The Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven is a place called the Rainbow Bridge.  When an animal dies who has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to the Rainbow Bridge.  There are meadows and hills for all our special friends so they can run and play together.  There is plenty of food, water, and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who have been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing: they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.  They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance.  His bright eyes are intense; his eager body begins to quiver.  Suddenly, he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your companion, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together....

--Anon.

Several members of our clowder at Bitterroot Manor are waiting at the Rainbow Bridge. Their names are Fluffy, Furii, Bela, Silfa Grindl, Nefertari, Fluffy Too, Gandalf, Spreckles, Geoffrey Silfason,  Tabby Abelard of Ithra, Ceilidh Flurrydance, Skye Silversong, and Talisker Pippin. We would like to remember them here. Sherry-our-Hoomin tells some of their stories:

First Fluffy was given to me by my grandmother when I was 7 years old. He was a bluegray fluffy little kitten who grew into a beautiful pewter-colored cat with a darker gray ruff around his neck. He could have been mistaken for a Maine Coon or maybe a Persian. Because my parents thought pets belonged outside, I never got to know him very well, but he would purr and rub around my mother's ankles when she brought him his dinner, and he brought the little birds he killed and left them in tribute on our back porch.  My mother hated that, and after a while my parents decided it would be better if he lived at my grandfather's ranch, a little ways north of the Montana town where we lived. They took him to the ranch when he was about a year old, and within a week or two he disappeared. I hope he found another home in the area that loved and appreciated him, but I'm afraid he might have come to a more unhappy end.  I hope Fluffy will forgive us when we meet him at the Bridge.

Furii was the first cat I lived with as an adult.  She was a blue point Siamese, and the light half of my soul.  She died in my arms of kidney failure at age 18-1/2 and rests under the pear tree in my back yard. We went through so much together that I don't even know where to begin telling her story. Perhaps the greatest gift she gave to me was the dignity and grace of her last years. As she grew older, she settled within herself, and I could see her slow down and pare down the extraneous details of her life. She kept to the essentials: food, sleep, love. She showed me that it is possible to live well at any time, simply by being true to oneself. If I can meet my end with a fraction of her serenity, I will be eternally grateful. We fought her kidney failure for about two years, and during one crisis, when I thought she might not come home from the hospital, I wrote this poem:

Furii Kitten in the Garden

Bela was a black kitten with a white spot on his throat. He came from a litter of kittens that were fostered in a used book store famous for its multitudes of cats and kittens. When I brought him home to be a companion to Furii, I thought he was a female, but I soon learned the truth. Bela and I had a very special relationshipo, and he used to enjoy watching whenever a male friend and I became involved in...uh...shall we say, passionate amorous dalliance? If my guest didn't like a feline witness, he was history.  I knew my priorities and on whom I could count.  Bela was sweet and gentle and my love.

Silfa Grindl was a blue point Siamese tom, who came to live with me because his hippy humans really didn't want the responsibility.  They bragged about "turning him on" to marijuana when he was a kitten, and thought that letting "nature" take its course was preferable to taking him to the vet. Silfa was mellow and sweet and a real gentle-cat when wooing the girlcats. He never held a grudge and made beautiful kittens..

Nefertari was a black kitty with silky long hair and gold eyes.  She had two litters of kittens (Silfa was the father), and insisted that I share in their upbringing. Her fondest wish was to raise them in my bed, with me in round-the-clock attendance. I never quite obliged, but once when I went on a brief vacation while she was nursing her second litter, she hid the kittens from the neighbor who came in to feed the cats. When I returned, she brought them out of their hiding place one by one and plunked them in my lap, and then left the room--it was about time I showed up to take my turn kitten-sitting.

Fluffy Too was the bluegray daughter of Nefer and Silfa.  She wasn't fluffy at all--she had her father's sleek Siamese fur--but I named her in memory of my first gray Fluffy all those years ago. Fluffy had one litter of kittens, and was the most reluctant and distracted mother possible.  She never laid down in a restful semi-circle to nurse her kittens--as soon as they got big enough, she would sit up and make them stand and hang (more or less) from her nipples--and as they got bigger she tried more and more to discourage them. Once, when they absolutely insisted on dinner, I saw her struggle to her haunches, heave a deep sigh and let them nurse. She never really forgave me for keeping one of her kittens--whenever she was in my lap and he tried to join us, she'd hiss and chase him away.

