| But I tell you, a cat
needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of
his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
- T.S. Eliot, “The Naming of Cats”
Meow!
Baby Darl
The name on the birth certificate is
Buddha, but I named him Darl, a name William Faulkner
gave to his alter ego and sensitive, artistic-minded
protagonist in As I Lay Dying. I wrote my dissertation
on William Faulkner and came to love the character
Darl. Darl was different, and I liked the sound
of the name: Darl. He was Darl the minute I
saw him - this tabby who reach out his hand and spoke,
“hi.”
“This is the one,” I said. Darl! A
boy? A boy?
“Is it a boy?”
“It’s a boy,” the caregiver answered.
“Hi, Darl,” I told Darl. “We are going
home, baby!” He was so small, 4 months old.
Their Buddha, my Darl,
was one of the five kittens delivered right there
in the shelter after four boys set the mother on fire.
They were born on July 1, 1997.
“You saw the mother downstairs.” And
I remembered seeing a cat with burned ears and was
told that the shelter advertised in the papers for
someone who would provide the special care necessary
for this traumatized cat.
Darl was released to me a few days
later, and we went home. We had been together for
15 years as of this past July 15, 2012. His “brother,”
Kofi, joined us just after September 2001. Kofi was
left in a box in front of a pet store in Kenosha,
Wisconsin, a couple of blocks from where I lived.
The store owner kept Kofi in a cage in a back room
of the store, among the mice, and the hamsters, and
worms, and was desperate to pass him along to someone.
Some
Blacks believe in the Biblical hierarchy of humans
over animals, but so does Western Civilization as
a whole.
Darl was now 4 years old. I had called
him Baby for so long that I had to make sure he knew
his name was Baby Darl. I had been going to
the pet store for Baby Darl and to the veterinarian
across the street since I arrived in Wisconsin the
year before. I never had but one cat at a time and
had to consider travel arrangements with two cats.
This kitten, with his white coat and randomly placed
orange tabby spots, was beautiful to me, but I also
knew that people would prefer the pedigree look, the
solid color, or systematic strips.
Day after day as I watched on television
the unfolding events after 911, I thought about the
little kitten in that cage. I tried to interest a
comfortable and spoiled Baby Darl in a brother, but
I did not get an immediate response from him. But
for me, there was this little cat in a cage…
When I returned to the pet store and
that back room, this little boy was further back in
the cage than he had been when I saw him the previous
two times.
Open, the cage, I told the owner.
I picked him up in my arms and carried
a suddenly animated little kitten to the vet across
the street. As I sat in the chair waiting, the little
kitten just looked at me. So grateful! A month and
500 dollars later, the little kitten came home to
me and Baby Darl - without the fleas, worms, and anemic
condition.
The little kitten became Kofi, “born
on Friday,” once I tracked back two and a half months
and picked that last Friday in August, 2001. Kofi
then became Kofi Bo because I could not come up with
a meaningful middle name. Kofi Bo, Kofi Bo.
Bo stuck!
The following year, my Boys and I would
be vaccinated and receive our passports to spend a
year in Ethiopia. Yes, each as passports and passport
pictures! The fellowship to teach in Ethiopia would
be an award for me. What would have happened to these
guys and the relationship between me and them and
between themselves?
In time, the frail Kofi Bo caught up
to Baby Darl, and the latter had a companion, and
the former, a big brother. Over many of their years
together, both Boys have weighted 15 pounds - until
this past January. As of the last few years, including
late last year, both weighted 15 pounds.
In January, of this year however, Baby
Darl started losing weight. Drastically losing weight!
We had returned to Madison, not necessarily the plan,
but close enough to Chicago, in November, 2011. Before
I left, Baby Darl started showed signs of aging and
problems with his bowels. He vomited more often than
usual. I thought this development was the result of
the preparation for a move from Philadelphia back
to the Midwest. So I set an appointment to see his
and Kofi Bo’s vet.
I have learned to be weary of veterinarians.
This is the United States of America. I try not to
forget. But I did slip up when Kofi Bo developed an
inflection in one eye in 2009.
