Sabra

Sabra was one strange and beautiful cat.

He showed up, not on our doorstep, but on the next-door-neighbor's doorstep.  For five days.  Which freaked out our superstitious neighbor at the time, as Sabra was 100% black.  Actually, "he's the kind of black you can get lost in" is how one friend of mine put it.  Very intense.  Can we say Scorpio rising?

The neighbor mentioned him, and I was afraid what would happen to this beautiful black cat I had heard about.  So I went out about the time the neighbor said he showed up.  And called him over, with my patented cat-trill hello sound (just kidding about the patented part).  He came happily running over to our porch, and went crazy demanding petting.  "Pet me, pet me, *please* *please* pet me some more, pet me harder, pet me and don't stop!!!!"  That was our Sabra.  I grabbed him, much to his displeasure, and dragged him inside.

He was *not* a happy camper.  He wanted back *out*.  Now!

We had a parade of neighbors through our apartment.  Nope, not my lost cat.  Nope, not mine.  He seemed to belong nowhere.

We thought he was a she.  So did everyone else.  His bearing was female, he had a hanging belly that looked female, he acted and looked female.  He sure fooled *everyone*!

After awhile, it was obvious that he didn't belong anywhere.  My personal theory is that he was one of the many cats that had belonged to a long-ago neighbor; this neighbor had so many cats, she moved out not realizing that she had left a kitten behind.  The kitten died in the basement.  This still makes me want to scream.  I have no idea where she is, or even what her name is.  If I did, I would track her down and tell her what she did.  Whether Sabra was another missing cat of hers, I don't know.  All I know is that he apparently was supposed to come here, but got the address slightly wrong.

I couldn't get a handle on Sabra for a long time.  He was very inscrutable (that Scorpio rising, plus a Virgo sun).  He was *immaculate* about cleaning himself and looking perfect.  We didn't connect for awhile, which is unusual for me and a cat, but there are cats with more distant personalities.  I didn't worry too much about it; you don't have to fall in love with every cat; you just have to love them.

One night, he was up in the bedroom, and I was talking to him.  I asked him his name.  To my utter shock, he answered me (yes, skeptics are groaning at this, but, um, I do work as a psychic, so it's not that strange to me).  He told me his name was Sabra.

Now, I had never even heard of this name before then.  But I thought (and said) "How beautiful!"  I said "Sabra" out loud, and he meowed.  Some of you know about the idea of cats' *true* names; this is one of the few times I think one told me his true name.

I tried to find out what it meant.  I read that it was Hebrew, and meant "fruit of the cactus" or "thorny cactus".  It can also mean "prickly pear".  All of those made sense.  Sabra *worshipped* his claws.  He would walk with them out.  When he was happy, he stretched them out to the full.  He adored love  bites:  he would bite me on the thigh while I was sitting on the toilet!  He was one kinky, prickly little cat!

A friend of mine who is psychic once said "Ah!  Walks with claws out.  Rice paper!  Past life:  Buddhist temple cat!"  And I would not be at all surprised at that, either.

Sabra was nothing if not *very* unusual.  Richard and I determined that Sabra was a drag queen bar floozy in his last human lifetime (and yep, we think he most definitely had been human).  He fit it to a "t".  He was beautiful, bitchy, loved being petted and fretted over, and I can most certainly envision him decked out in beautiful, perfect drag, looking like a painting, smoking a cigarette and drinking something exotic.

Then I found out the deeper meaning of Sabra, which is Hebrew for "Native born."  From what I understand, all native-born Israelis are, essentially, Sabra.  There is a deep esoteric meaning to the name as well.  Which also makes sense, because Sabra was a very, very deep cat.

He acted very offended and depressed around Hannukkah several years ago.  We celebrate Yule, so it didn't occur to me that -- Sabra is a Jewish cat, and expected us to wish him, at the very least, a Happy Hannukkah.  Once I realized that, and told him that, he relaxed, and was much happier.

I must diverge here slightly, because I was once in a chat room talking about all this, when someone took offense at this, thinking that I was somehow making an equation between animals and Jewish folks.  Absolutely not!  I have the utmost respect for those of the Jewish faith, although it is not my personal faith.  I realize that Sabra's story is a strange one, but it is absolutely not intended as meaning any disrespect whatsoever.  Quite honestly, I think I was very lucky to have had a marvelous, tough, beautiful, and apparently Jewish cat sharing his life with me and my husband.  Jewish friends and clients were not at all offended by Sabra's story, and in fact, enjoyed it; I hope that anyone reading this also takes it this way, as absolutely no offense is intended or meant.

