Angelina Kitina McGee
? - 2004

It sounds trite, and "Hallmawkish", but the animals that come into our lives really DO leave paw prints on our hearts. On Friday I learned that Angelina Kitina McGee, pictured above, has gone where ever good cats go when they die. She was the Queen of the Cats....

I met Angelina through one of the most remarkable scenes of interspecies communication I have ever seen in my life. My friend Rick and I were at a birthday party for Angela. The party had kind of migrated to another friends house. There was a pool, take out chicken, cake etc.

Suddenly, up on the hill a LOUD yowling could be heard, and this little tiny kitten could be seen meowing at the party. Attempts were made by the party to draw the tiny cat closer with offerings of fresh chicken. These were met by her utter contempt, yet the owner of the house told us that she had been hanging around, stray, maybe someone let her off there "in the country" but she was very wary of people and would not come down to be fed in spite of the family trying for weeks.

I have always said that animals like me, but they LOVE Rick, and cats have a special fondness for him, which he returns with his whole heart. Rick is a quiet and deliberate person by nature and not a conformist. If he decides to do something he doesn't really care if it "looks weird" to others when his reasons are strong enough. He went off a little way from the group and sat down cross legged some distance away from where the little cat was standing. He had nothing at all in his hands, which he rested openly on knees. He just sat there. He didn't say anything. He looked, for all the world, like he was connecting to the cat on some other level.

For her part, she looked a little taken aback, then interested. She came down a few more steps to get a better look at Rick, and she covered about half the distance between the two of them. Then she gave him another loud meow, to which he answered, outloud "That's okay, I'm not all that sure about you either."

As if these were some magic words she was waiting to hear, she raced down the hill into his arms. She was starving and scrawney and dehydrated. Everyone at the party thought she was about 6 months old, because she was so small He named her Angelina - I think, partially because it was Angela's birthday and partly because Rick is an expert on Bob Dylan's music.

I assisted in her rehabilitation, taking her to the vet a few times, where I was stunned to learn that she was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old. She was a tiny, frail, sleek cat with no energy in the beginning. But she was Rick's cat. For Rick she ate dry cat food mixed in with the canned. For him she lapped up the gatorade the vet recommended he try giving her as an alternative to having her hooked up to an i.v. It was to him she revealed her sweet, gentle and affectionate nature, in his lap she sat, and his hand she used to butt with her head to get him to pet her.

She regained her health and gave walking, meowing meaning to the word "catitude". She was the first of many cats that Rick and his wife Rainey would rescue over many years, living with as many as ten cats at a time in their immaculately kept town home. Every cat was spayed or neutered, had the best vet care, toys, any special food they needed and were placed in a sort of "zone" depending upon who, among the other cats they got along with best. When you visit this rescue family, you have to close the doors to the rooms behind you so no cat gets out of his or her "comfort zone" and none of their more curious foster brothers or sisters comes wandering in to start a commotion.

But, for Angelina, the newcommers were not equals, but subjects. She never got very big, never gained very much weight, but she ruled with her eyes and, occassionally, a quick flick of her paw against some rude nose. She reigned from the bedroom at the top of the stairs, and accepted no companions, save one, a very humble, shy tortie who mostly stayed under the bed. Yes, the others were loved, showered with fabulous cat toys, fawned over by company - but Angelina was THE cat, the original-and-still-the-best, the one who slept on the bed. She was Rick's early morning companion. She glared at others who might cross the threshold. "He's my person. It's only because I'm such a classy cat that I'm willing to share him."

Angelina didn't deign to come downstairs when human guests came over, but she did "receive" people in what I could not help but come to think of as her stateroom. She allowed herself to be petted, folded her well bred paws underneath her, and purred. She wasn't a snob: she was just better than all the other cats. If somebody could find a way to have bottled her self esteem and sold it than Rick and Rainey could be living in a CASTLE full of cats.

Eventually, Angelina went into kidney failure....but she was not ready give up her worldly position. For two years, she was on little cat dialysis and was tenderly cared for by her beloved humans. Make no mistake, this was not a case of a pet being kept alive beyond her time to comfort her people - this cat displayed a fierce will to live and a fighting spirit big enough for an animal a hundred times her size. It was evident in every line of her body and in the sharp, intellegent gleam in her beautiful yellow eyes. When she went to dialysis, she scared the clinic cat into complete submission with just a look. Sometimes I thought poor Rick might feel like he was just the horse for Queen Victoria's carriage.

Every once in awhile, Rick would send me an e-mail if she took a turn for the worse, but, every Christmas we would visit and she'd recieve The Hub and me in her stateroom very graciously. I knew she had to be getting up there in years, but, like the head of some grand family, I sort of imagined that she would always be there. When you thought of Rick and Rainey, you thought of Angelina the feline advisor to their extensive rescue operation.

Now, she's gone.

They say that people mourn the passing of animals in their life because, when they die, we human's realize that a chapter of our life is over. They say it is the passing of our own life we are mourning. One would say that I was so sad because I saw Angelina as a link to Angela whom I still miss. This is a good theory I guess, but anybody who has ever had such an animal knows the truth: we mourn them because we miss them. Pets, "companion animals" are like people in that each one has a personality that is unique. You can't replace one cat or dog with another cat or dog. This isn't a Model T. They aren't interchangeable parts

So, there's really nothing left to say except "Farewell Angelina....the sky's changing color...I'll see you in awhile" ( Bob Dylan)