I called what I thought was the closes
veterinarian in the area where I lived in Philadelphia,
Germantown to explain the situation and was told to
bring him in. When I put Kofi Bo on the table, took
him out of the case, I turned his head to face the
veterinarian.
“‘What did you do to his eye?’”
I think my mouth was open for a minute.
The horror! It was as if the veterinarian and landed
a blow to my stomach, and I stepped back, even took
my hands off Kofi Bo,, the whole while looking at
The Look. The United States of America where ignorance
is knowledge! Pick Kofi Bo up and go!
“Examine my boy’s eye!’”
This kitten, with his white
coat and randomly placed orange tabby spots, was beautiful
to me.
As the veterinarian proceeded to examine
Kofi Bo’s eye, I remembered the conversations of the
past about white veterinarians and white cat and dog
lovers who thought Blacks negligent, if not inferior
pet owners - or parents (I prefer “parent” or “parents”)
- and this was years before anyone heard of Michael
Vick. Some Black parents of cats and dogs, and there
are Blacks who would rather commit suicide than to
have cats or dogs tear up their furniture. Some Blacks
have learned from this capitalist society to love
money and things more than any living being. But then
plenty of whites, even caring and loving parents of
cats and dogs, have no problems with this nation setting
dogs on human beings, or watching or hearing about
bombs or drones exploding over little children, or
eating the meat of the deer they shoot. Some Blacks
believe in the Biblical hierarchy of humans over animals,
but so does Western Civilization as a whole.
Kofi Bo had an eye infection, and I
was given medication to clear up the problem. Needless
to say, I never returned to this veterinarian again.
In fact, I was soon given the name of a veterinarian
with a clinic actually closer to my home. This veterinarian
cared for Baby Darl before we left Philadelphia to
return to Wisconsin in November of last year. In October
of last year, when I told him that I was leaving the
state, he told me to stay in touch. He has “patients”
across the country. His “little buddies” would be
just a little distance away.
If I could have flown to Philadelphia
in January when Baby Darl started losing weight I
would have done so! I called veterinarians here in
Madison. I said my boy is old and sick. I heard -
money! Money, Money, Money!
No money, no care! No money, we can’t
help you! No money - maybe you should never have had
him in the first place!
Oh, but they love so much! But, alas,
no money, no love!
I called the veterinarian in Philadelphia
since he was the only veterinarian who expressed compassion
and love for my Boys. I have been calling him ever
since, two, sometimes three times a week. We tried!
We tried!
I tried to describe the changes in
Baby Darl. I changed my work habits to spend more
time with him. My long days became longer as the healthy
boy in October pictures with a hanging stomach grew
weaker, displaying a shrunken stomach. His sprint
became a slow walk in which he would stop on the way
to the kitchen or bathroom and it would seem he paused
in meditation.
I never thought he was dying. Old but
not necessarily dying! Baby Darl was ageing and how
could I put to sleep this precious boy because he
is ageing? When his quality of life goes, when he
gives up… But until then, the battle is on. Help him
with his bowels. Change his diet. Purify the water.
Make this apartment comfortable for him to moving
around, relax, and sleep.
Make more calls to veterinarians and receive the same
response!
Cats in general are brave; they conceal
pain. Baby Darl, in particular, initially up for the
battle, showed indication of pain. He did not become
lethargic until the middle week of August, and even
then, he was still able to walk but not sit. Climbing
to his favorite lounge in the refrigerator had come
to an end by mid-July, just after his birthday.
In the early months of this year, I
was able to stabilize the weight loss and he still
had an appetite. He was more finicky than ever and
went through a series of more expensive foods from
a local pet store once I discovered that even the
7 and 8 dollar brands (never dollar store brands)
of well-known pet food had grain and other additives
that could result in serious problems. I even changed
the littler to one that was corn-based as opposed
to the well-know, general store brand. . .
Of course, Baby Darl, the alpha cat,
the in-your-face cat, received even more attention.