Gandalf was Fluffy's kitten that I kept.  He was bluegray like his mother, and as sweet and easygoing as his father, Silfa Grindl. (Yes, that would be father and daughter mating--I wouldn't do it now, but I was young and thought I was being responsble by making sure to find homes for any kittens I didn't keep.) Gandalf was more of a cat-oriented cat than any of my others, but then he was born into a household with five other cats and only one human. He did, however, enjoy some human activities: he loved to watch football games on tv--he would lie on top of the tv set, hang his head over the edge, and tap on the screen, trying to catch the players as they ran around the field. As a small kitten, he also saw the black panther in a large painting I brought home and leaned against the wall: he arched up his back, fluffed up his fur, and hissed at that panther. After a while, when there was no response, he calmly went about his business, figuring, I imagine, that he had told that big cat just who was in charge. Gandalf was graceful and beautiful and silver and fine.

Spreckles was the seventh cat in my adult household. If Furii was the light half, Spreckles was the dark half of my soul. She came to our house as a stray on a dark rainy night, and she herself was dark as night with bursts of fire and cream in her fur.  She wouldn't take anything from anyone, though she did mellow as time went on.  Still, her chart at TED's had "Watch Out! Cat Can Be Mean!" in big red letters across the top--she never hurt me but she tore up TED once pretty bad. She never did anything the easy way, but once she gave her love, it was forever. Spreckles was 17 when she went to the Rainbow Bridge. Ceilidh has written this tribute to Spreckles, who was her very special friend.

Spreckles (l) and Ceilidh

Geoffrey Silfason was the posthumous lynxpoint son of Silfa Grindl and one of Silfa's many lady loves, a lovely seal point Siamese who lived with the daughter of a friend. By the time he was born, only Furii and Spreckles were living with me (the others had succumbed to a bout of FVR for which, at the time, there was no vaccine and so it decimated my multi-cat household over the course of a very difficult unhappy month--the vaccine which became available in the next year or so seemed to me a genuine miracle--do not take FVR for granted folks: be sure to keep your cats vaccinated!). One of Geoffrey and my special times was in the morning, when he would wait for me to sit on the hoomin litterbox and invite him to jump on my lap.  We would smurgle there, and I would sing him silly songs. Once my mother was visiting and excused herself to use the facilities.  All of a sudden I heard a screech and a yowl and a damp and very flustered cat came flying through the house, followed shortly by my non-plussed mother who had not thought to look behind her when she sat down.  Geoffrey, who had surely been jsut trying to be polite and accompany the guest to his favorite room, had jumped on the seat before her and had been knocked in for his trouble.  Like his father and his half brother, Geoffrey was mellow, sweet, gentle, loving. He left for the Rainbow Bridge at age 11.

Furii (l) and Geoffrey Silfason

Tabby Abelard of Ithra was one of a litter of kittens abandoned on a rural road near a field where I was camping with a group of friends over the Fourth of July weekend, 1976. A classic brown tabby with white feet, he was bright and energetic and walked into my house with three grown cats in residence and announced he was First Cat and would eat HERE and sleep THERE and now that that was established, he was ready to play. He french kissed--and though it drove me nuts at first, becuase he would not be denied--I found that after he departed for the Rainbow Bridge at age 13, that's what I missed most. He was my Bicentennial Kitten, and every Fourth of July they still have fireworks for our anniversary.

