terazza in Naples was five stories up, she never learned there was a possibility of getting down off the deck.  Actually, she did get off the deck twice, both times falling when she had a misstep on a window box.  She didn’t go far—why would she?

It was at Kiawah that she first enjoyed the annual tradition of the Christmas tree.  As soon as the tree went up, Molly staked her claim to a spot at the back of the tree.  She loved the lights and the bright, sparkly baubles (as befits a princess!)  We learned that first year to put the silver bells along the lower branches where they could serve as alarms should Molly decide that as a cat she might like to climb the tree.  She never did try to climb the tree, but she would softly bat at some of the shiny ball and bells.  Mostly, she curled up contentedly among the packages.  Some people have Christmas trees that play music; we had one that occasionally purred.

During the first two years after we returned to Kiawah, both Nat and I were at home most of the time.  Nat worked on getting the house and yard in shape and attending MUSC while I did some consulting work with occasional trips to DC.  Most of the time we were here with Molly.  We talked to her and she continued to “listen” and “respond.”  I even used her as my audience to try to keep some facility in Italian.  I would babble on about anything and everything I could think of, and would always tell her she was mia gattina bellissima—my beautiful kitten, mia scugnizza—my street child.  She would half-close her eyes and purr.  Did she recognize the sound of the Italian?  I don’t know; I like to think so.

  She was a part of our everyday life.  When we went out, we told her we were going and, usually, to be good.  Invariably, when we returned, we would see her face at the front window.  As soon as the garage door opened, she would leave the window and go to sit and wait for us at the top of the stairs into the great room.  It was a fine welcome home.

We continued this gentle life with our princess for two years—and then the fun began!
 

PART 5:  In which an interloper appears.

            At the age of three, Molly had already lived as long as the average street cat in Naples and much longer than she would have had she not corralled us.  She was protected, coddled, and well fed.  As she grew into maturity, she assumed the usual domestic calico shape which some have indecorously dubbed “meatloaf.”   And since ONE of us could not ignore her one-paw-lifted begging stance, she became a generous meatloaf .

            By this time, both Nat and I were out of the house most of the day working locally and Molly entertained herself at home inside or on the screened back porch.  No doubt, most of that “entertainment” was in the form of napping or staring blankly into space, that place we call “cat reality.”  Nat began to express fear that she was bored and needed exercise.

            One afternoon he came home, having dropped off a garage door opener for repair at a small shop near Varnville, where he was working.  He mentioned that he saw the cutest kittens there and wasn’t that just the thing Molly needed for company and exercise.  You could almost see La Principessa narrow her eyes.  I wasn’t at all sure that a kitten was exactly what Molly needed.

            After Nat left for work the next morning, I checked in the garage and, sure enough, the cat carrier was missing.  Forewarned, I bought flea powder and kitten food in preparation.  He arrived home, toting the carrier and grinning broadly.  I met him on the front porch and was introduced to a furry black-and-white kitten that had a tail bigger than she was.  Enter Zoë.

            She must have wondered what kind of tortured life she had been led to.  First, she’s put in a cage and driven 40 miles, only to be taken out of the cage, rudely examined, and doused with flea powder.  And she had yet to meet Molly!

            Molly was waiting at the top of the stairs as usual.  Nat set the kitten down on the floor, and it was clear that it was NOT exactly what Molly wanted.  She hissed, growled, spat, and huffed off to the bedroom.  The kitten cowered.  We knew it would take a while for both cats to acclimate.

            For the first couple of days, we maintained supervised interaction between the two.  Interaction usually consisted of Molly growling and hissing and Zoë running under the nearest chair.  Gradually, they could be in the same room with us without the open warfare and we thought that finally both cats had adjusted.

             One day I was home with the cats and all seemed to be peaceful.  I went about my household chores, listening for warning signs of an impending brouhaha.  I came back into the great room and stopped because I could hear, faintly, Zoë’s tiny little meow, but I couldn’t see her.  I thought perhaps she had become trapped in a cabinet or under a chair since the sound was a bit muffled, but I couldn’t locate her.  I looked at Molly, who was also in the room, to see if I could get any clues from her as to where the meow was coming from.  Molly sat sitting regally still looking back at me, offering no clues whatsoever.  And then I saw the back furry tail sticking out from under Molly.  She was sitting on Zoë, looking very self-satisfied.  That was not acceptable behavior and it was clear we still had a way to go.

             Weeks passed, Zoë grew, and Molly, I think, finally figured out that the kitten was going to stay.  We saw the first sign of acceptance when one evening Molly walked over to Zoë (who was always on alert when Molly approached her), pushed her over, held her down with her foreleg and began to vigorously groom her.  It was as if she had decided, “OK, if you are going to stay here, we’re going to have to clean you up!”