That being said, he was one very special cat.  The vet finally set our doubts to rest by confirming that yes, he was male (even though he chose a feminine name).  Sabra was also asthmatic, which meant a roller-coaster ride in terms of trying to treat him, trying to find a way to prevent asthma attacks, and trying to deal with the terror of those horrible attacks when they did happen.

He was one tough old bird.  Working with our vet, we had him on prednisone every five days to prevent attacks, which were sometimes devastating and difficult.  He terrified us early in 1999, when he was having an attack, and lost control of his urine while in a cardboard box.  I had medicated him as usual, but this was a bad sign, and we rushed him to the emergency vet, where he was put on oxygen and given stronger medication.  Thank the Goddess he survived that particular time.

The asthma was a constant battle.  Until the end, he had no other health problems of which we were aware.  He was strong, smart, and tough, and I held the utmost admiration for this guy.  He was another one who taught me a great deal in his time with us.

Sabra had a dog streak in him, oddly enough.  He *loved* playing with balls.  I got a cheap beach ball one time, and caught him rolling it, paws on top, next to his belly, across the floor, following it.  It was utterly hilarious to see.

Sabra had another very strange thing he liked to do.  He would fluff his tail up in his best impression of a spooky Halloween cat.  He did this, not out of fright or an attempt to intimidate other cats, but rather, he seemed to do it when he wanted petting.  He first did it one time when there was some very loud noise that frightened him.  We ran over to him, and made a big show out of petting and reassuring him.  We think he connected his fluffed-up tail with getting pets, and thus "floofed" his tail (as we call it) whenever he wanted affection.  I'm sure anyone who could hear us would have thought we were quite nuts when Sabra fluffed his tail, and I trilled in a high-pitched voice, "Ooooohh!  Sabra's *flooooofing*!"

The bad side of Sabra was that he *hated* Cosmo.  Indubitably.  Indisputably.  Irrevocably.  He picked on him mercilessly.  Although he rarely actually attacked Cosmo, Sabra only had to stare at Cosmo to freak him out, and he seemed to take great delight in doing this.  That nasty Scorpio streak, I guess.

When we adopted Sabra, he quickly became Top Cat, much to Cosmo's dismay.  They never got over this change in the balance of power, I guess.

As I explained in Mojo's story, Sabra challenged Mojo as well.  I'm sure Sabra realized Mojo was loved by *all* the cats, including Sabra.  But he let Mojo know he ruled only with Sabra's blessing, as the power behind the throne.

Sabra also adored playing with "Da Bird", and would go utterly crazy when we brought it out, looking terribly disappointed when we put it away.   I didn't want to get him too worked up because of his asthma problem, so we didn't tend to play too long.

Sabra made me think of Tiki a lot, the ancient, cranky cat who taught me more about love than most people have.  I think Sabra was much the same way.  I had hoped that my strong ol' cat would live to be as old as Tiki, and that I would have many more years to love him, but it was not to be.

It was not the asthma that finally got him, but cancer.  Lymphoma, to be specific.  I had been vet-switching (much to their displeasure, I am sure), trying to figure out who I wanted for my backup vet.  The first backup vet had run bloodwork on Sabra, and mentioned something was slightly off, but didn't seem too concerned about it.  It was less than a year later when Sabra began to go downhill, when I took him to the second backup vet, who ran tests and got copies of the original tests from Backup Vet #1.  That little thing that was off a bit was the first sign of Sabra's lymphoma.  By the time Backup Vet #2 got all the tests, it was too late.

As they are often wont to do, Sabra went downhill very fast.  He stopped eating, and lost all interest in his world.   And I knew, from sad experience, that it was time to say goodbye and send him off to his journey to The Rainbow Bridge.

I called Backup Vet #2, because she was willing to come to my home and euthanize him there, to spare him the trauma of being taken away from home and dying at the vet's office.  I took him around to all the other cats to say goodbye, and then I said goodbye to him as he gently slipped from this world.  The vet said a gentle prayer (of no particular denomination; it fit my Pagan beliefs perfectly well) as his spirit moved on, and I was deeply moved and grateful for her kindness and healing words.

I was astounded by the kindness of the funeral home and the wonderful job they did.  When I got his ashes back, I found they had included a card with his pawprint, a little plaque with his name for an urn if I wanted one, a certification that he was cremated individually and the ashes were his, and an envelope with a bit of his fur.

Sabra was a true Uni-que (a word a friend of mine made up to describe me; it's prounced in two parts, like "you-knee-cue").  I have appropriated his name for my own on more than one occasion when I've needed a screen name, and one of the things I know I will do before I die is to get a very small image of his face tattooed on my body somewhere it can be seen.  He became such a part of me, and will live on within me for as long as I live.

I miss you, Sabby-Wabby.

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