Abelard at Christmastime

Ceilidh Flurrydance.  Ceilidh (say KAY-lee) Flurrydance came to live with us right after Furii passed on to the Rainbow Bridge.  I wasn't thinking about getting another cat so soon.  I still had Abelard and Spreckles living with me, and I didn't want to rush anything.  But only a few days after Furii died, a colleague at work told me about a workshop she'd attended how, when the participants had to go round the circle telling something about themselves, one woman had related the story of looking for homes for Siamese kittens her pair of Siamese cats had produced.  My colleague took down her name and phone number and gave it to me, saying that she wasn't sure I would be interested so soon, but thought she should let me know anyway.  I held on to that phone number for a couple more days, then took the plunge and made the call.  Yes, there was one Siamese kitten left, a seal point girl -- this was good, because Abelard was assertive enough that I didn't think another male would be a good idea -- and Furii had been a bluepoint and I'd nnever had a sealpoint, so it wouldn't be as if I were trying to find somekitty just like Furii.  And then came the kicker -- the little sealpoint girl kitten had been named "Flurry" by her humans!  "Flurry" was just so close to "Furii" that it had to be Fate.  Maybe Furii had sent this kitten to me.  I made arrangements to go meet her on the weekend.  A friend and I drove out -- and out and out and out -- far out into the northern suburbs.  At the end of the drive was a perfectly nice home with one long-haired calico cat, one sleek sealpoint female, one sleek sealpoint male (the parents), and one chocolate and cream kitten who came trotting into the house from the backyard with her mother, made immediately for a bedroom, and proceeded to nurse happily and then fall fast asleep.  And that was little Flurry, soon to become Ceilidh Flurrydance.  No question.  I wanted to bring her home.  And home we came.

When we arrived I put her down in the living room and let Abelard and Spreckles take a look.  Spreckles was uninterested, Abelard and the kitten hissed.  I rather thought Abelard would be delighted to finally have someone to play with, but though he and Ceilidh got along okay, it was Spreckles, my crotchety old tortoiseshell, who turned out to be Ceilidh's idol and friend.  The first night she was home, Ceilidh discovered Spreckles sleeping on my bed, and decided she was the most Wonderful Cat Ever.  They were bonded for three years until Spreckles went in her turn to the Rainbow Bridge.  Shortly thereafter Skye came to live with us and Abelard suddenly passed on to the Bridge as well.  Skye, the shy feral kitten, and Ceilidh became bestest friends and were inseparable until the day Ceilidh left us.  (Neither one of them ever quite understood why I brought Tally home a year later -- they were sufficient to themselves and anyone else was clearly an unnecessary intruder.)

Ceilidh was intense and self-assured.  As a kitten she was a bright dancing liddle-party-alla-time (hence her name), and as a Sophisticated Older Cat, she was demanding and loving and always interested in whatever was going on.  She loved to watch animal programs on tv, and would lie pressed to my side for tummy rubs for hours (until the very end, she would not be held in human arms, but she still knew how to get the human attention she wanted).  She was one of the only cats I've had who would come when I called her name -- she always seemed to think something interesting might be going on that she wouldn't want to miss.

Shortly after her 12th birthday, Ceilidh was diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma, a common cancer in older cats, but something I'd never had to deal with before. We treated her with surgery and chemotherapy, and she had another six months of quality time before the cancer got the best of her (the story of our fight against her cancer is told in her Diary).  In those last months she began to relax her rules about being held in human arms, and we spent long hours with her draped across my chest, purring.  When it became clear that we weren't going to hold the cancer at bay any longer, I made the difficult decision to help her on her way.  She passed peacefully to the Rainbow Bridge on January 9, 1999, leaving an enormous emptiness in my heart and in our home.  Weeks later, Skye would still wander through the house meowing (and Skye does not meow), wondering, I imagined, where her bestest friend had gone.  (Tally, on the other hand, was delighted to finally have me all to herself to smurgle and cuddle -- cats don't indulge in polite sympathy!)  The first night after Ceilidh's journey to the Bridge, I was almost asleep when I thought I felt a small cat presence on the pillow beside me.  There was no one there.  I knew it was Ceilidh, saying goodbye and assuring me that everything would be okay.  She rests now under the pear tree in the back yard with Abelard and Furii and Geoffrey, next to Spreckles, her second momcat, her place marked by the stone figure of a sleeping cat sent to her by that friend who drove me so many years before on that long expedition to find a tiny chocolate and cream kitten.

