By the time he was 2, Zeus had had 4 homes. Adopted from a shelter by an elderly woman, the tiny white kitten had barely reached the 6 month mark before a broken hip resulted in his owner’s move to a nursing home and he found himself in the care of his owner’s 16-year-old neighbor, Jessica. In an unhappy home, Zeus was the girl’s sole source of happiness. She doted upon him over the next year and he grew fiercely close to her. By the time she had turned 17, Jessica had met a boy, gotten pregnant, gotten dumped, and found a lesbian girlfriend. She also found herself on the street until, per her mother’s orders, she gave up her baby and her girlfriend. To drive home the importance of doing that, her mother refused to give Zeus to her. Though she loved her cat, Jessica loved her baby and her girlfriend more and regretfully moved away. Her plan foiled and having no interest in taking care of a cat, Jessica’s mother gave the cat to a co-worker who found homes for displaced animals. Within days, the woman had found the now adult cat a home with my friends, DuShawn and Patrice.

From his first moment in their home, Zeus was reclusive. After all the upheaval and loss in his short life, he seemed unable to build any new relationships. He would accept a scratch behind the ears or a pat on the back, but he would not actively seek it out. He seemed committed to staying out of everyone’s way, choosing to sit in a window seat he quickly adopted as his own and stare out the window for hours. His plan was successful — the other household pets seemed oblivious to his presence.

The one source of potential interaction was in the form of another cat in the household, Francine. Woefully smitten with her, Zeus would follow her around, mewling plaintively. But an avowed feline feminist, Francine was having none of it. She would give him a dismissive look and saunter off for a sunbathing session in front of the terrace doors. A few months into his pursuit of her, Zeus abandoned any hope of forming a connection and returned to his window, relegated to a life amidst a sea of others yet ultimately alone. He stayed there for most of the next 5 years.

Last weekend, as I was heading to Chicago for IML, DuShawn and Patrice took a long weekend to visit family. As we always do, Mama M and I stepped up as caretakers for their motley crew of pets. The dotty old lady went over and did the requisite feeding and watering, fawning and gushing over whichever “ol’ pretty boy/ol’ sexy girl” was competing for her attention at the moment. All was well she reported.

Until I came home on Sunday morning.

Entering the house, the first thing I noticed was that Zeus wasn’t in his customary window. The thought was fleeting however as Francine and her brother, Francois, and the dogs, Clem and Willow, came bounding up, desperate for some human affection (and treats). After my usual over dramatic (you expected less?) play session — which involves me “collapsing” under the weight of their frenzied pleas for attention and rolling around on the floor tickling, scratching, kissing, and receiving a multitude of kisses — I got up and made my rounds. Water? Check. Food? Check. Litter pan?

Whoa.

That’s when I found him.

Curled up in a ball in the litter pan was Zeus. His brilliant white coat seemed even more so in contrast with the clay litter that comprised his bed. I stood there for a moment, staring. Having had cats of my own for as long as I can remember, I have never seen any one of them take an impromptu nap in their waste receptacle.

I knelt down beside the pan. “Zeus?”

No movement.

“Zeus? Buddy…?”

Nothing.

Tentatively, I reached out and gently shook him. I could tell from the moment I touched him that rigor mortis had set in. I sat there for a while staring at the tiny white corpse. Willow came in, looked at me, then Zeus, and wandered back out. Even in death, he seemed invisible. The thing that struck me most was that he must have felt so alone and isolated from everyone around him, that his final act was to simply curl up and die in a way that necessitated the least fuss for all concerned. In a lot of ways, I can relate.

I got a garbage bag and gently lifted him into it, wrapping it around him carefully and then placed him in another. I found an appropriate sized Amazon box in the garage and placed him inside, then sealed the box with duct tape. Since DuShawn and Patrice would be home in the morning, I took the box and placed it in two more garbage bags, sealing those with tape as well, and put it in the freezer compartment of the “beer fridge” in the garage.

A week later, I can’t get the image of Zeus in the pan out of my mind. What went through his mind in his final moments? Was it thoughts of the woman who rescued him from the shelter and then disappeared from his life in a flash? Of the teenage girl he adored who left one day never to return? Did he feel unloved, unwanted? Was the thought of forming another bond more than he could risk? Why didn’t he simply allow himself a few final moments of pleasure curled up in that sunny window as he passed? I’ll never know, but I hope wherever he is, he feels love and some sort of peace.

Zeus
2000-2007