Squeak posing

A kitty with a soul, she was. I wanted to temper my earlier post with something I wrote a while back about the dearest kitty I have known:

A cat of note that I knew and loved died Sunday. Squeakus Maximus was singular, and I will mourn her always.

She had an epic full name, though she answered to just Squeak.  She came to me when I lived in a large country rancher. I wondered whether and how she would adjust when she went with me to a small downtown condo. Such a radical shift takes the starch out of some animals. Not Squeak. Oh, hell no.

She loved life on Kiowa Street. I didn’t let her outside, but she managed to maintain a friendship with the dog down the hall, sight unseen. She raced to the door when he walked his owner by for his morning and evening constitutionals, sniffing at the threshold and sounding her call.

She took to city living, sashaying around her place. She liked to lick lotion off my hands, a ritual we honored each night. She came when I called to her when I first woke, leaping on the bed with aplomb.

Named for a supporting character from “The Color Purple,” Squeak was both catty and sweet, with a witty wildness about her. She was a flat-out card.

When I moved to a house in a small town last fall, Squeak came into her own. She won the heart of her feline housemate, a cat with a reputation for standoffishness and dominance over other kitties. But like the rest of us, Smusch could not long resist. Smusch—in late middle age—sometimes rolled her eyes at and strolled haughtily away from the little black flibberjgigit. But she loved her. We all did, every one who spent a moment with Squeak.

In her new digs, Squeak got to go outside for the first time to explore. She was stuck up a tree for a weekend, but she came down when she was ready. She sharpened her claws in the great outdoors and watched the geese next door with wonder and disdain. And she grew. I don’t mean that she simply gained weight. She grew in length from a petite cat to merely smallish, as if she were adjusting to her new, bigger world.

My partner Deborah found her little body on the side of the street Sunday morning after we went looking for Squeak. It appears a car hit her. Her spirit, though, has since visited us a few times.

I woke Monday morning and called to her to jump on the bed before I remembered she was gone.

In the movie, Squeak’s namesake leaves home to make her mark in the jook-joint blues world. When we realized Sunday that our Squeak had left us, Deborah said softly, “Squeak has gone to sing.”

Squeak, you have a place to stop and rest from your travels anytime. We are so proud to have known you.