Mercury Baron (2004-2021)
By Laurie Baron, Ph.D
SAN DIEGO — Over the past 50 years, my wife Bonnie and I have shared our homes with six cats. The first was a beautiful seal point Siamese paradoxically named Whitey bequeathed to us by friends intent on stopping their baby from playing in her litter box. In one of her former lives she must have been a dog. She fetched balled up pieces of paper, followed us around like a shadow, and emitted piercing yowls. Siamese are lookers, not singers!
Shortly after she died, other friends tried to ease our sense of loss by gifting us a lilac point Siamese who came from a litter birthed by their cat. She was a feisty kitten whom I remember scurrying up our drapes every chance she got and jumping onto my bare shoulders heeding the genetic instincts of distant relatives that had been pets of Siam’s royalty. We called her Geraldine Furaro since she joined us during the 1984 presidential campaign.
As kittens do, she grew into a cat, but we missed the manic cuteness of kittens and bred her twice with a stud. the infamous seal point Digger. Despite their mixed heritage, her offspring looked more like her than Digger. We kept a male and female. Beardsley was a big friendly tomcat. He frequently ventured outside and paid for his wanderlust by sometimes getting skunked and stuck with porcupine quills. He also cheated on us by sneaking out to stay with our neighbors who fed him and let him watch television. The girl initially was an explorer earning the name Amelia Catheart. But she became shy and skittish when Geraldine and Beardsley were around.
When Geraldine finally died and ended our ownership of Siamese cats, my son Ari wanted a kitten he could raise. We adopted a tuxedo cat named Matrix who acted like a reincarnation of Beardsley. We soon yielded to Ari’s yearning for a dog. Ozzie was a gentle giant who towered over Matrix but feared his sharp claws.
Within a year we welcomed a diminutive calico into our home. Ari named her Mercury. She possessed a bell-like meow and pointed ears hinting at Abyssinian ancestry. She initially channeled Geraldine’s habit of perching atop my computer monitor. Intimidated by Ozzie, she spent much of her time cowering behind furniture and under beds whenever he was around and deferring to the domineering Matrix.
After the death of Ozzie, she emerged from her introverted shell to become a cuddly sweetheart. Her new personality persisted even when another dog, the mellow Elona, entered our lives. Mercury snuggled by my stomach at night lulling me to sleep with her soothing soft purr. She sat for hours in my lap binging on whatever I was watching on television and never insisting that I turn it off and show her the photographs and videos of cats that populate Facebook.
When Matrix was euthanized, Mercury was already 17. Caring for him in his final months blinded us to the onset of her kidney failure. She required weekly infusions of fluids with minerals and nutrients to keep her alive. Her emergence from her reserved self to an effusive one receded. Her confident and melodic meow rapidly degenerated into intermittent bouts of painful cries that kept me awake until I petted her gently calming her down to the point where she eventually nestled in the crook of my legs. Her formerly sleek body became skeletal as she lost her appetite to eat anything. Her rapid steady gait slowed into a wobbly one.
Yesterday the vet informed us what we already suspected. She was on the verge of dying. So, today we performed the same ritual we observed for Ozzie and Matrix bringing a compassionate veterinarian to come to our house and tenderly euthanize Mercury under the shade of our loquat tree. Tonight, I’ll be searching in the sky to see her spirit orbiting around the sun.
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Laurie Baron, Ph.D, is a freelance writer based in San Diego.