RIP Beau

I left for Aspen last Friday morning. Jeff picked me up from the airport at 430 on Tuesday, and I was in a little hurry to get to school by 530 for a religion in medicine mid term. When we were about to pull into the garage at home, he told me he had sad news and asked whether I wanted to hear it before or after the mid term. I was expecting to hear that someone we knew had got some fatal or morbid diagnosis. I told him that the mid term was no big deal. "Beau died." :(. Jeff said he was in the back yard in a box, and he found him either Friday or Saturday afternoon when he woke up (my guess is Saturday). He was in his normal spot on a heat vent in our bedroom. Many times we have seen him laying there and stirred him to make sure he was OK. Jeff said he did a few things, trying to wake him- but sure enough, it had finally happened. Our 19 year old long-haired domestic had moved on.


Beau was a "92 model," as our old vet called him. When I was 4 years old, I was playing in the backyard and heard meowing. Beau was with his mom and siblings huddled in a niche of bricks we kept in the back of the house. The cats ran away after I found him to the neighbors yard, and they called the animal control. Jennifer and Mom and Dad went to the pound and picked out Beau. At home, I remember having a fit over calling him Beauty, after the character from Beauty and the Beast. I won that fight as a 4 year old, but when we found out he was a boy, we called him Beau. Best name ever for a beautiful, long haired cat like him.

Beau was feisty in his early years. He didn't care for my little-kid-ness and was Julia's and Jennifer's. He used to chase me up the stairs and bite my ankles. He used to bite a lot, and didn't let people mess with him. He tried to sneak out of the house every chance he got. Once, James got him out of the bushes by spraying them with a hose. Hilarious. He was very territorial.
We got Neko for my 15th birthday, after I'd become infatuated with him, and wanted more kitties for cuddling. By then, Beau slept with me every night, probably starting when I was 13 or 14. Even though he had been previously aggressive, he would let me hug him in bed and purr like crazy. Every once in a while, he'd still be a random punk and snap at me. He didn't like Neko at first and it took a while to let them be around each other. Fortunately for him, Neko is very reclusive and it did not take long for Beau to treat Neko as his b***h. Even though he was neutered, it was not uncommon for him to mount Neko, even up to recently. Yup.

He lived with Julia at James' for about a year I think, and Jennifer when she was in college for like a month. When I moved on Sophomore yr of undergrad, mom and dad were plenty willing to let me take him. Jeff and I together had 3 cats combined. Kasha was like Beau and territorial. They hated each other to the end. Beau had to give in a bit with his change, but even with his lack of fighting energy he was plenty happy to give Kasha crap by hissing and meowing. Once early on, Kasha took a big bite out of his back.
When Saia was born, all of the cats started to keep their distance. Especially Beau. By then, he had largely lost an ability to jump and never got on our bed or laps anymore. He was about 17 already. He was pretty reclusive and disinterested in us. He had also started getting generally annoying. His arthritis got progressively bad, and having been once a big overweight cat, he was very skinny. He would occasionally start crying in pain and pacing around, and he tended to do it at night while we slept. Sounds sad now, but it was often obnoxious in the moment. We tried some meds for the arthritis, but they were expensive and didn't seem effective enough. He also used his obnoxious meow a lot when he was hungry, he was always pretty serious about his food...
After Jeff told me, we got my stuff out of the car and I walked into the backyard first. I saw the box Beau was in, placed in the garden. I thought to myself- he may already be a little gross looking... but whatever, I've seen plenty of dead people, how bad could a dead cat be. He still looked as he had, sprawled lying in the box. Jeff came and saw me looking and exclaimed in surprise. I closed the box and let some tears come. I thought he would make it to 20-something, he had made it so long in such decent health. And cats live into their 20s plenty of times...
It rained Tuesday night, and I was worried about animals finding him, so we buried him Wednesday afternoon. The snow was coming in and it was lightly falling, under the bright white overcast sky. We have two shovels so we dug a hole in a part of the garden where there was no plants. The soil is pretty loose in our old yard, so it didn't take long except for the occasional roots we had to break up. When the box fit, we decided to go inside and find things to put with him. We put his blue food bowl that had been his for at least a decade, a couple toy mouses, a cat vest, and an old comb glove that Julia bought for him ages ago. We said a few more words and I let some tears loose and his grave is marked by the loose dirt piled on top. We will probably find a plant to put on top this spring.

Beau...
Spring 1992 - January 15, 2011

Please excuse any of my excessive corniness expressed in this post.