April 1, 1994 - December 30, 2008

Bizgilbert came to me when she was five years old, right before Christmas of 1999, a really hard, disorienting year for me.

"Miss Biz" had grown up in a household with an older domineering female, and thus always had a meekness to her, a real "fraidy cat."  But her former foster mom came to visit a year later, and couldn't believe the difference in her.  "Her head is so high! Her back is so high! Her tail is so high!"

She had a powerful effect on any visitor.   She would hide amid the arrival of feet, but come out when everyone settled down, and all eyes were on her.  She was so elegant, but always had the eyes of a kitten.  And all those mystical stripes.  She was never a fat cat, deceptively small until she stretched her to her slender length.  And every visitor understood that her approval and her approach were not proffered casually.

And yet, she was easy to laugh at too.  Biz had fantastic energy, a snap of lightning, or a quick barreling thunder from one end to the other.  She took great pleasure in the long hallway between our love seat and the dinner dish.  But moreso than any cat I've ever known, she was eager to please.  We had a profound thing between us and my approval meant the world to her.

I remember one time that I stood up and she started to sprint down that hall, leaping up onto the bed in transit.   And I had something else in mind, and said, "Wait," and she stopped right in that split second, between one bound and the next up on the bed, as though inertia itself had less power over her than I did.  It seemed like the most uncanny thing that I'd ever seen.

Still does.

It was just Biz and me, you see, living alone together for so many years.  But I won her over most of all because I taught her that I was on always on her side, something she'd never experienced before, and I treated her with enormous respect.   I shooed her away sometimes, but it was damn rare and only after she'd had a fill of attention from me.  And oftentimes, I'd stop whatever I was doing, even when it was important to me, to simply take some time out to make sure she didn't feel lonely.

And she in turn was there for me during the most severe experiences of my life.  And a few of the good ones too.

She was never real comfortable as a lap kitty, more as a hipside kitty.  But it presented a problem when I started spending so much time on the big computer working on art and poring over photographs.  (I did all my reading with a laptop on our loveseat.  She loved that, at my right hip, with my hand loving her head for hours.  Sometimes I'd quit reading and just love on her for an hour more.)   So for the first few months of my new obsession, she dutifully spent as much time in my lap as she could bear, but would spend more time on the floor at my feet.   I realized over time that I didn't like having her so close, but just out of reach too.

So I found a handy chair, an simple old wooden chair, and would pull it out right beside me when I worked.  And she'd spend hours there (and still come into my lap from time to time).  We both just so dearly loved one another's company.  We were really deeply kindred about feeling close.

It's worth noting that Biz never expressed almost any of the classic affections.  She was never a licker, never a kneader, never liked to be picked up or held to the chest, and never purred out loud (only discernibly to the touch sometimes).  And notably, I only got her claws into me - at all - about twice in all our years together, and once of those was when I unexpectedly picked her up and carried her right out the door!

She was absolutely a housecat, and never inclined to dash outside at all.  (Once, she tried it, but returned with a snap when I barked at her.)  But I was moving into the way cooler apartment upstairs (the one with the long hallway).  So I moved up most of everything else first, and then came back down to just pick her up.  She was terrified as we walked outside, sinking her claws into my chest, but only for about a minute, until we got back indoors and she saw our new home upstairs.  It was our  loveseat - she deeply understood its significance.

I could tell countless stories, couldn't I?  Every little intimacy I cherish to remember.

But what is more intimate than sleeping together?

I sleep on my chest, turned slightly aside to breathe and balance my shoulders, facing arm up, rear arm down.  My legs form a figure 4 with one foot at my other knee.  Most notably, that figure 4 has to reverse when I switch aside in my sleep.  My first kitten back in the 80's had found that place, and I learned to gently reverse around him in my sleep, so he could stay there unperturbed.  We only had a couple years together, but sleeping with that little life wrapped up in my legs became one of my deepest nirvanas.  Neither of my children in the 90's ever did that.

When Biz was brought to me, an unknown quantity in an unknown place after hours of transit, she was understandably confused and afraid.  She was not eager to meet me, and quickly found places to stay out of my reach in my last Memphis flat.  I would spot her tentatively exploring from time to time - it was a big place with many rooms - but she stayed reliably away from me.

Until the third night, when she came to sleep in my figure 4.

It took years before she was untentative with me.  (It might have been moving to Lexington that really bonded us.  I took seven weeks to set up the new camp before going back for her, and the long drive was really hard, but she lept up onto the loveseat as soon as we arrived, and beamed, "Oh, so this  is where you've been!"  No displacement anxiety at all.)  But even while she was still wary and easily startled by me in those Memphis days, she found my figure 4 almost every night.

How could I not fall completely in love with her?

Over time, our "beddy-bye" ritual grew more elaborate.  I'd call to her but sometimes wait a while, until I heard her crunching her last snack down the hall.  Then she'd magically appear, and come to my outstretched arm while I lay on my side.  Her head would settle into my loving hand, her length along my arm, so I could lull her into my own drowsiness.  Sometimes her tail would cast so sweetly across my face, a gentle tickle for my nose and mustache, until finally I had to roll onto my chest for sleep.  And then she'd find her spot, and many mornings found her still there with my legs.  I suppose the nirvana was mutual.

You see, the thing to understand is that Biz was not my pet, and more importantly, she was not my child.  I'd had two "children" in the 90's and that was a completely different thing.

Biz was my girl.

Love, and affection, and a deep mutual respect for each other.  I called her "pretty little goof" a lot, but she knew that I took her needs and her heart very seriously, as tender as it was.  I respected all that insecurity in her, and I guess maybe I really understood it?, but I loved her like I wanted to be loved, and nurtured all the confidence and security into her that I could.  She knew where she stood with me, that she was  so dearly important.

She was my girl.

And it's making me wonder if the hardest thing about death is...?

That we build a little world of intimacy with someone, unfathomably private and personal and defined by all our little habits and understandings of each other.  Not just the experiences, the understandings.

And then we're left in that empty world alone.  Suddenly, there's no one else to understand it with  you.

Maybe we have countless worlds with countless others, but that one world that felt so special is suddenly completely personal, impossible to truly share.

I've always been so terribly proud of Biz, bragging on her dearness and beauty to anyone who'd listen.  And yet I can't shake this isolation that even my best of friends couldn't possibly get it.  As many people who offered to "trade cats" with me, who saw that she was extraordinary, still couldn't possibly know.

And I wonder, if that's the hardest thing about death?

But I suppose that's the secret, to moving on while cherishing forever.

To cast aside any doubts, and know that she  did.

Bizquick...  Bizgilbert...  Miss Biz...  my Biz. 

April 1, 1994 - December 30, 2008

I am so glad that you went with arms around you.