One evening, a friend of mine called and said he was going to take me by my new condo. (His presumption was that I would buy it after I saw it.) I'd not owned anything since I sold my house in Colorado Springs a few years before. It was now 1997, and my job was likely to continue indefinitely (I'm still working on the same project).
I came, I saw, I soon bought. Miranda had no problem with the move. Sneezer, once again, took up station under my bed when he arrived.
He never liked to travel by car anyway. Each trip to the Vet would elicit many long, low and pathetic-sounding, Yeows. Perhaps he thought he was being taken back to the Denver Dumb Friends League. Perhaps he thought he was being farmed out yet again to a new owner. Fortunately, the drive to the new condo was just three and a half blocks. But a new residence was daunting enough, no matter how close.
After a few days, he finally appeared and began to tentatively explore his latest, and last, new surroundings. I like to think these were the happiest times for Big Sneeze. Unlike the Park Humboldt Apartments, he was able to explore the immediate surroundings of the house on Franklin Street. He never ventured too far, and there was a shady bush near the front window where he would lie underneath and sniff the air (see the green bush on the lower right side of the photo above).
He could also lie on the back deck and enjoy the warm sunlight. And there were windows in the bedroom, bathroom, living and dining rooms that he could sit beside and watch the world go by outside. He would always wait by the front window for me to return from work. Once I appeared, he'd let out a glad, clipped "meow" and jump down to the couch and then the floor, to meet me inside the front door to my unit. He would sleep beside me in bed, under the covers if it were a cold night.
In 2000, when I began to hold my annual Pride Parade Parties because the Denver parade in June surged out of Cheeman Park and coursed along Franklin Street right out front, he would mingle with the many guests and enjoy the constant attention.
He would also lie beside me or be cradled in my arms whenever I lay on the couch, watching TV. Miranda was not quite so fortunate in the new house. In late 2000, she began to develop terrible, aggressive tumors on the back of her neck from the semi-annual rabies shots. Her unfortunate reaction was rare; but even after three extensive surgeries, her time was near the end. The Vet could not close up the opening after the third surgery and nothing had stopped their incessant growth. In early October 2001, I called the Vet to come over and ease her pain for good. Miranda waited in the front garden amidst the flowers and undergrowth, her favorite spot, until the Vet arrived.
Sneezer, again, disappeared under the bed.
I had first met Miranda when my friends Dino and Larry lived in an apartment near the Governor's Mansion in Denver and got her as a little kitten. She used to jump on me when I slept on their couch whenever I visited them but was still living in Colorado Springs. When they bought a house in Thornton, CO, she moved there with them. They eventually acquired three more cats before they bought a triplex in Denver on Capitol Hill. But after they bought a dog, the cats were soon farmed out one-by-one to new owners. I inherited Miranda after Schnozz was put to sleep.
I always felt sorry for Miranda since she had been tossed about almost as much as Sneezer because my friends weren't allowed to keep her in their apartment after the landlord discovered she was living there. So she spent a number of months staying with Larry's parents until he and Dino bought the Thornton house. Not only had she endured the intense suffering from the tumors and the three surgeries, one time she was given a shot by the Vet's assistant in a front paw. The next morning I saw that it had puffed up to three or four times normal size. She had to spend time with the Vet until it got back down to normal.
Before she was put to sleep, I had to tape a sock around her open neck wound so she would not keep scratching it. Even with the sock taped around her neck, she would still attempt to scratch. The sound was a distinctive one because of the masking tape. A few nights after she was gone, I awoke to that same distinctive sound, coming from the kitchen where Miranda spent her last couple of weeks, sitting atop the counter by the refridgerator where warm air would make its way around to where she lay, trying to sleep despite the pain.
I would have attributed hearing the sound in a dream if it were not for the fact that Sneezer, laying beside me in bed, already had his head up and his ears turned toward the kitchen. I could see his distinctive silhouette in the light that reflected off the far wall. The light was emitted by a night light I maintained in the kitchen. (Being Calico, and predominently of white fur, I could see Miranda's form even at night; but Sneezer was gray, and I would often walk right into him without at least a nightlight to expose his presence on a dark carpet.)
Perhaps her spirit never left the house when she was put to sleep in the living room. I have no sure idea about such matters. All I know is that I heard the familiar scratching sound, and so did Sneezer.
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