             That was by no means the end of the confrontations between the two cats.  In the early days, Molly bullied Zoë a bit, keeping her away from her special places, exerting her dominance by chasing her out of chairs and rooms.  But Zoë continued to grow and by the second year, the real battles began as the two cats sought to establish who was alpha cat.  Territorial wars and “phfffft-icuffs” ensued and the alpha role would pass back and forth between them.  Sometimes Zoë owned the great room and Molly had to tread lightly through it and spend most of her time elsewhere.  And then, sometimes without our being aware of it, Molly would be alpha again.  It made for some interesting late night jolting awakenings and we often came home to unexplained clumps of cat fur lying about.

             Over the passage of many months, even years, the two became not exactly friends, but companions.  They would be seen lying together in a cat pile, often grooming each other.  They would play and tussle and generally go through the day separately but together.  They established some ground rules between them.  Molly, and only Molly, was allowed at the head of the bed near the pillows, but Zoë was welcome to cozy up elsewhere on the bed—and Molly often joined her there.  They slept in the two cat beds without regard as to who owned which one, though.  Molly had to be fed first and Zoë had to have her head rubbed before she would eat.

             And you know what the two of them did all day while we were away.  They napped and stared blankly into “cat reality.”

PART 6:  In which lives are spent.

             It was about this time that I began including Molly and Zoë in the daily website reports I wrote, first for the KPOG website and then for kiawahchats.  It seemed natural to include their antics and activities, as they were so much a part of our lives.  In the early days, both cats would often curl up on the counter where I first typed the reports.  Some days it was Zoë who would back up to computer and then plop down, often depressing several keys in the process.  Molly was more likely to curl up on the counter facing me and to reach out with her paw, tug at my arm or tap at my fingers on the keys.

             When I moved to a different computer to type the report, only Molly made the move with me.  I would sit in the desk chair and she would sit on a stool I pulled up right beside me.  She would still sometimes latch onto my arm and pull it towards her, begging for a caress or sometimes just hugging my arm.  Sometimes she would sit right in front of the monitor and paw at the cursor.  But most often, she would curl up on her stool, snuggled next to me, paw on my knee or arm, and purr until I finished writing—or until Mr. Squirrel disturbed her!

             In fact, any time I was at the computer, she would come in to join me and if her stool was not in the right position, she would tell me so that I could roll it next to me.  Time at the computer was time spent with Molly—and in a way, it still is.

             We shared our lives and home with Molly and Zoë and we all had our own likes and dislikes and habits.  The two cats shared much in common.  They both loved their first venture out onto the deck each morning, the “deck patrol.”  They both liked to spend cold nights, especially, on the bed with us.  Both of them felt that under the dining table was a “safe” place, that no one would try to pick them up from there and they would retreat under the table if they anticipated an imminent picking up opportunity.  Both of the cats loved having the Christmas tree up.  There were a few uncomfortable moments during their early years together as each chose her own spot under the tree and the tree would sometimes shimmer and shake as they tussled for position.  In the last few years, they had come to some kind of understanding and would contentedly spend time together under the tree.

             For all their similarities, there were also distinct differences.  Zoë, a child of the Lowcountry, loves shrimp.  From the moment she smells them in the house, she is almost frantic until she is served a small dish of raw morsels.  The loudest Zoë purrs is when she is eating shrimp.  Molly evidently didn’t consider shrimp a food and turned her nose up at them, raw or cooked.  However, Molly, our Italian, loved pasta, especially penne, and tomato sauce.  Zoë felt about pasta the same way Molly did about shrimp.  Zoë rarely climbs into anyone’s lap.  Molly, although she did NOT want to be picked up, would readily seek a lap when she wanted one.  She particularly liked to climb into Nat’s lap, stretch up against his chest and tap his bearded chin with her paw.  It seemed an endearing act of true affection.

             Five years—in retrospect, how quickly they passed.  I think back on them now and while there are milestones and events of note during that time, mainly I remember pleasant routines of daily living.  Breakfast and supper, comings and goings, the passage of the seasons, holidays.  Molly at my side at the computer and Molly on my pillow at night, demanding little more than food and shelter, affection and conversation—and constant attendance to let her in and out of the door to the porch!  Molly singing her call peculiar to bringing out her favorite toy, a stuffed sock, which she carried like a kitten, often cradling it beside her.  Molly rolling around the floor with a tennis ball, sometimes attempting to sit on it.  Molly “helping” to make the bed or to fold clothes still warm from the dryer.  Molly lying on her back, four curled paws in the air, looking more like a plump beagle than a princess.  Molly curled up on Nat’s shoes, especially if they were of good leather—she was Italian, after all!  Molly purring.  Five years—how swiftly they passed.

