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Roxanne: "Little Kitty"
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I am sad to report that Roxanne, my beautiful, white, green-eyed "Little Kitty," drew her last breath at 11:30 PM, on January 3, 2003 here in our home. At the age 14, she was ill from kidney failure and advanced anemia. Her strong will to live had kept her alive for many weeks longer than was normally expected. The persistence that characterized her whole life showed through 'til the end.
Roxanne decided she wanted to live at my house in 1991. She first came to 510 Seminole Ave just before I returned to Atlanta from working in Washington State for 5 months. Sylvie, a young French woman who was house-sitting for me, referred to her as "the mourning cat" - frequently sitting at the front door meowing/mourning to GET IN. She learned the trick of leaping up to grab onto the window frame of doors - hanging full length by her claws - meowing to come in. She was wearing a collar studded with colored stones, and Sylvie suspected that she might have come from a hippie encampment a block away. However, it turned out that she was one of three cats living in my terrace apartment downstairs - only she did not want to live there! She would go in briefly to eat, and always cry to go back out.
At the time, Reuben, my big white and red Tom cat, who came to me in 1984, was still miraculously recovering from a car accident in 1990, and I wasn't inclined to add another inside cat. But Roxanne was scrawny, flea bitten - and persistent. I began to feed her high quality food, and her fur began looking better and better as she gained weight. I relented and allowed her to come in the house occasionally, where she promptly took up residence amongst the papers on my desk, and on top of the computer monitor. One day, when a technician was installing a new printer, I put her outside so she wouldn't be in the way. However, this time, she again leaped up on the patio door window frame - hung there - and then attempted to push the levered door handle open with her head. Immediately realizing that this kitty was much too smart to leave outside, I made the decision to welcome her as a permanent member of my household. In fact, when her first caretakers (my tenants) were ready to move, they acknowledged that Roxanne's true home was here, and they even worried that if they had tried to take her with them, she would have found her way back. This kitty knew what she wanted, and always persisted in going after it.
Roxanne, with beautiful white plumed and curving tail, and white silky soft long fur was of the green-eyed Angora breed. She was a "talker,"and would carry on a chirping-mewing conversation in the morning and before meal times, letting us know it was "time for food" and "time to be brushed!" She was a dainty, feminine kitty who also loved to be in the midst of people, sharing in the energy. While she would tolerate being held only a few moments, she reveled in sleeping in any available lap. She loved the warmth of the sunshine, the fire, the heating pad, the cable box, and particularly the computer monitor, where I often had to lift her tail to see the screen. In the last year, when I started my weight-training routine, she would lie on my chest and side as I lifted the free weights, and bounce with me on the rebounder!
Over the years, Roxanne persisted in recovering from mishaps - the most serious in 1997 when she was "rolled" by a car. Disappearing for 5 days, she limped back home with a broken pelvis and fractured tail. Dr. Dwight Hooton at Loving Touch Animal Clinic worked with her, first allowing the pelvis to mend, then working on her tail which was hanging straight down. Normal procedure would have been to cut it off. However, using chiropractic, accupuncture and electrical stimulation, gradually, over the period of about 8 weeks, her tail began, inch by inch, to "come back to life." Finally, the full plumed curving tail was back to normal.
Beginning in October 2002, she was eating less and sleeping more. I took her to Dr. Michelle Tilghman at Loving Touch, who had warned me a year earlier that the blood test showed early kidney issues. This time the tests showed she "should be dead." But no, she had a persistence about being here. Introducing the subcutaneous hydration made her feel much better and she started eating more. However, a secondary issue with anemia caused her to continue losing weight. She began showing extreme weakness right after Christmas - and I chose to keep her "comfortable" and with us until the end.
I want to thank McKenzie for his kindness and care-taking of Roxanne during the last 10 years - and especially for his support these last 3 months with my trips to Virginia, my mother's death, and the special help with the subcutaneous hydration. McKenzie always went the extra mile in brushing Roxanne and making sure she had food that she wanted to eat!
Roxanne was a true blessing to me. My heart was always warmed and my spirit lifted by this beautiful kitty's presence, affection, gentleness and model of persistence in what she desired.
Thank you, Roxanne. May your spirit persist into even greater worlds.
—Rochele H.
1/5/03
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