Calvin

I never blogged about Calvin. I just keep putting it off because it's so hard. But I do want to tell his story.

Calvin was the brother of Frosty Paws and Layli. We adopted them through Recycled Pets and because they were in a group with lots of other kittens they came home, unbeknownst to us, with a parasite called coccidia. The three of them stayed in the upstairs bathroom (to prevent spread to our other kitties) on medication for many weeks. Calvin was always the one who would escape the bathroom by darting out before we could stop him, only he would turn left and get stuck in an area where we could easily recapture him! Silly boy. If he had just turned right and he could've made us chase him for hours.

Calvin and Frosty turned out to be the big boys in the house but Calvin always behaved as if he were the runt, deferring to all the others except maybe Tippy. He would hide in the closet if someone new came over, and if one of us came home through the back door he'd peer up over the edge of the couch with great concern on his face to find out who it was. He was even scared of the collar we tried to put around his neck, and for nearly a year wore a blue curling gift-wrap ribbon around his neck to get used to the feeling. For a while his name was 'Ribbon-neck Boy'. And as much as he liked to eat, anyone, even tiny Tippy, could take over his bowl and he'd calmly move off to find another one.

One time around the holidays I came home for lunch to find the side door open from when someone brought a Christmas tree through the door. I fussed at the family and then counted up all the kitties to make sure nobody escaped. I couldn't find Calvin anywhere. So I went outside in my uniform calling out for him. It was cold and wet and after 30 minutes I still hadn't found him. I even called work and said, "I know this sounds crazy but I'm not coming back until I can find my cat who is lost somewhere outside." Eventually someone at home discovered Calvin calmly sitting in the middle of the kitchen, as if nothing was wrong. Apparently he'd gotten scared of something (the tree? the vacuum cleaner?) and hidden his bulky body where none of us could find him.

Calvin had the best purr of any cat I know. His sister Layli comes in a close second. His favorite thing was for Saeed and me to sit on the living room couch so he could squeeze in between us, happily touching both of us at the same time. He would then purr for a very long time as loud as could be, and I remember more than once having to raise the volume on the TV to hear it over the purring. If I were writing he had a thing about sitting on the paper I was trying to write on, and would grab my pen repeatedly until I just gave up and let him have it. Of course if I used a different pen he would then start grabbing that one. He was funny about the camera and I always had a hard time getting a good picture of him because he would turn his head away. For every good picture I took there were 20 of the side of his head! Chappu really loved him and followed him around the house and sat outside the closet door if he were in there sleeping.

Last summer it was clear that he was ailing. He was losing weight and one day he just looked at the food longingly but couldn't eat it. Cutting out the details, he was diagnosed with a renal lymphoma (?) and we had to put him to sleep at age 8. He was sweet even though all of that. The vets had a hard time listening to his heart because he was purring so loudly, and he purred in my arms for 30 minutes before the vet put the final medication in his IV. What a sweet, sweet boy.

Here are some pics and one video of our sweetheart Calvin.