Some people are dog people

Before we had the home we do now, Sean and I lived out of a camper. At the time, it made sense—we were traveling cross country for work and didn’t have money to rent a place we weren’t going to use. One July, we were parked at my grandparents’, next to Great Uncle Herman, who was visiting from Vegas and also staying in a camper. Sean and I had gone down the road to watch the Baroda fireworks when I felt my phone vibrate. It was Uncle Herman. He’d seen our cat roaming in the yard, but not to worry, he’d put her back inside for us.

Strange. I was sure we’d shut the door tight…

“Uncle Herm? What color did you say that cat was?”

“Orange.”

Our cat was gray.

That gray fur was the reason I’d chosen her.

It was 2003, the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, long before Sean had come into the picture. I worked seven-days-a-week, twelve-hours-a-day with about a dozen other girls at a place called Pennellwood. It was what they called an “American Plan” resort, the kind of place where guests enjoyed “skit shows” put on by us waitresses, three family-style meals a day, and scheduled shuffleboard tournaments. Think Dirty Dancing, but without Baby in the corner.

Two of my fellow waitresses, The Judge sisters, got wind I was looking to adopt a gray cat, and they knew right where to find one. Down the road was a farmhouse with a litter of barn kitties waiting to find forever homes. A couple of seven and eight-year-olds greeted me with their arms full of gray mewing fluff balls.

The short-haired ones were out. That left two.

They placed one in my arms and it immediately started purring. A boy, the kids informed me. I didn’t know if it mattered. Was it boy cats that sprayed things? Maybe, but man, was he cuddly.

The kids traded out the purr ball for the other long-hair. A girl kitty, they said. A little lioness.

I took one look at the mewing lump and knew she was the one. We got in my truck and I gave her the first name that came to mind.

Wendy.

She nestled her claws into my chest and clung to me the whole ride home. That night, Wendy slept next to my head, kneading my neck and licking my eyebrows with that emery board of a tongue, so rough that first year.

That fall, Wendy moved to an apartment with me and Tracy, scratching her little licker on my cheeks as I cried my way through college. I came to rely on her comfort and unconditional love. So when she got out, I lost it.

It wasn’t like we were in the country with acres of woods or grassy meadows. No, we were in the big city of Ypsilanti, where cars zoomed past on five-lane highways and people lived on top of each other.

My part-time job at Walmart barely paid the overdraft fees, but if my boss would have allowed it, I would have skipped the shift in a heartbeat. Instead, I went to work, eyes leaking for the next eight hours, while my buddy Joel stayed behind shaking a bowl of cat food. After I clocked out, I raced home, fingers crossed that he’d found her.

He hadn’t.

I drove Joel back to his dorm and sobbed my way home.

The living room smelled like pizza, but I wasn’t hungry.

Then Tracy came out with something hidden behind her back.

“Surprise!” Tracy plopped Wendy back into my arms and I drenched her in tears. Wendy had reappeared shortly after the pizza delivery. Apparently, she was a pepperoni lover too.

Wendy got me through the rest of college. She came with me to Chicago and Kalamazoo, hissing at all the boys she didn’t approve of and licking my wounds as I struggled to find myself.

Over the years, that rough tongue of hers got smoother and smoother.

Then Sean came along. Wendy liked him from day one and soon became his cat too. The three of us were a family, then a family business. We went wherever the work took us. One year that was Arkansas. We set up a large tent at a state park. Sean and I worked all day and came home to Wendy for food and sleep and did it all over again the next day and the next.

Once, we found a perished shrew in the tent. We scratched our heads as to how it had gotten inside but were too tired from a long day of hanging or mudding or sanding drywall to investigate. Being that it was a state park, things got relatively quiet after the sun went down, so it was easy to fall asleep and stay asleep.

But in the middle of one of those silent nights, I awoke to the sound of the zipper unzipping. I shot right up and peeked outside. There was Wendy, perched outside the tent door, her tail swishing back and forth while she basked in the moonlight.

We put a lock on the zipper and the shrew problem went away.

Another time, in our present home, a chipmunk had somehow squirreled its way into the house and under the bathroom heater. I was just walking out the door for an appointment, so I did what I thought was best. Closed the bathroom door and hoped to help the little varmint escape upon my return. But when I came home, old Chip (or was it Dale?) was nowhere to be found.

He’d gotten his way in, maybe he’d found his way out.

The next morning when I was making my bed, the little guy reappeared. Dead as a doornail, right under my pillow.

They say that’s how cats show their love—by presenting dead mice to their owners.

In all her life, Wendy only brought me two rodents, but she loved me in other ways. She was my companion for nearly half my life, always situated at my side. She lived in tents and campers and hotel rooms and a movie theater. She tolerated car rides from Michigan to Wisconsin to Washington State and back. She loved Sean and Tommy and this new little baby she knew was growing in my tummy. He or she is due in August, in the month of the Leo. Another little lion, and hopefully just as fierce as Wendy was.

That orange cat that Uncle Herm thew in the camper, he bulleted out faster than you could open the door, while Wendy looked down from her throne. It’s one of my favorite memories of her, and I’ll keep it with me always.

Some would say eighteen years is a long time to have with a cat.

I wish I had one more day.

One more day to pet her silky coat.

One more day to feed her tuna or let her lick the ice cream off my Klondike wrapper.

One more day to watch her lie next to Tommy while he plays, unafraid of being trampled by a two-year-old, and refusing to relocate.

I wish she could sprawl out in front of the fireplace or where the sun hits the floor or beside the baseboard heater just one last time.

These past few years, I’ve been trying to prepare myself for the inevitable, but last Wednesday still came as a surprise. Just the day before, Wendy was trotting through the house, barking at me as usual to refill her food tray. Then there I was, smoothing out her fur, telling her what a good kitty she’d been, watching her take her last breath.

I’ll miss walking into a store and Sean stopping me to pull a clump of gray hair off my butt.

I’ll miss the four a.m. meows for breakfast.

I’ll miss the paw-shaped dents in the sofa cushions.

Her smooth tongue. Her kneading paws. Her rumbling purrs. Her soft nose. Her warm heap at the foot of my bed.

Some people are dog people. Others prefer cats.

Me?

I loved Wendy.

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In loving memory of Wendy Saitz Heil

May 2003 - February 3rd, 2021

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