I rarely left my apartment and then mostly when it
was necessary to shop for Baby Darl and Kofi! But
mommy no longer has the income she had in previous
years as when Louis needed dental work, Kofi eye inflection
medication, Baby Darl several times needing minor
medical attention. But their mommy had become too
much of a threat in the corporate college classroom
and found herself without, yet again, classes to teach
and more stressed than ever before.
My healthy Baby Darl would tilt his
head to look at objects closely, dip his hands in
your glass and sometimes in his own bowl of water
and sucked the water from his hands, purr louder than
a locomotive, and he talked! He talked ever so softy
but audibly about Kofi Bo and “his ways” or “misdoings”
or about a particular package of “candy treats” that
did not seem to be available on the kitchen counter
- and why not? We talked about the “bad” people at
work or the utility company’s representative. And,
of course, we talked about the weather: a tornado
in Tuscaloosa, an earthquake and hurricane in Philadelphia,
terrible lightening storms in Tuscaloosa and Platteville,
WI, and beautiful weather in Ethiopia. Baby Darl lived
for “pretty light.” He would roll around in the sunlight
on the living room carpets of various homes and apartments,
enjoying his “beach.”
But he also taught me to speak without
being audible. Baby Darl or I would look at each other
and either one, usually him, would open and close
his month quickly and then I would imitate him, and
then we talked. “Fine?” And he, “Yeah!”
“Candy food?”
“Yeah!”
“Are we tired?”
“Yeah!”
What Kofi Bo must have thought of this
strange goings on, I do not know! Perhaps he thought
we were talking about him!
Baby Darl greeted everyone at the door,
with a set of criteria for permission to enter his
domain. But he was friendly - in his way, meaning
the visitor had to notice him and speaking with
him. It was his house, as he often reminded Kofi
Bo when he encircled his younger brother, and I would
say - “No! No fighting!” But Kofi Bo would get the
message.
Most important, Baby Darl loved unconditionally
and reminded me of this whenever I was embroiled in
my own battles with corporatized and racist and sexist,
get-along to personal advantage administrators and
co-faculty members at colleges and universities that
love the bottom line more than they do truth and justice.
They don’t love you - but I do! Don’t forget me and
Kofi Bo!
How could I forget them!
I put up with ignorance for years for
them! I sold whatever possible to make sure they never
missed a meal even if I did!
Owners of property - tunnels and loungers
and stuffed animals and a small suitcase of various
balls and string “birdies,” and “mice,” they made
claims on the only chairs and tables in the house
as well as claims on the bed, of course, and the bookcases
on which they sat as well as the books which often
served as pillows, particularly when they were left
on the floor or kitchen table. They reserved the right
to claim the top of any or all refrigerators in which
at least one lounger must be placed, along with their
pillow…
I can honestly say I miss the fighting!
I missed the fighting on last Thursday, August 16th,
when I woke up (at Baby Darl’s time) 6 a.m., and opened
up a can of chicken rice soap and a can of chicken,
put small amounts down in two bowls. Feed him what
he wants, his veterinarian in Philadelphia said. Feed
him what he wants. He wants “McDonalds” and not the
healthy food. Feed him McDonald’s.
He was Darl the minute I
saw him - this tabby who reach out his hand and spoke,
“hi.”
For more than a month, I bought baby
food, chicken, cans of chicken and turkey and occasionally
cans of tuna. I bought Kitty Chow. In the mornings,
after breakfast, I gave him and Kofi Bo a teaspoon
each of a vitamin gel supplement. All day I changed
bowls and took out contains of various meats and soups,
heated everything up, and Baby Darl ate and ate. He
ate! But he increasingly and frequently passed the
food not more than 15 or 20 minutes later. By late
June, his “accidents” were also far more frequent
until last month when he was literally dripping from
behind as he stood in front of his bowls and ate.
I would clean up with apple cider vinegar
several times a day, all the while telling Baby Darl
that it was okay. But by August, he limited himself
to a little space on the carpet near my computer in
the living. No Baby Darl at the foot of the bed or
even in the corner under the chair or in his lounge
at night or day no matter how hard I tried to tell
him that Kofi Bo and I missed him in the room and
that Kofi Bo and I are scared at night.
