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Jecca Mehlota ([personal profile] jecca_mehlota) wrote2019-10-13 08:31 am
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You will not ever be forgotten by me / In the procession of the mighty stars

"Your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart
Here I will carry, carry, carry you"


Sazy died suddenly and unexpectedly a week ago.


things about her I don't want to forget:


She was so small when I got her - not physically, she was full grown, almost 8 years old - afraid and sad, tail tucked down, hiding herself away, fur dull, insecure... I don't necessarily want to remember her like this, but it's important that I remember how she was, so that I can remember how she grew and improved. That she knew she was safe and cared for.

She used to rip her own fur out from stress and anxiety. She hasn't done that in years. When I got her, I didn't realise she had brown in her coat, I thought it was all black like the fur on her head. But no, her body fur was black and brown and once it grew in healthy she was so beautiful.

She loved to sniff at fruit and vegetables.. Apples were an especially good one for her. She didn't try to eat them, but she loved to sniff and, if allowed, roll on them.

She liked red. I don't know if cats can even see red, but she always preferred red things, gave her red toys more attention (even if it was otherwise an identical thing, like a pouch of catnip). Maybe it's because she came here hiding in a red towel. Maybe it's because she liked my red comforter. Maybe she was just weird. But she liked red.

She'd purr so much when she was grooming haha


They took her front claws but she never became a biter. On the list of things that declawed cats commonly start doing, she really had some box trouble, but that was her price and I was happy to pay it. Happy to pick up her stray turds when it came to it.

She tried so, so hard to be good. She WAS so good. She was the best baby she could have possibly been, and I told her that often, that she was a good girl, the best girl, and to never let anyone tell her otherwise.

When she was sick with uroliths, she'd look so sad when she couldn't bring herself to enter her box, she'd look for things it was "safe" to ruin. Really liked the box I used for recycling paper.

God. The one time she Would Not be taken to the vet.... Broke out of her carrier, just jumped the top half of it right out of position and hauled over the door. Hid in her litter box, back when it was in the closet across from the bathroom. She never did anything like that again, she just really didn't want to go that day I guess.

She'd sit draped over my leg while I was in bed. Always seemed like that shouldn't be comfortable, but... There she went.

Her right front paw... She'd curl up next to me and then grab my leg with her paw, like, "this is mine." That was her paw she'd use.

She'd get SO EXCITED for food. They were feeding her cheap, bad food when they gave her to me, and it made her poop smell SO BAD. Eventually switched her to BFF, before the uroliths and kidney issues and then she was on prescription food. I'd still give her BFF on occasion though for a treat. She just loved food, haha. She wasn't fat (just over 11 lbs, but she was a Large Bean so it was a good weight), just. Really liked her food. I think she was food insecure at first, because she'd eat so fast she'd throw up a lot initially. But she learned I was going to keep feeding her, she learned the schedule. She'd enforce the schedule.

She'd get so excited when I pulled a can out every morning. Sometimes I let her sniff the can and she'd try to bite it open.

How her attention would snap if I tapped my fingernail against the glass of her food bowl.


How MESSY she was! She'd get food bits scattered about, sure, but the water was the bigger offender. She was early stages of kidney failure, not enough for it to have much of an impact yet, but she'd drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and (pee and pee and pee and pee and pee and pee and pee and)

And she'd make such a mess with the water! In the end, it was a mid-sized Pyrex bowl in a pie plate on top of a plastic mat that was set on a folded towel, which was itself on a rug. THEN the floor stayed dry. Then the flood was contained.


Her furry toes.....

The way she'd paw and pull at the bedframe if I wasn't getting up and she wanted something. So noisy! It was effective.

She was always quiet, just the tiniest little squeaks if she said anything. "Eh!"

But also damn could she hiss when she wanted to. The hissing and yowling of 20 cats could come out of her when faced with another cat.

