I wrote this up earlier this week.  It's helped me deal with
everything a little better.

McZ19

Cindy, beloved little grey friend of McZ19,  was helped to the Rainbow
Bridge, Monday, Feb. 26, 2008, after a lengthy battle with chronic
renal failure.  She went peacefully, and, as much as I miss her, I
feel better knowing that her suffering is over.  Her last day, Sunday,
was spent sampling her various sunny spots around the house.  She even
gave herself a catnip fit with the old catnip-filled sock in the spare
room.   I sat with her much of the day and evening and we enjoyed each
other's company one last time.

Cindy took the title "Companion Animal" very seriously.  She disliked
being held and didn't even seem to particularly enjoy being petted.
However, she always wanted to be with me.  One of her favorite spots
for years was on top of my computer monitor, usually with a leg or
tail artfully draped so as to cause me the most possible difficultly
viewing the screen.  In retrospect, I wish I hadn't allowed her to
spend so much time on that old monitor; it may have been the source of
many of her health problems, but that is water under the bridge.

Cindy did not seem to believe that humans could do much at all without
direct supervision.  Typical Cindy exchange:  "Hi!  Whatcha doin'?
Can I help?  I'd really, really like to help.  Would it help if I sat
right in the middle of it?  If I can't sit there, can I sit right
here?  I really, really want to help!  Please??"

She "helped" me eat breakfast almost every morning of her life.  Her
most important duty was helping me with the newspaper.  She preferred
to sit right in the middle of it but I would always try to suggest
that she lie on the left-hand pages so I could turn the pages over her
as I read.   Sometimes, though, she would sit, just out of reach on
the table, always with her back to me.  Almost like a sentry.  I never
knew quite how to take this. . . .  Was it an insult or was it trust?

She used to enjoy sitting in meatloaf pose on top of the refrigerator,
above my head, where she could look down disapprovingly on all of the
action.  I always got the impression she was thinking, "If I had
opposable thumbs, I would be running this place and I would do a much
better job than you, too!"

Cindy was an almost frighteningly intelligent cat.  When you looked
into her beautiful green eyes, there was a wise old soul looking
back.  I always had the feeling that I'd have had a real problem on my
hands if she did have opposable thumbs; that cat had figured out how
things work!

I used to have a kitty fishing pole which would keep her sister,
Bonnie, busy for 30 minutes at a time:  cast the lure, reel in the
kitty, cast the lure, reel in the kitty.   (I always got bored long
before Bonnie did.)   Cindy, though, would spoil the game by charging
across the room, biting the line in two and then running off with the
lure!  I got so tired of fixing it that I finally put the toy away.

The most amazing thing I ever saw her do was the morning when she
threw herself down across the stairs when I was making my way down to
feed them.  I had to squeeze against the wall to get by her and I
chided her as I went by.  "Who's going to feed you if I fall down the
stairs and break my neck?"  When I went back upstairs after finishing
my chores, I saw immediately why she'd done what she did: someone had
thrown up a hairball on the stairs and she did that so I wouldn't step
in it!

Many years ago, I had been to a class up in Boston and had left the
cats in the care of a sitter who was normally quite reliable.  It
started to snow on the way home, and by the time I left the Mass Pike,
it was bad enough that I could hardly tell where the road was.  It
took me about 6 hours to get home (the trip was normally 2 1/2 hrs) and
I felt like kissing the ground when I finally had my car safely in the
garage.
I unlocked the back door and Cindy was there immediately.  Both of my
cats are normally almost mute, but Cindy was far from mute that
evening!  "Hey you! " she commanded.  "Come here!  You've GOT to see
this.  I don't care if you need to pee like a horse!  You come here
NOW and look at this!"  And she led me down into the basement where
their litterbox was.
I have to admit that she had a point.  It was a mess.  The sitter must
have missed a day, or something.  So I chuckled to myself as I cleaned
it out while being ordered around and cussed out by a tiny grey
kitty.  There was no questioning her meaning that night!

Cindy was a little clown who seemed to enjoy doing cute things to make
me laugh - just as long as she was in on the joke.  Once, though, she
was sitting on the dining table while I was reading the paper and
eating my cereal.  (Doesn't everyone let their cats sit on the dining
table??)  I finished my cereal and set my bowl to the side where Cindy
promptly phromphed her tail into the leftover milk.  I started
laughing when I saw what had happened but was immediately stilled when
I saw the hurt in her eyes.  She picked up her tail and started
licking it, very casually.  I could see her expression change, though,
when she found the milk on her tail.  "Damn it!"  her eyes said, and
she jumped down to take a more private (and more thorough)  bath in
the kitchen.

Cindy's sister, Bonnie, and I used to like to play "chase" games when
she was younger.  She loved to stalk and be stalked.  One of Bonnie's
favorite hiding places was under the shower curtain on the bathtub
upstairs.  She'd get between the tub and the curtain, and of course,
her big grey kitty butt would be hanging out for all to see.  I'd come
up behind her, give her a nudge with my toe, and she'd take a swipe at
me.  We'd continue the game until she took off running for the next
bout of hide and seek.
Once night, I came upstairs and saw a kitty butt under the shower
curtain.  I assumed it was Bonnie and gave it a little nudge.  To my
surprise, a little grey critter came flying out from under the
curtain, whirled around in the hall, and glared at me accusingly.
"You kicked me!  I can't believe you kicked me!"  It would have been
quite funny except for the obvious hurt in her eyes.

Cindy seemed to have a theory that human toenails are removable and
she always jumped at a chance to test her theory.  The first time it
happened, she was just a kitten and I was standing in the kitchen,
barefoot, preparing their breakfast.  I looked down to see Cindy
sitting on my foot.  Aw, isn't that cute, I thought.  And then the
little scoundrel reached down and tried to pull the nail off my big
toe!  Yeouch!  She never outgrew that quirk, either.  I've always gone
barefoot at my peril around here.  It always seemed particularly
nefarious to be attacked by a little grey shadow in the bathroom at 2
AM, while sitting on the throne, sans slippers.

Although she became a lapcat as she aged, during her early years, she
NEVER sat in my lap, and in bed, she would snuggle under the covers
only as long as there was at least a sheet between her and her human.
Back in 1999, I spent several months in a halo brace to heal a crushed
vertebra in my neck.  The night I finally came home in a hard collar,
without my halo, Cindy crawled into my lap, curled up and went to
sleep, purring up a storm.  I've always been very touched by that.

I have read that animal behaviorists say that cats interpret our
petting as they would caresses from their mother's tongue.  So, I've
always found it touching that, when being petted, Cindy preferred to
have my free hand where she could reach it with her tongue, so she
could groom me, ever so gently, while I was "grooming" her.  That was
one of her most endearing quirks, yet it is also one of the saddest.
She could never quite bring herself to simply accept all the gifts,
freely given:  the tokens of an astonishingly deep and loving bond
which formed between two disparate creatures, sharing neither language
nor species, but who came to know and love each other well.  I will
miss you, my little grey piece of fluff.