Buffee

Yesterday was a sad day for Elaine. Her beautiful Siamese cat, and constant companion for almost 16 years, Buf-fee, died in her arms as we were rushing to the vets. The vet said that she had either had a heart attack or a blood clot problem. We buried her at Elaine's house in the backyard, near where she had buried two other Siamese cats, Ting and Pic-see.

As Buffee was dying, she reached out and patted Elaine's cheek a few times, as if to show how much she appreciated all the love that Elaine had given her during her life. Buffee has been going downhill for about a year, but had been making some progress recently, so her death was a shock to us.

Buffee, in the tradition of Siamese cats, guarded her mistress all the time. Until she got to know me, she would bite and scratch me if it looked like I was going to harm Elaine. She was a very talkative cat.. she had many many different sounds, and when she wanted to know where Elaine was, she said: "Ma!"

Once, when Elaine was singing the unofficial AARP song (AARP AARP AARP, etc., to the tune of Jingle Bells, the cat began to sing as well. This duet was repeated often.

Buffee was also an alarm cat. She would come upstairs at 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30 (if necessary) and howl. she couldn't understand why humans stay in bed so long. This used to drive me crazy and I would yell at her to shut up. I also got upset when she decided that the litter pan was not clean enough and would drop brown balls here and there on the rug. But, other than these two characteristics, she was a lovable cat and for the past year or so had let me pet her and rub her ears.

Buffee thought that she was queen of our house.. however, my male tuxedo cat, Lucky (actually, Luciano Hoodini de Tuxedo) thought that he was king of our house. (Names: Luciano, because his cries when I got him reminded me of Pavarotti; Hoodini, because I used to lock him in the laundry room at night so he wouldn't try to sleep with me and he found out how to unlock the door with his paws; de Tuxedo, because he was black, with a white scarf and white paws.)

Lucky and Buffee did not get along well at first.. she would hiss at him and he would bop her on the head (not hard though). In time, they grew to tolerate each other. Today, Lucky has been looking around.. I guess he will miss Buffee.

As the vet wisely said to us: "Death is part of life." To live forever, is do things that people will remember us by.. and therefore, we will live in the minds of those people, even though we are gone. So to, Buffee, we will remember the things that she did fondly for the rest of our lives.