Maybe it's the upcoming Qingming Festival; maybe it's some other reason. Whatever the cause, I find myself thinking about Christmas a lot.
I'm not referring here to the holiday, but rather a cat we used to own. This cat named Christmas passed away last summer, just after we moved back to Taitung City from Pingtung.
Christmas was named Christmas because we found her on Christmas Day. We were driving through the southern half of Taitung City, not far from Taitung's industrial area, and as we were driving a white kitten ran out onto the road, stopped, and looked up at us in our car from the pavement.
One of us picked this kitten up off the road. It might have been me, I can't remember. We took her home with us and named her Christmas soon after.
Weirdly enough, she wasn't the only cat we discovered on Christmas Day. We found another kitten on the same holiday a few years later, and we named this cat Christmas Junior -- but he didn't live very long. I think he lasted about a year and then died from one of the many mysterious illnesses that stray cats seem to come down with. He'll come up in conversations now and then, but we never grew that attached to him.
The original Christmas was a different story. She lived with us in our apartment near Baosang Junior High for many, many years, and I have to say that she was the most good-natured cat we've ever owned. She watched our daughters grow up and go off to school, she saw other cats come and go, and she lived with us in several different locations.
Sure, she would go into "attack mode" sometimes, deciding for whatever reason that all the other cats in the apartment must suffer her wrath, but she could also be a sweet kitty, showering us with affection every time we returned home.
After both our daughters moved to Kaohsiung, we moved to Fangliao (in Pingtung) for two years, and of course Christmas came with us. We moved her (and ourselves) into a rental house in Xinkai Village, about twenty minutes away from Central Fangliao by scooter. It was an adjustment for her in the beginning, but she got used to the new house quickly enough.
She preferred the living room to all other rooms of the house. She never ventured beyond the front door. I tested her commitment to an indoor lifestyle on several occasions, leaving the front door open for long periods of time, and she never so much as stepped beyond the threshold. She seemed completely content with her walled existence, however tempting the birds and insects alighting on our front porch might have been.
After two years in Fangliao it was time to move on, so in 2022 I took a job at Hengchun Junior High and Hengchun Elementary School. I held this job until June of last year. After I got hired we rented another house in Sigou Village, a tiny settlement west of Central Hengchun. In most respects Sigou wasn't that different from Xinkai in Fangliao, even though the scenery was much better.
By this point Christmas was getting old. She was still a very happy cat, but she walked with more difficulty and disliked having to go up stairs. She also slept a lot more, and didn't eat as much. I was still greeted by her peculiar meow when I got home every day, but she moved a lot slower.
She was for the most part fine until we moved back to our old apartment in Taitung City last summer. That was when her health took a definite turn for the worse. It became more and more difficult for her to get around, and at a certain point she stopped eating altogether. At first we thought she was having trouble with her teeth, but then, one day, she gave us that look that said, "It's time," and we knew she wouldn't be with us much longer.
A subsequent trip to the vet only confirmed what we were already feeling. Of course the vet offered us expensive options that would ostensibly keep Christmas in our presence for a little while longer, but none of these options were guaranteed, and all of them meant an unpleasant experience for our old and ailing cat.
After a short discussion we decided it was time to let Christmas go, and asked the vet to make it happen. Once the vet had administered the injection we stayed with her in a back room where they keep the animals, my wife petting her through the open cage door and crying as our beloved Christmas faded away before our eyes. I suppose that part of me wanted to cry as well, but I haven't been able to do that yet.
Christmas was with us for so many years. Is it then fair to dismiss her as a pet? I think that she was instead a member of our family, a member who added joy to our lives and made the hard times more tolerable. Christmas loved us all very much, of this I am certain, and we loved her very much in return, of this I am also certain.
Christmas, if you're "out there" somewhere just know that we love you. If you're not "out there" somewhere maybe it doesn't matter, because I'm still carrying you around in my thoughts. I remember what a good kitty you were, and I'm still so glad that we found you on that tiny road, so many years past, when my daughters were still very small.
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