Baby Darl was tired. I was tired. Sometime
last month, I would catch him with his head down.
I would come and, sitting right in front of him, I
would struggle with him to raise his head.
“Who are you? Baby Darl! Raise your
head! You are Baby Darl mommy loves.” I had said these
lines to both boys through the years. “Who are you?
Kofi Bo!”
For months, weeks, days, the leakage
of his bowels continued. But he ate and ate. He drank
water. He talked with me, eyes alert, but by May could
no longer play or fight with Kofi Bo. The later had
to wait until mommy dealt with Baby Darl and, as for
play - an imaginary friend stopped by usually just
before dinner so Kofi Bo became Air Jordan - for a
time.
Now this Thursday morning Baby Darl
could eat no more. Not one bowl of anything. He looks
up at me, and I sit on the kitchen floor near the
bowls, raising one bowl at a time. Finally he licks
the juice from one bowl with chicken chunks that I
have chopped up. And then it comes.
I clean up the mess behind him while
he continues to lick the chicken.
“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay.”
And it is not okay. It hasn’t been
okay. And he knows it. He knew it then and the months
and days before.
It is not okay.
It is frustration and anger. I cannot
give my Boy the treatment he needs. It is not okay
that children and people in this nation, under this
system of capitalism, must suffer instead of receiving
proper health care. It is not okay that people died
for lack of health care or inadequate. That loved
pets must suffer for lack of health care…
...or for some to profit because it
is about profits and not compassion and certainly
not about love. If I could have flown to my boy’s
veterinarian…
But my Boys and I live under corporate
rule in the United States of America, and in a town
of liberal and progressive minded folks for whom capitalism’s
hierarchy serves to protect them from the “have nots”
- have not the proper skin color, the proper gender,
the proper class with the proper qualifying papers
with the dead presidents or those almighty premium
gold cards. High-priced pet stores and pet clinic
are for the “haves.” But they do love here - just
not all people or all pets belonging to certain people.
The quality of life for anyone living in the United
States of American is determined by capitalism.
 |
|
The evening before, I
mentioned to a new neighbor in my building that my
Baby Darl was sick and she supplied me with a list
of clinics and offered to talk me to one of them.
Well, the next day, this Thursday morning, Baby Darl
is not eating and I call these clinics. No payment
arrangements and, as I moved through the list, the
initial payment rose. Finally, I found a clinic! Twenty
dollars for an examination, but it was located in
Sun Prairie, just north of Madison. The neighbor could
take me. Get directions! The appointment was for 4
p.m. When I meet the neighbor in her car, she handed
me a referral card for a corporate chain of pet clinics.
This particular branch was closer - closer than Sun
Prairie. I understood. In this car, I am a “have not!”
I have no options! You can decide. But not
really: two friends just happened to be out of state
that Thursday. So I had no choice.
What chance did Baby Darl have at a
corporate clinic were money is the bottom line!
The veterinarian examined Baby Darl
and began rattling off possibilities: kidney disease,
hyperthyroid disease and GI…
What?
Gastrointestinal cancer.
Could it be cancer, I say, crying and
trying to keep Baby Darl calm.
She cannot say.
The neighbor returns to the room and
speaks to the veterinarian: Tell her this cat is dying.
He needs to be put to sleep. Sent on to cat heaven!
Cat heaven!
This is my Boy. He goes home. I turn
to the veterinarian. What can I do? I have a certain
amount with me.
She leaves and she and another woman
come back and forth with plans that well exceed the
amount I have with me.
What can I do now with far less?
Thirty minutes later, Baby Darl is
given a steroid shot and I am handed a bottle of medicine.
I know that Baby Darl is now dying.
He is now, I know, in pain. But this is so sudden
even if it has taken months to arrive. And the neighbor
continues to talk about putting him to sleep rather
than allowing him to live for me: Let him go! And
I do not know this woman and she does not know me
or my Baby Darl. She does not know us! But she assumes
she does!
Later that day when I returned home
from the corporate veterinarian clinic, I realized
the quality of life for my Baby Darl had deteriorated
at least four months before. He tried. We could not
beat the system.