And I guess the time roommate E locked himself and his then-girlfriend in the stairwell with her. I don't know, I didn't hear that one, only the stories of terror afterwards, but that's where her song came from:

(to the tune of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)
Sazy the stairwell demon
Has two shiny eyes that glow
And though you'll never see her
When she's very near, you'll know
'cause of the way she hisses
Endlessly and without pause
But fortunately for you
She has not got any claws

In the darkness, she will lurk
Waiting on a stair
She'll fill your apartment up
With great chunks of ripped-out hair

Then she will hold dominion
Over all who venture near
Sazy the stairwell demon
Filling up your hearts with fear



Her lovely dusty kitty smell when she'd been sitting in the sun.

How soft and silky her back fur was. How soft and wavy her tummy fur was. How LONG it all was. How messy her whiskers were. Her teeny little teeth points that stuck out just a little bit from her mouth.

How the black patch of her chin looked like she'd grabbed a chunk of somebody's hair, and how she was so content to have bested her foe.



In the end, she came to me. I have to remember that, that she loved and trusted me enough to come to me instead of hiding.



She was such a good mouser. And they were the best toys. When she couldn't find a real mouse to kill, she'd usually go for her squeaky mouse or for the skinny one that scared me more than once when I saw it out of the corner of my eye and thought it was another real dead one.


Her sweet face. Everyone always complimented her unique markings, but most of them never saw how sweet she was, because she only showed it to a very few people.


Her little cat cave. It took her a while to warm up to it, she didn't really use it until I moved it into the far end of the closet, but then it was her space. She could go there to sleep or to be left alone, the rules were that was her area and she wasn't to be bothered when she was in it.

Haha... One time she threw up a little on the towel in there (her towel, the one she came hiding in) and I had to take it out to wash it... She was so mad. When I put it back, she went in and sat on it and wouldn't leave it while I was around for DAYS. I stole it once but she wasn't about to let me steal it twice.


She HATED brushes, I don't know what her old family did to her to make her hate them so much. I could use the flea comb on her (though she never had fleas), but nothing else was acceptable.

She got horrible fur mats, mostly on her neck but also on her belly. The belly ones stopped being so bad once she stopped hiding as much, but this spring was noisy and she had a couple on her again from hiding under the bed when she went in in June? July? For her physical and booster shots.

She'd come and sit with me at night until I was either asleep or most of the way there before she'd go off on her darkness explorations.

She didn't eat things that weren't food. I could leave her to play with pipe cleaners and bottle rings and all sorts knowing she wouldn't eat them. Worst she did was bite plastic bags to get attention.

She'd stay with me while I was sick.

If I fell asleep accidentally, she'd wake me up to turn the lights off - can't go dark stalking if the lights are on, mom!!


The way her little feet would go tp tp tp tp on the floor.

The way her little feet would pick up SO MUCH CAT LITTER, GOOD GOD


The wind in her fur as she sniffed the breeze from the open window by my bed


How much she HATED BOYS, except my brother?? My little man-hating lesbian.

(She probably would've hated kids, too, if she'd ever had to be around them again. Fuck her first family, they were awful.)


The way she'd sit and wait for me either in the doorway of my room or on the edge of the carpet. Especially if I'd been "gone" too long. Time to check on her -- and maybe also remind her she's got a cat she should be paying attention to! She took care of me at least as much as I tried to take care of her.

Other than fresh produce (or anything apple), she wasn't very interested in people food, unless it was poultry. Cat loved some chicken. Turkey was good, too, but CHICKEN. That was the only thing I couldn't eat without being harassed, haha. She'd even put her hatred of my roommate on hold to get some morsels from him.

Actually she got excited about yellow cake, too. But not like she did with chicken.


How long she could stretch out, the length of my leg. How small she could compact, her little bullet-shaped body as she trit-trot led me back to the room, her tail waving high, how she'd pause to make sure I was following still.

The way she didn't wind around but would instead press against the side of my leg or my hip, depending on if she were on the floor or the bed, and curl her tail up around me.

She only sat on my lap rarely, but as mentioned before, she'd drape her paw over my leg. Sometimes both paws if she felt like sitting up instead of laying down.


She? Loved??? My hair when it was wet????? She'd pull my head down so she could roll on my hair and maybe chew on it, and she'd purr and purr and PURR the whole time.


And my dirty laundry. The stinkier the shirt, the BETTER. She'd roll and roll and roll and purr all over my sweaty shirts.


I miss her and I'll always miss her. She was my baby.

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