Ferocious

Amanda sent this out to some friends about losing Sylvie:

I just wanted to let you all know that on Sept. 13, we said goodbye to our beloved Sylvie F. Johnson. You probably remember that Jennifer Johnson gave Sylvie to me when she left Vanderbilt. She was with us for 13 years before going off to sleep gently in Kieran's arms last Saturday.

You might remember Jennifer's stories about Sylvie pressing buttons on her answering machine and alarm clock. I thought, "oh, haha, sure" until Sylvie moved in with me and Laura. Sure enough, she did indeed know how to set off alarm clocks. Her goal seemed to be food freshness. The food laid out at bedtime was no longer adequate at 3 am, and she was bound and determined to protest shoddy service. If the alarm clock ploy didn't work, she would flip the metal dresser handles up and down, knock things off the nightstand--or, later in her career, meow loudly in the sleeping baby's bedroom.

As far as Sylvie was concerned, the most worthwhile thing I ever did was bring Kieran home to live with us. Right after our marriage, she abandoned me and never looked back. I could be petting her; she'd be purring and drowsing...and she'd hear his keys in the door and leave tracks behind flying to meet him. The second best thing I did was buy her a king-sized bed. Sure, she had to share it with us, but she knew who owned it. And my one remaining accomplishment was, in her old age, buying her a home with more windows and low windowsills.

That didn't keep her from resenting my many failures, though. When Laura and I adopted Eliot (who still lives with Laura in his old age), Sylvie spent three days on the roof of our house on Greenway. We couldn't believe she went hungry that long. She had to tolerate Eliot for some years, but just when she thought she was rid of him, she realized that he was just moving to Laura's to be replaced by something much smaller, but louder, smellier, and more demanding of her staff. Yep, Aidan showed up and Sylvie was less than thrilled. I considered it payback for all the night wakings Sylvie had subjected us to when she was being chased by a toddler whose first word was "Gat-ty!" (Kitty!)

Somehow, she survived the indignities of living with babies and small children, until she realized Aidan loved her passionately and was now old enough to pet properly. She started sleeping in his room. Bryce was always too rambunctious for her, so she would only visit him at bedtime when he was too tired to annoy her.

In this last year, Sylvie spent most of her time sleeping in the sun. She slowly lost her ability to jump at all, and we resigned ourselves to the scratches on the beautiful side panels we chose our bed for--that was her way of telling us to wake the hell up and pick her up onto the bed, dammit.

About a month ago, we noticed her staggering occasionally. She began to lose mobility, and though we ran many tests and tried many medicines, she ended up unable to walk. At that point, we knew we had to do the right thing. The boys went off with Aunt Laura on an outing and Kieran and I took Sylvie to our very kind vet. She actually ended up passing away from the tranquilizer and didn't need the real shot--she was 15 or 16 years old and ready to go. We rocked her and talked to her as she went off to sleep. It was very peaceful and very hard.

The boys are learning to process loss and death...they have lots of questions about death, about cremation, etc. It makes them ask about my parents a lot as well, but I think it's helping them understand--what there is for us as humans to understand, that is. And, being kids and happy kids at that, they only made it a day before starting in about kittens and puppies. :)

When Jennifer asked me back then to take Sylvie, I didn't think too hard about it. I'd just rented the house on Greenway, Laura was moving over from Memphis, and I thought "why not?" Sylvie turned out to be the companion of my whole adult life so far, and a huge part of our budding marriage and family life. She was very beautiful, with her round owl eyes, and she was pretty vindictive. But she was not standoffish, she needed love and gave it freely, and she spoke her mind. A good role model.

We always kept Jennifer's name as Sylvie's last name, confusing a series of vets. Her middle initial F. stood for Ferocious...but she wasn't really. I think she just liked the sound of it.

Love you all,