             We had by this time purchased the bookstore and were just about to move into a larger space when fate once again dealt an unexpected card.

PART 7:  In which a third cat enters.

             One day as we were preparing to move into the new store space, a lithe, beautiful calico cat appeared outside our door.  She was young, probably not yet a year old, but she was a nursing mother.  And she was hungry.  We put down food and milk, which she polished off quickly.  She allowed herself to be stoked, arching her long neck and back high into my hand.  Then she strolled back into the woods behind the stores.

             About every two or three days, the cat would appear, eat the food we proffered, perhaps lie in the sun for a while and then disappear.  It was early December, and much like this weekend as I write, the weather turned chilly.  We tried to locate the kittens so that we could take all of them in, but they were too well concealed, and we couldn’t take the nursing mother without the kittens.  After a few weeks, the calico no longer appeared for food.  I feared that she had met the fate of so many feral cats in the area and had been killed on the road somewhere.

             In February, she once again appeared, this time at the store’s back door just at closing time, meowing and demanding entrance.  Once in, she walked directly to the small refrigerator and looked back at me.  She had not forgotten milk.  I decided it was time to take this cat in.  I knew she was no longer nursing; in fact, she was pretty obviously pregnant.  I knew there would be commotion at home.

             The first evening we kept the new cat separated from Molly and Zoë until we could have her checked by the vet.  But Molly and Zoë knew the moment the third cat entered the house.  Molly growled and huffed; Zoë grumbled and ran under the bed.  We put the new cat in an upstairs room and Molly and Zoë camped outside the door, waiting and watching.

             The vet checked the new cat, spayed her, and pronounced her in good health.  It was time to choose a name.  She was, like Molly, a calico with a bit of orange, a bit of black, and a lot of white.  She became Miz Bitz or Bitzy.

             Integration into the tribe has not been easy.  Bitz had lived outside successfully on her own for over a year and wasn’t used to being number three on any totem pole.  Molly and Zoë were not entranced by Miz Bitz’ somewhat aggressive overtures and there was a lot of disharmony for many weeks.

             Eventually, it was Molly who finally developed a tolerant relationship with the new cat.  Their confrontations became tamer and more like rough-and-tumble play.  When we saw Molly grooming Bitz one day, we knew some sort of understanding had been struck.  Zoë, however, remains estranged from Bitz, although she became a closer ally with Molly.

             Eventually, Molly assumed a matriarchal role.  When the two younger cats fought, she would hasten into the room.  Sometimes she would merely observe and other times she would actually get between the two bickering cats.  She would see the dispute settled and then go back into the bedroom to her preferred spot at the glass door overlooking the deck.  Otherwise, Molly seemed little affected by the introduction of a new cat into the family.  She was Mom Cat now, she was fed first, and she still had sole rights to my pillow.

PART 8:  In which there is an ending and a beginning.

            Over a year and a half have passed since Miz Bitz came to live with us.  Bitz matured and Molly and Zoë began to show some effects of aging.  Zoë, who was a champion leaper, measures the distance a bit more closely these days.  Molly would begin to stay closer to the heat vents on cool days and would snuggle close at night.  But the pace and path of their lives seemed to alter little.

            There came a time when Molly appeared to be breathing a bit more quickly and seemed to be agitated at times.  But her appetite was good, her coat was shiny, and she was active.  On a Sunday evening, she was suddenly distressed and panting and I knew something was amiss.

            The next day the vet discovered a swelling on the outside of her jaw and feared it was a cancerous tumor.  If so, she offered little hope.  She wanted to give antibiotics a try anyway.  After five days of treatment, the swelling was gone and Molly was pronounced in good health.  Her blood work showed the possibility of slightly elevated thyroid function and the vet would check that again in four to six months.  We were concerned, but so relieved that there was no cancer.

            But the elevated breathing continued and on November 20th, I called and asked the vet if we could go ahead and re-evaluate Molly for hyperthyroidism.  She could see Molly the next morning.

            November 20th was a Thursday, my day off.  It was Molly’s last full day with us.  I wish I could remember every minute of that day.  It was sunny and warm.  Molly and Zoë patrolled the deck as soon as we got up that day, Molly taking a little time to munch on some of the plants on the deck.  She helped me type the morning report, and then followed me around as I cleaned and puttered.  I did a bit of work at the computer later in the morning and she claimed her spot on the stool for a while, chattered a bit at the squirrel outside the window, and even batted at a crumpled piece of paper that was on the floor.  I hadn’t seen her do that for sometime.  It brought back such memories of her early days in Naples.

