Unfortunately it is my turn to post about my cat.
Here she is, many Christmases ago.
And in her favorite spot
I wrote her a obituary of sorts.
Nightwitch
Born 2005, died 2025
Nightwitch was one of the two cats we got upon moving into our house in Portland. The kids were 6 and 10. She and her shelter-buddy Hobbes, a big grey tabby, were inseparable. Hobbes was killed by a car on Glisan a few years later. He was buried in the front yard and for weeks Nightwitch returned to sit on his grave.
We then had several more cats. Luna, Willie, Chausette, Dizzy, and Baby Bao all came, were resented or avoided, ignored or dominated by Nightwitch, and, each in their own time, left. After losing Hobbes, Nightwitch shunned other cats and devoted herself to her humans.
She liked to sleep in our beds, wake us up with one claw tip delicately but menacingly pressed into the human face, lead us downstairs to feed her, then go out her cat door to patrol her yard and the neighbors’ yards, harvest birds and mice for the humans’ dinner, visit the neighbors, eat grass, lay on the warm sunny patio and walkways. Indoors, she split her time between the couch facing the fireplace, and her circuit of bedrooms, making sure to give each human attention in turn.
Her favorite room was the south-west bedroom that was first Kate’s room and then Coltrane’s. The room was sunny and the bed was high and pressed up against a window with a view of the neighbors’ yard and their little dog. In her later years she liked to lay on the sunlit bed and watch Rat TV, while Kate’s rats scurried and dug in their cage for her amusement. When Coltrane moved into that room and brought his tatami mat, she enjoyed the cool bamboo and sleeping with the humans at proper ground level.
Nightwitch was a medium sized, black shorthair cat with round eyes slightly close together, one white whisker, a little patch of white on her chest, and very soft fur. She never bit or scratched a human. She was playful, affectionate, and gentle. When young, she could jump high in the air for a feather toy or string. A prolific hunter, she kept the house rodent free but never did manage to land a squirrel. Her talent for tolerating snuggles, tummy rubs, noogies, tummy blows, and outright squishing grew as she matured, and she would sometimes serve as human pillow without complaining, or not audibly. Kate thinks she had Stockholm Syndrome, but really she was just very talented.
Nightwitch had many important duties. Mouse catcher, furry alarm clock, purring pillow, tireless couch hold-downer. She was also known as “Nurse Nightwitch”. Whenever one of us was ill and abed, Nightwitch was always at their side radiating her kitty healing powers. She was dedicated to her calling, never resting until her human was well.
Her biggest challenge in her later years was Baby Bao, who despite lacking front claws could terrorize Nightwitch at will. They partitioned the house, with Bao owning the couch and living room, and Nightwitch owning the bedrooms and outdoors. Bao liked to lay on humans as they lay on the couch; she would happily dominate the prostrate human for hours as Nightwitch slipped by. Bao was deaf, you see, so Nightwitch could avoid conflict through stealth.
After Bao passed, Nightwitch enjoyed her Golden years. Finally, the house to herself, no sharing of humans. She began leaping on couched humans to dominate them for hours as Bao had done.
Nightwitch was an uncommonly healthy cat, never injured or ill. At 19, she started losing a step. She was still graceful, coat glossy, friendly and alert, but was gradually losing weight and slowing down. Her meals became elaborate, with wet food mixed with powdered goat milk, glucosamine supplement, and plenty of warm water to keep her liquid intake high, twice a day. This mostly stabilized her weight and we thought she’d enjoy more years here.
Shortly before July 4th of 2025, Nightwitch suddenly stopped eating and was unsteady on her feet. Her vet ran tests and said her kidneys were starting to deteriorate and she had a infection, for which she started receiving antibiotics. Two days later she was much worse and went to the veterinary emergency hospital, who diagnosed critical end stage renal failure and diabetic ketoacidosis. Treatment, they said, would be in-patient, aggressive, very unlikely to succeed, and she would probably die in the hospital. We took Nurse Nightwitch home. She went to sleep at 4:00 pm on July 7 and was buried with flowers in Coltrane’s shirt, in the garden next to Hobbes.
We are going to sleep tonight, in a house without cats. Without Nightwitch. For the first time in almost twenty years.
P.S. This morning I got up, went downstairs, and fed Nightwitch as usual. Prepared her food, set her dish down, and imagined her first tentative sniff and then her settling down and eating, with her collar tag clacking softly on the plastic. Her collar is hanging on the refrigerator and Nightwitch is with Hobbes.
