Dinner with my weather friends Brad and Christie (not fair weather friends but weather forecasters at my old station in Lexington) was kind of somber. One of their cats had died. When I worked at WTVQ, two cats started coming around to visit and we started taking care of them. I guess they used to be mine, too, then but I gave up my partial custody when I left the station last June.

One was an orange male that looked like Morris the cat from those cat food commercials and the other was multi-colored with orange, white, gray and tan mixed on a mostly black coat. They call that tortoise shell coloring and it’s the kind my cat Annie has. They had probably wandered over from one of the nearby horse farms. Farms keep barn cats to kill mice that nest in the hay.

Rau at rest.

The orange male was friendly and gregarious, so talkative we named him “Rau” for the sound of his incessant meowing. When referring to the tortoise shell female, Brad, the station’s chief meteorologist, always started by saying “turquoise” before correcting himself to say tortoise shell. I finally thought that if Brad was going to keep calling her that that we ought to go ahead and name the cat Turquoise.

Turquoise was a tiny, skittish little thing that never came around unless Rau came first. He was the only one she trusted; it was so sweet to watch. She’d go anywhere he went. Once we decided they needed to go to the vet and had to figure out how to trap her. No trick we tried could coax her into the pet carrier. Then Rau walked into it and she followed right behind him without a second thought.

We’d stand outside freezing after the newscasts waiting for our cats to come. Rau would come around after the early and late news. He seemed to like the company as much as he enjoyed the free meal. Turquoise rarely showed herself in daylight and even in winter we usually only saw her after the late news.

While Rau would walk right up to you talking a blue streak, it was a great triumph if Turquoise let you touch her. She’d skulk around in the shadows watching Rau. If he gave the OK, she’d sneak carefully toward us. What was funny was that if you could reach out and stroke her back, she would suddenly realize that she liked it and she’d let you do more of it. But even if you earned the blessing of her presence she always stayed right at the edge of arm’s reach, ready to make a sudden getaway.

Then the next night she’d forget how much she liked being petted 24 hours before and you’d have to win her trust all over again.

Rau in action.

Rau was so comfortable that we’d find him snoozing uncovered on the station’s lawn somewhere. I took some great pictures of him lazing in the grass one day.

He would eat anything. Once I was sitting on the station’s patio eating macaroni and cheese when he came to me and started begging. I tried to explain that I would get his food for him as soon as I finished mine but he was having none of it. Cats don't want to hear that you're busy; it's all about them. So I carried my dinner over to where we fed the cats and poured some cat food into his bowl. But he wanted none of that, either. He seemed to want to try some pasta, even climbing on me and trying to stick his nose in my dish when I kneeled down to fill his.

Finally I figured if I assuaged the cat’s curiosity we could both get on with our respective meals. I picked out a few macaronis and held them out to the cat, figuring he’d give them a sniff, turn up his nose and look at me wondering what the fuss was about -- like I had caused all of this.

He scarfed them down. Shocked, I picked a couple more and tried again. Again he gobbled. I would have gladly shared my dinner except I didn’t know what effect pasta would have on the cat’s intestines and decided we could both live happily if we never found out.

Rau died today.

He took ill last week. With mucous running from his eyes and clogging his nose, Rau was gasping for breath when Christie took him to the vet. He had feline leukemia, the vet told her, the cat’s version of AIDS. Incurable and fatal, it could kill him in days or weeks but it would kill him. To save him the agony of a prolonged decline, the vet hastened the inevitable and euthanized Rau this afternoon.

Christie joined us late for dinner. Just woke up after a nap, she said, but I suspect the puffy eyes had another cause. And there more tears could come later this week. Feline leukemia is extremely contagious and Rau had spent a lot of time in close quarters with Turquoise. Christie will take her and another stray they adopted at the station to the vet Thursday to get them tested.

Turquoise all grown up.

After dinner, I went back to the station with Brad and Christie to visit the cats. Turquoise walked over to greet us when we got there. The skittish little kitty had grown up. She had added weight, her coat was clean and full and her fear of people had vanished. What a beauty! She did have a little bit of a runny nose but she was happy, rolling around and purring at all the attention. What a difference from when I had last seen her nine months ago.

How tragic it would be if she were handed a death sentence Thursday. Go ahead; tell me she’s only a cat. I know; I know. But she never hurt anyone and I know at least three people who feel better for having known her. There are humans you could say less about.

Fortunately, cats can’t tell time. The blessing of living in the moment is that you can’t mourn the moments you will never have. I am reassured knowing that I feel more sadness about Rau’s death than Rau did, even if he saw it coming.

John

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