            I had some planting to do on the deck and Molly came out with me.  She found the sunspot right away and rolled and stretched on the warm deck boards, then curled up next to a fern and napped while I planted pansies and swept pine straw from the deck.

            Molly shared our chicken dinner and then retired for her after-dinner nap.  I think she came back into the living room with us for a while before having her usual three or four tartar-control nibbles and going to bed with us.  She made the usual walk up my back and over my right shoulder to find her spot on her pillow.  The purring started as soon as she jumped on the bed.  She settled down, stretched her paw out and touched my cheek before slipping her paw into my hand, purring all the while.

            Yet another altercation between Zoë and Bitz called Molly away from my pillow.  She came back to the bed sometime during the night and I awoke to find her beside me.  It was November 21st.

            Molly walked her morning patrol, squinted at Mr. Squirrel, and assisted me with the morning report.  I clearly remember that she hugged my arm that morning so that much of the report was typed with only my right hand.  I helped put her in the carrier so that Nat could take her to the vet’s office for tests and an exam.  I carried her downstairs and set the carrier with Molly inside, now proclaiming her dislike of being in the carrier, in the front seat of Nat’s car, and they left.

            The vet called the store to say that x-rays revealed that Molly suffered from an enlarged heart and would we be able to take her right away to a specialist for an echocardiogram?  Of course, we could.  Nat called with the initial report.  While Molly had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the vet was encouraging that with treatment, the disorder could be managed.  We would pick up medications later in the day and the specialist would see her again in ten days.  I could hear Molly in the background of the call, meowing.

            Nat called again within a few minutes.  Molly had died.  With cardiomyopathy there is a danger of blood clots and evidently that’s what caused Molly’s death.  She had crawled back into her carrier and Nat had his hand on her when she briefly stiffened and then exhaled and gracefully stepped out of this life.

            Nat met me at the store and transferred Molly and her carrier to my car for our sad journey home.  I stroked her soft ears and plush fur, but it was merely Molly’s body.  My beautiful companion rode elsewhere.

            We brought the carrier with Molly’s body into the house.  Who knows what animals understand about death and departure, but we felt it was important for Zoë and Bitz to see their companion in her new state and that maybe they would at some level know that Molly would not be coming back.  Miz Bitz was the first to see the carrier and to investigate.  She approached hesitantly and then sniffed and looked and sniffed again.  Perhaps since she lived outside for more than a year, she had seen death before.  She wasn’t afraid or repelled, but curious.  Zoë, on the other hand, stayed several feet away from the carrier, hunkered down, moving laterally and hunkering down again, her eyes always on the cat in the carrier.  Nat placed her closer.  One sniff and she hissed and ran away as fast as she could.

            We chose to bury Molly in a spot where we see her grave as we come and go, a place of dappled sunlight in summer and winter.  It does amuse me to consider what an archeologist digging in this area many years hence might think if he should discover her grave.  Molly is buried on a down pillow with a linen cover.  She is shrouded in two t-shirts, one of Nat’s and one of mine.  She cuddles her beloved stuffed sock and is accompanied by a note in both English and Italian, written on Florentine paper.

            I have planted a garden on her grave.  A small stone cat sleeps in a patch of white alyssum.  Small blue and blush flowering ground-covering plants cover the bulk of the shell-bordered grave, and there’s a small clump of English thyme.  A pot of white bacopa hangs from a low crook.  While I planted, a soft, warm rain fell and it felt right.  Planting the garden helped to soothe and heal my soul.  In the warm early days of this week, the sad, raw earth was green with life, and bees and a butterfly visited the flowers in Molly’s Garden.

Writer’s note:  Molly actually “wrote” her story. I have merely recounted my memory of some of the details.

             Mourning the loss of a friend and companion, human or furry, is a personal journey, and each journey is peculiar to the journeyer.  Some journeys are long, some short.  Some are a continuous, direct walk to a destination.  Others are meanders that take surprising turns.

             Likewise, each mourner takes comfort from his own sources—God’s love, the support of friends, the strength of family.  I have been comforted by all of those.  Messages from kind people who grew to know Molly through the website have been of inestimable comfort.

             Planting Molly’s Garden began my heart’s healing and writing these pages has continued it.  Most of all, recounting these ten years has made me ever so thankful that I was privileged to have shared Molly’s walk on this earth.  She was one of millions of stray cats … one who became a one-in-a-million friend.

             Allora, Addio cara gattina, la mia bellissima Molly.  Te mi manco ma resterai nelle mie cuore siempre.  Ci vediamo!

             Benevenuto, Molly Angel!