November 1996, three months after arriving in Australia, I getting ready for work, My wife Radka was crying in the living room. She was homesick for the U.S.A. but more so for the pets that we had left behind, our dog Lady and our rabbit Data. A friend was coming to visit me in the afternoon, so I left telling her that I would return around noontime.
When I returned and opened my front gate, there was a black cat sitting on my door stoop. She looked at me, meowed and stood waiting by the door. When I unlocked the door, she led me into the living room. Radka called her into the kichen, gave her a bit of milk and opened a can of tune fish for her. After eating, she went upstairs, jumped onto our bed and went to sleep.
She was wearing a tag with a telephone number, so I called. "Is she behaving herself?" the woman asked. "If she scratches your furniture, just snap your fingers. Her name is Pixel." The woman lived a few doors up the street and said she would come by to pick her up. After several days not hearing from her, we called again, and this time she came by to visit.
When she arrived, Pixel was napping upstairs. She awoke and came down to the landing and just sat there watching us. The woman was in no rush to leave, so we opened a bottle of wine and began to discuss Pixel. Pixel lived with her, she explained, but did not belong to her. She belonged to a gay couple who lived in the same house but was in the process of leaving Sydney and had no plans to take Pixel with them. She herself had other cats and did not want Pixel, so if we liked her we could have her. So we now had a cat, who we renamed Pixie, and Pixie had a home in which she became the only child.
Pixie seemed to accept her new servants graciously and treated us with her presence, as long as we didn't get too close or show too much affection. She was a Burmese cat and quite talkative, with a bark expressing her satisfaction, and a nip on the calf expressing disapproval. Whether sitting in the living room or upstairs watching tv, Pixie usually sat between us on the sofa.
We had our first problem with Pixie several months later when we returned from a night out to find her screaming in pain with a broken leg. That required a trip to the vet, an operation, and several days of confinement in a cage at the vet's surgery. This was the start of a lifelong hatred of vets, even for her periodic examinations.
Pixie never really considered herself as a cat, but more as an full-fledged member of the family. When we had company Pixie always sat prominently with us, not wanting to miss out on any important conversation. If dinner was to be served, Pixie followed us into the dining room, and as we sat down, Pixie took Radka's empty seat, since she was occupied serving.
After 4-1/2 years we moved to a house just five doors away. Pixie adapted immediately to the new house, especially when she discovered that it had a flap to allow her to come and go as she pleased, just as the original house had. Pixie ruled not only our backyard, but the neighboring ones as well, even those having cats. She could roam their yards at will, but heaven help them if they wanted to come into her yard.
In later years, Pixie objected to my leaving the house during the evening, sitting at the front door and howling after I left. We developed a habit of going for evening walks up and down the street or around the block. If Pixie wanted to go for a walk, she went to the front door and meowed. If I wanted to go, all I had to do was jiggle my keys or put on my jacket and Pixie would get up and go to the door. Our walks were unhurried, unless it was cold and rainy. Pixie would stop at each yard, enter and inspect some, and give me a comment or two afterwards. When she decided that she had enough, she would turn for home and walk directly there, speaking to me all the way home and giving a satisfied bark as we entered the house.
Pixie left us this weekend after a year of failing health. We will miss her early morning wake-up call, her companionship throughout the day and her late night good-night, sometimes followed later by the feel of her weight landing on our bed, her satisfied bark, and her pushing at us until she had all of the bed-space that she wanted. We will miss her curiosity and comments as we unpacked grocery bags, spoke on the telephone or puttered in the garage. Pixie now rests in our back garden besides our fountain. Her resting place will soon be covered with flowers. We will whisper a couple of words to her each time we pass, and silently thank her for the joy she brought into our lives over the past fifteen years.
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