He came into our family in 1991. My mother called me after school one day and told me to go up to the McDonalds near the YMCA because she’d seen two little tiny kittens under the drive-thru that morning on her way to work. Obviously, they’d been abandoned, and because we’re all bleeding hearts, we couldn’t just leave them there. So I went up to see if they were still there. I took a friend, and between the two of us, we were able to coax these two adorable little guys into a carrier.
We took them home and gave away the little black cat to our neighbors, who were also big animal lovers. We kept the grey cat with the white paws and breast. Since we’d recently lost our sweet Scooter, my brother’s cat, and I had a cat, Isabelle, we gave the kitten to my younger brother. He named him Hurricane, for the Miami Hurricanes.
Hurriane proved to be a little Hurricane - he was a playful, sweet kitten. We have an old videotape from when my brother and I were playing with the camcorder one afternoon. There’s a shot of Izzy with reindeer ears on her head, glaring at the two of us with the look of death. And then there’s Hurricane - chasing the bells on the ears.
We moved in my junior year of high school to a new house with a large wooded area behind us. Unfortunately, during the summmer that year, Hurricane got lost for a week. He came back, but we discovered that he was brain damaged from the record-high temperatures that we’d had that week. Even so, he was still our Hurricane and we were glad to have him home.
For the past year, he’s been going downhill. He’s been sick with a virus several times, and we’ve given him antibiotics. He’s never strayed further than the garage or beyond the front porch. We could see that he was losing weight, and every trip to the vet gave him another dose of medicine. And although his brain damage causes him to be afraid of air, every once in awhile, I’d be able to pick him up and cause him to purr and snuggle in my arms.
We haven’t seen him since Thursday night. We don’t think he’s lost. My parents and I think he crawled off to die somewhere. It was snowing and sleeting last night, and he never came into the garage where the heater is, and where his brother and sister sleep. I’ve looked for him and called for him, but with no luck. Three days isn’t long in terms of a lost cat, but Hurricane’s not the kind of cat to disappear for longer than a few hours. We were worried on Friday night, but thought he’d come back. We started to realize that he might not come back last night. And today, I’m trying to accept that he’s probably not going to return to us.
I wish he’d stayed with us so that one of us could have been with him. The thought of him dying in the cold and the snow is unbearable. One of us should have been able to hold him and tell him it was okay.
Hurricane, wherever you’ve gone, I hope your next life is an easy one - with gourmet cat food and all the toys you can play with. We miss you already.
Ava