By Baby Darl was dying. He was brave,
but he was dying. From that evening until mid-day
Saturday when we walked back into that clinic, he
no longer held his head down. He looked at me. He
closed his eyes but barely.
We celebrated Kofi Bo’s birthday that
Friday, the 17th, rather than the 31st
- without Baby Darl. I camped out on the living room
floor next to him and slept there that night and Friday
night. We talked and talked. Kofi Bo was always near
by and the three of us remembered the good times when
he and Kofi Bo ran up “steps” in our previous homes
in unison or when he came to grocery stores with to
pick out the “candy treats” or when we three flew
on “airplanes,” quickly, quickly.”
I surrounded him with his special toys
and feed him chicken broth. I said over and over again:
“You are Baby Darl. Mommies Big Boy Man! Mommy loves
a whole bunch.” I made Kofi Bo kiss him several times.
We watched their favorite film, Shakespeare in
Love. Baby Darl purred, barely. I thanked him.
Baby Darl and I are going back to that doctor and
Baby Darl will get medicine, and Baby Darl will be
all “fixed.” And we come back home.
When his bowels continued to run, it
was “okay” because “You will be fixed” and all better
when we go back.”
But he knew. He knew. He walked to
the front door on Saturday morning as if asking me
to “open the door.” When I said it was not time to
go and get “fixed,” he laid down right there on the
rug in front of the door. I called my sister in Chicago.
I said, he is ready!
“Kofi Bo, it is not Baby Darl. It’s his stomach. Baby
Darl is very good!”
We kissed each other before Baby Darl
and I left the house.
Baby Darl is a world traveler. He is
my confident, by boy. Treat him with respect and love.
He is more human than some human, I told the veterinarian.
Baby Darl, alone with his brother, Kofi Bo, is intelligent,
familiar with books, particularly literature and knows
the dialogue in Shakespeare in Love.
What chance did Baby Darl
have at a corporate clinic were money is the bottom
line!
Today, Tuesday, August 21st,
I spoke with the charter owner and veterinarian where
Baby Darl was put to sleep. We spoke for some 40 minutes
and I heard a compassionate human being who understood
“Big Brother’s” world. We have to list options, the
possible causes of the problem. (But then there is
the question of money). Yes, there is the question
of money. Who can and cannot afford treatment. So
Baby Darl could have had kidney problems or hyperthyroid
and, as my veterinarian said, suffering from old age?
Yes…
Most important, the veterinarian told
me that the veterinarian who administered the shot
cried in the back room. She cried for my Baby Darl!
She heard me, he said. And she cried.
Baby Darl could do that! But I am not
crying anymore. My brave boy is at rest!
Play, Baby Darl! Play a way! You are free!
Now I lay me down to sleep,
The king-size bed is soft and deep...
I sleep right in the center groove
My human can hardly move!
I've trapped her legs, she's tucked
in tight
And here is where I pass the night
No one disturbs me or dares intrude
Till morning comes and "I want food!"
I sneak up slowly to begin
My nibbles on my human's chin.
She wakes up quickly, I have sharp teeth -
And my claws I will unsheath
For the morning's here and it's time
to play
I always seem to get my way.
So thank you Lord for giving me
This human person that I see.
The one who hugs me and holds me tight
And sacrifices her bed at night.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
The king-size bed is soft and deep...
I sleep right in the center groove
My human can hardly move!
I've trapped her legs, she's tucked
in tight
And here is where I pass the night
No one disturbs me or dares intrude
Till morning comes and "I want food!"
I sneak up slowly to begin
My nibbles on my human's chin.
She wakes up quickly, I have sharp teeth -
And my claws I will unsheath
For the morning's here and it's time
to play
I always seem to get my way.
So thank you Lord for giving me
This human person that I see.
The one who hugs me and holds me tight
And sacrifices her bed at night.
-
Author Unknown, A Cat's Prayer
BlackCommentator.com Editorial
Board member and Columnist, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD,
has a Doctorate in Modern American Literature/Cultural
Theory. Click here
to contact Dr. Daniels. |