Skye Silversong.  Right after Spreckles went to the Rainbow Bridge and just before Abelard had to leave, Bast told me it was time to bring a new kitten into the house.  I read an ad in the paper and went to see a woman named Mitzi who had a litter of wildshy kittens born to a feral mother in a garage on Queen Anne Hill.  For some reason she thought I sounded like a good candidate for one of these kittens, and though I wasn't really sure I wanted a feral kitten, I went to see them.  I brought along a friend who ended up making sure I went home with one -- so it's all Kathleen's fault, really.  When Mitzi brought out this scroungy little girl with big ears and tuxedo markings, I noted that "She's almost a smoke!"  And of course she wasn't "almost" -- she was a smoke tuxedo girl (smoke=dark outer guard hairs with white underfur).  And I have to confess I really didn't feel much of an attraction to her.  But Mitzi insisted I hold her while we talked, and after a while she just sighed and stuck her head under my armpit, like it was all too much for her.  And somehow Mitzi left and returned with a cardboard box, and the kitten went into the box, and my friend and I went out the door.  I had a kitten and I wasn't really sure this was what I wanted after all.  How wrong I was!

But she tested me -- the first thing she did upon arriving at my house and coming out of the cardboard box was to do her best to find a quiet hidey hole and hide.  It took her a while, but she managed.  And I didn't have a clue where she was.  Abelard had taken up residence in the bathroom, so I couldn't put her in there by herself (as I had been advised to do, and knew from past experience would be a good idea).  And there were only a few rooms in the house that could be shut off.  So Skye could have been anywhere -- and was, for the first 24 hours she was home.  It wasn't until the middle of the first night that she made an appearance -- and it wasn't to me.  It was to Ceilidh, the roundbrown Siamese, who sat quietly in the dark of the dining room, communing with the new little kitten who had emerged from the inside back of an overstuffed chair where she had been hiding.  (I discovered this hidey spot when Skye I walked in on her and Ceilidh and she darted back up inside the chair -- I never knew chairs had insides bbefore!)  So Skye and Ceilidh became bestest friends, and sat together and slept together and washed each other and placed wrestle-and-chase with each other, and walked around the house shoulder to shoulder like a little team of horses -- they remained bestest friends for the rest of their lives.

It took Skye and me a little longer.  For the first few weeks, she remained a wildshy kitten, who would come and spend time with me only when Ceilidh was there.  And she was a careful kitten -- clearly her mama had taught her that a silent kitten was a safe kitten, so she hardly ever made a sound -- once I accidently stepped on her tiny paw and she never made a sound -- just jumped across the room and stared at me from a safe distance.  When some weeks later, I again stepped on her paw (she would circle around my feet while I was cooking dinner!) and she actually SQUAWKED at me, I felt so good (though sorry to have hurt her again -- clumsy hoomin!) -- she finally felt at home enough and safe enough to protest!   She was careful with TED, too -- TED MaryKay, who gave her her initial examination, said that she was a "sensible kitten," and she remained a sensible cat her whole life -- she never wasted energy protesting or fighting the inevitable (though she would protest riding in the car as long as it was in motion!).  She remained serene and dignified throughout.

She never was a cuddle kitty, but that made it all the more precious when she showed affection and acceptance.  As time went on, she would come lie on my lap or my thigh if I were lying down in bed, just within arm's reach, and let me pet her while she purred and gave cheekrubs and drooled happily.  Of course there had to be a comforter or blanket over my legs -- it was clearly not acceptable to lie on uncovered hoomin legs, even if they were clothed!  Her tail swirled in a graceful S shape when she was happy,  and she loved to sit in the window watching the world go by.  The one time she would let her guard down was when I had something on my dinner plate she thought might be tasty -- she was especially fond of chicken and salmon, and was very unshy about thrusting her nose right in the plate and helping herself!

