Beatrice the Secret Cat: 1997-2014

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Beatrice "Beetle" Silvergirl, age 16, office assistant and Warrior Princess of the 2nd Floor, quietly took leave during the wee hours Sunday morning, January 26th.  On her terms as always. Her anxiety about veterinary visits and stubborn refusal to take thyroid meds (except by subterfuge or violence) undoubtedly accelerated her demise, but we are confident she preferred it this way.

You never saw Beatrice, not even if you've been to our house a hundred times. Bea hid from visitors.  She hid from our son.  She mostly hid from my husband except at night when she slept on his legs.  Beatrice was my cat, on my right shoulder.  Not my lap.  Not my left shoulder.  On the day at Petsmart when I asked to see the little grey kitten labeled "lovable," she climbed onto my right shoulder and that settled it.  We picked her up from Anti-Cruelty on the afternoon my son started 1st Grade. This was not an empty nest thing. Absolutely not.

She had this ritual greeting for me; back and forth, trilling, purring, kneading, head-butting.  I never understood it until I saw a PBS show about a serval cub whose littermates were killed by lions while mother serval was out hunting.  When mother came back, the lone surviving cub went into the same ritual.  OK, fine, so Beatrice was a psychological basket case.  

She enjoyed chattering at the speakerphone (my clients were amused).  She enjoyed playing with toys, and burrowing under blankets, and singing.  She was an upstairs cat, refusing to allow our beta boycat Mercutio to come upstairs. After Mercutio died, and later her arch nemesis Ambrus, she remained an upstairs cat.  But after alpha male Falstaff died, the one cat with whom she would interact peaceably, only then did she start coming downstairs.  For two years she enjoyed spending evenings with me on the beige living room couch, while Cosmo Kitten of Destiny sat with Mike on the green couch.  Thus proving Bea was capable of lifestyle change, within very narrow limits, and for reasons entirely opaque to humans.

Office cat: You want it WHEN?
She was not a Russian Blue, but she had the double-thick silver coat. Eyes like malachite. I called her my Navajo jewelry. I would sing My Girl and get to the part "what can make me feel this way...?" and I'd stop and she would answer "MEERRearrrwl!"  She was my roly-poly girl, flopping over on her back to get her belly rubbed. Until a sudden noise from anything, anywhere, at which she would run and hide under the bed.

Love is not rational. Beatrice was a difficult cat, essentially useless to the entire world except to me. I have noticed that the death of cats is a very private kind of loss. People and even dogs have a public life. You share them with others. When they move on, others notice. But your cat is your cat, invisible to the entire rest of the universe. Dark matter.  Beatrice more than most. You'll just have to take my word for it.