A Tribute to Samantha: Her Story

Ed Howe said “The way to keep a cat is to try to chase it away” and I suppose that is how Samantha came to live with me in the summer of 1991.  Being a college student and already having one cat, I was not necessarily looking to have another.  But there was this cat, charming and clever, who eventually worked her way into my heart.  Samantha was not a particularly beautiful cat at the time I first lay eyes on her.  That didn’t happen until later.  Living on the street had been hard on her and good nutrition for a pregnant cat was not readily available.  Giving birth to a litter of four beautiful fluffy fur-balls in the neighbors basement window well, I remember her to be a very good mother to them all, though I only remember the names “Tigger” and “Smudge” temporarily given to two of them by the neighborhood children.  I recall once on a sunny Sunday morning in the  springtime going out to find a kitten of hers under the picnic table on our front porch that was draped with a table cloth.  It made a great shelter.  Looking down the street, here came Samantha with another little kitten in her mouth.  She deposited this kitten under the table as well, then trotted down the street to continue this process again until all four kittens were under the table.  I knew she was on to the fact that our neighbors were finding homes for her babies and she didn’t want to give them up yet or maybe at all .  She was a GREAT mother.  She was eventually to become a good mother to three other kittens I would later adopt and even to my own five human babies as they came along in the years after I had left home and gotten married.  

I wandered down the street to our neighbors backyard frequently in Samantha’s early days,  to check on the Mommy cat and watch her raise her babies, often bringing food with me.  And sometimes, especially after some of her kittens had gone to their new homes, Samantha would sneak into my house charming us with her personality.  My Dad, not particularly fond of cats (and not very observant, I might add) was against having the two cats that were already living in the house.  Another cat seemed out of the question so we began feeding Samantha outside on the front porch when she would come over to “visit”.  Then on a chilly evening during a rainstorm she came in.  My Dad asked “Which cat is that?”  We looked at the cat and then back at him and with a twinkle in our eyes simply stated “Patches.”  That was one of the other two cats in our household at the time.  Dad looked thoughtful and said “Oh!”  Another time he saw the cat again and asked who it was.  Once more we lied.  “I thought I saw Patches over there” he stated and we shook our heads and told him again that this was our cat Patches.  I was surprised he didn’t know the difference but…well, what can I say.  It was during that time that Samantha kind of adopted me, unofficially.  With all the kittens having found homes, nobody seemed to want this thin stray cat.  My neighbor asked me a couple of times as I recall, if I would like to have her or if I would take her.  I felt like I couldn’t because I was struggling to make my own tuition payments and was living at my parents house still.  (Remember my Dad?)  One day my neighbor suggested a proposal I couldn’t really argue with; if she took the cat to the doctor for vaccinations I would take care of spaying her and I would keep her.  And so she became mine or I officially became hers.  I have always claimed that Samantha adopted me and I’ve never been sorry.  She’s taken good care of me (and us) over the years.

Around this time, my Aunt gave me a thank you gift for house/cat sitting; a book based off an antique version of the title “Four Little Kittens.”  Already there is a correlation you can see.    Opening the book to read before setting it aside to save for the babies I someday hoped to have, I was introduced to the four little kittens, and then turning the next page I was introduced to their mother, Samantha, who looked remarkably similar to this cat of mine I was trying to come up with a name for!  This mother cat taught purring lessons, gave catnip eyes to the gingerbread men she baked with her babies, and received plenty of kisses on her whiskers.  That was it!  Samantha was my cat’s name.

Samantha’s veterinarian for the past 15 1/2 years insisted back in 1994 after examining her teeth, that Samantha was at least 5 years old putting her birth date back in 1989, if not earlier.  I based a later 1990 birthday on a group of kittens living at an abandoned house down the street that looked a great deal like Samantha.  My youngest sister and I used to visit them on our way home from her kindergarten class in the Autumn of 1990 whenever they were out under the front bushes of the house.  Then the mama cat would come hissing and scare them away from the humans, but the kittens were always very friendly.  We saw them frequently until the mother cat was hit by a car as she crossed the road from getting food for her kittens out of the dumpster at Highland Hospital.  To my knowledge the kittens had vanished.  We went through a harsh Upstate New York winter that year with the worst ice storm of the century in the North East.  Where did those kittens go, and how would they survive winter?  But I felt sure Samantha had been one of those kittens.  The doctor and I agreed to disagree and gave her a January 1990 birth date, but when it comes down to it, really no one can be certain of her origins.

Samantha has been a wonderful companion to me for the past 19 years which is nearly half of my life.  She turned 20 and I am almost 40!!!  Through her lifetime she loved pine trees, lilac bushes and had a real fetish for paper, especially upon waking up in the morning.  She loved being in my kitchen where she could be in the middle of the action of my busy household, take in the smells of the next meal and sample the fall out under the table or partake of the treats sometimes proffered by my children.  For the past  4 1/2 years she has battled heart disease, deafness, a thyroid condition, arthritis… and finally congestive heart failure and renal failure.  The doctor stated about nine months ago when she began really slowing down and losing a lot of weight that Samantha is one of those few with MORE than nine lives.  Her cardiologist always maintained that she was very special and everyone who cared for her during boarding was in love with her.  She was smart and had more fight in her than any cat I ever was privileged to meet and yet she was the sweetest and most gentle cat you can imagine.  I took good care of her, grateful for the years that we had together, but my husband points out that it was really Samantha who took good care of us.

Having gently slipped away peacefully on Thursday January 7th, 2010 at 11:10 a.m. with my husband and I at her side, she is a dearly missed member of our family.  I will always hold her memory close in my heart. 

   …Grieve not,

      nor speak of me with tears,

but laugh and talk of me

      as if I were beside you…

I loved you so -

      ‘twas Heaven here with you.

                                  Isla Paschal Richardson