I wanted to say a few words about Samantha while I was thinking of that special little cat.
As the story was told to me, Samantha was originally found in a box of free kittens outside a Safeway in Eugene, Oregon, looking rather hairless and emaciated. Cheryl’s brother-in-law took an odd liking to this beast – which they called “Q-Tip” – and brought her home with the rest of their menagerie, where she was promptly terrorized by the rest of their cats and dogs.
Cheryl came over to visit, and this tiny little cat crawled up into her lap and started purring away and that’s how Samantha came to be part of Cheryl’s life.
For the life of me, I’ve always wondered how a purebred Devon Rex – even now, not an inexpensive cat, twenty years ago, even more so – ended up in a box of kittens someone was giving away. She was out in the boonies for a while, since she did suffer from feline herpes and did lose the tip of her tail to frostbite (and supposedly was found in a snowdrift – how do you find a white cat in a snowdrift?) It was a great mystery that will forever go unsolved; we can only assume that she managed to escape from her home and was fortunate enough to get rescued.
When Cheryl was off working in the hinterlands on archaeology jobs, that cat helped keep her sane. She used to say that on Friday nights that would literally play for hours, and in Samantha’s younger days, that cat had an impressive motor. Most popular were the sleeve monster game – she was very good about knowing just how hard to bite or scratch without going too hard – the bed-monster game and the attack-the-pantcuff game. Samantha would wear you out in those days.
I first came across Samantha when Cheryl and I first started dating…I think this was 2000 or 2001, if memory serves – it does less and less these days. One of the first pictures I took with my then brand-new camera was of the two of them. I think Cheryl was impressed with the fact that I knew what a Devon Rex was.
If you aren’t familiar with Devons, the best description of the breed is “a monkey in a cat suit,” and that’s definitely Samantha. Compact, muscular, athletic but by no means graceful, they’re vocal and intelligent cats who want to be the center of attention and get into everything.
Whenever you came in the door, she would immediately let you know in that distinctive voice of hers how disappointed she was to be left all alone, and then, having the short term memory of a goldfish, immediately demand pettings. When she was very contented, she would close her eyes and emit a silent meow, a just audible mah or mrah. It was something Cheryl and I used to copy as our sign of contentment.
Give Samantha a shoulder, a blanket to hide under (or better yet, a fireplace), she was a very contented cat.
It was only in the last few months that she really started showing signs of going downhill. Up until very recently, she could easily jump from the floor to my bed, a very healthy three-plus feet, whereupon she would demand to be let under the covers and snuggle up. Samantha was a heatseeker, and when Cheryl and I shared a bed, she always knew that the warmest place was between two bodies and she’d persistently work her way in between us, and somehow end up taking up most of the bed, an impressive feat for a six-pound cat.
We always used to joke that Samantha was our “training baby,” as “she cries like a baby, whines like a baby and, well, pukes like a baby.” There’s a reason I bought that steam cleaner.
I remember shortly before Cheryl died, she was holding Samantha and started crying. “I can’t believe this cat is going to outlive me,” she said. I tried to console her, but I think that might have been the time that Cheryl was coming to grips with her mortality.
Now that Samantha’s gone, I’ve lost another little piece of Cheryl, one of the most special. I still have Pearl; I haven’t noticed much in the way of behavioral changes in her since she became the cat of the house, other than she’s now taken to sleeping with me more often. She used to like sleeping at our feet, but now she’s moved up to my midsection.
Samantha was a very special cat. A once in a lifetime kind of cat. I did everything I could for her, but in the end, when she could no longer stand, I knew it was her time and there was nothing else I can do. I’ve had her cremated, and will be burying her ashes beneath the tree we planted in my parent’s backyard, right next to where Cheryl and I were married.
Life goes on. I will definitely want to get a Devon again someday, they are hilarious, lovable little cats, but for now, it’s just going to be me and Pearl.