Skye, the shy little ragamuffin I took home against my better judgement, lived with me for 12 years before succumbing to a fast-moving, virulent variety of cancer.  My better judgement has never been so wrong -- my life was blessed with her sweet, loving, gentle but firm and oh-so-self-contained presence and her sweet silver songs will sound forever in my heart.  My sweet Skye Princess.

 

Talisker Pippin became part of the Ballard Bunch when she was about 5 months old in October 1990. I dearly loved and cherished Ceilidh and Skye, but I needed someone to cuddle, and neither of them were really cuddle cats (they had their own special ways of showing affection). So when I went to a cat show, I thought there might be a kitten waiting for me. And there was -- a brown mackeral tabby and white girl with a pink nose and a bobbed tail which I discovered when I held her and stroked her down her back and down her tail and OOPS! no tail left! About a human hands-width of tail, and then a knotted bony mass. Had she been injured? I asked. No, that's how she came, I was told. Orphaned when about 2 weeks old, she had been hand raised by a vet tech, and was now ready for her Forever Home. I walked away, but came back later, and saw her being held by a child with his family around him. NO! That's MY cat! I realized. And when they put her back in the cage, I immediately staked my claim. She nestled in my arms, kissed me on the lips, and purred. Her kitten name was "Pippi Longstocking" for her long white front leg, so her Forever name became Talisker Pippin (Talisker for the whisky distilled on the Scottish Isle of Skye, Pippin as an homage to her kitten name and the people who had cared for her so well in her first months. She was "Tally Tally Tally Pip," and "Talisker Pippin, my Bobalong Pippin," and "Longstockinged Pippi" forever after.

After the adoption papers were filled out and the adoption fees paid, the rescue organization volunteer who was overseeing the adoption was a bit taken aback by the canvas Beast Bag carrier I had brought, and ended up driving me to Ballard (with the excuse of saving me a bus ride), and I was very much aware I was being scrutinized very carefully. Evidently I passed inspection, and Tally joined our household.

Tally was as bold and brash a kitten as you could imagine. Ceilidh and Skye were stunned at her arrival, and I don't think they ever really reconciled themselves to her presence. "WHY did you bring her home?" and "WHY is she STAYING so long?" I was sure they were asking. "WHY are THEY still here now that I'M here?" I'm sure Tally was asking in turn. The three never fought (that I saw), and there was only a perfunctory obligatory hiss once in a great while, but they never cozied up together. Even when Ceilidh went to the Bridge, Skye and Tally were hardly ever in the same room at the same time. And as first Ceilidh, and then Skye, crossed over to the Bridge, I could see Tally relaxing and stretching and enjoying the process of FINALLY becoming First and Onliest Kitty. So for the last 6 years or so of her life, the Ballard Bunch was just the two of us.

When she was 13, she was diagnosed with what was IBD or diffuse intestinal lymphoma (we never knew which because any tests beyond an ultrasound would be so invasive and wouldn't change the treatment protocol in any case); after responding well to a combination of medicines, she later developed CRF and still later hyperthyroidism. Her weight dropped from a high of 14 pounds down to 12 and then 10 and then 8 and then 7, but she remained content and engaged and very much my loving tabby girl. It all finally caught up with her in the summer of 2007, and on August 24 she was helped on her way by her beloved TED MaryKay, and now rests in the back yard with the rest of our clowder -- though not too close to them, in respect for her position as First and Onliest to the end.

I sang her her own song, to the tune of "Loch Lomand":

Oh Tally's a cutie, my Tally's a beauty
And Tally has stripes alllllll around her!
She's big and she's bold
She has eyes of green and gold
And I loved her from the minute that I found her!
Her whiskers are long,
And her tail is short and strong,
And her nose is as pink as a rosey;
I stroke her soft furs
And I feel her rumbling purrs
And we snuggle up together, warm and cozy!

Sleep well, sweet tabby girl.

 

Those are the kitties from the Bitterroot Clowder that are waiting at the Rainbow Bridge. We're a bigbig clowder. They were all dearly loved, and all sorely missed, and it's going to be one terrific reunion some day..

Cat silhouettes courtesy of CatStuff.

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