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GUEST COLUMN – A EULOGY

Our Cat: No Name Grey Markarian

By John Markarian

Twelve or more years ago, a young grey cat began to visit us. He would come to our back door and sit there until some sort of meal was produced by my sympathetic, cat loving wife, Inge.

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No Name Grey Markarian

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We thought we knew where he lived and believed his home base was accessible but we were wrong. We soon accepted that we had become owners of a cat; or, at least and at best, we had been adopted by a cat.

Our first act after coming to terms with the fact of ownership, was to pay a visit to the vet. “What is the cat’s name?”

We replied, “He has no name but we call him Grey.” A file was prepared for No Name Grey Markarian.

Good old Grey became a member of the family. Our friends the Melbergers had several cats who had in similar fashion adopted them. How did they manage with cats who wanted to and were permitted to live inside and outside? The answer was a small flap door.

Grey got the idea almost immediately and thus had access to the whole house and to the whole wide out-of-doors. He had a nice soft bed and three squares every day. That cat had stepped into a bonanza. It was not one-sided. He became a bonanza for his new family – not in tangible treasure but as an affectionate new friend and relative. He went and came as he pleased. He changed our life; we adjusted to him, never he to us.

He was an ideal inside cat in that he would never jump up on tables or scrounge for food. He had a favorite chair in the living room on which he could sleep away the better part of a day. It was my favorite too, but Grey seemed to find a way to get to it first.

His demeanor outside was beyond our range of observation, but he would often return from a foray into the night with bites and scratches on his head and ears which we medicated with special cream.

Not long after gaining access to our house, Grey announced that each morning at breakfast time he wanted a seat at the table. His special chair, between Inge and me, was covered with a towel. He would come up from the basement and stop at the head of the steps where his full food bowls (hard and soft food) and water were placed. He would eat and when finished, walk majestically into the kitchen announcing his presence with what could only be called somewhat staccato meows. He would leap up on his chair and sit until grace was said and his bowl of milk was placed on the chair beside him. As we ate our cereal, he drank his milk.

Grey developed another special routine. After breakfast, on most days, Grey would leap from his chair, move to the area where his food bowls were and sit there looking at a white porcelain container which held a fine toothed comb, a curry brush, a wash cloth and a towel. Inge knew this was her summons to give him a thorough sponge bath followed by a prolonged combing and currying.

Don’t get me wrong – Grey was no saint. His claws could make a piece of furniture look pretty tacky. He would at times, infrequently, I’m glad to report, regurgitate in the wrong place. These venial sins could be handled relatively easily.

His graver crimes, traceable to original sin, and lying deep within his primal instincts, were his hunting escapades. Some of these could result in rescue of the victim, but most of them ended in the morgue. The largest number of victims was of the gray squirrel population. They loved to sit on tree branches too high for Grey and heckle him. He paid little attention, but now and then would manage to catch one.

One morning I entered the kitchen, went to the cellar door and opened it. There, just beside Grey’s food bowls was an intact good sized squirrel, prone and lifeless as if he had died of fright. I opened the back outside door preparatory to gathering up Mr. Squirrel and placing him in the garbage can, of course accompanied by a proper silence and a murmur of committal. As I bent over to gather him up, he leaped high in the air and scooted out through the open door. I became air-borne and landed back in the kitchen.

There were bats, birds, squirrels, moles and small bunnies. The crowning achievement was the episode of the “barn”, “screech” or “whatever” owl. Inge went into the cellar and was startled to see a fairly good sized owl perched on one of the beams. She had noticed that Grey was reluctant to enter his basement territory, and wondered why. Now she had the answer. She telephoned the expert, Ruth Melberger, who came quickly. The two went to the cellar, opened the outside door and began to “twit and twoo” in their most fetching hooting style. Good old owl stayed put

I had been on an errand and returned to discover the critical impasse. The only remedy was a call to the game commissioner. He arrived in record time. We descended to Grey’s abandoned lair. The commissioner donned gloves, picked up a small ladder, went around behind the owl while instructing me to keep its attention. He made the grab successfully. We went out into the yard where the commissioner opened his hands and the owl soared away on a wing span which looked to be at least two feet.

We have, since that time speculated about the owl in the cellar. Had Grey been able to catch it and drag it through the flap door? How could large Grey (20 pounds) and a good sized owl fit through the flap door? Had the owl attacked Grey and had Grey dashed through the door giving Mr. Owl the ride of his life?

Grey grew older just as the rest of the family. His climb up the steps from the cellar became slower and more labored.

The day came when Grey did not arrive for his morning bowl of milk at the table. We were not unduly alarmed until the day drew on and he did not appear.

We circulated through the neighborhood calling for him. Inge placed a missing persons piece in the newspaper. She prepared more than a dozen notices which we attached to trees and poles. We continued to circulate calling his name. One hopeful phone call told us he had been seen about a mile from our house. We went there and called for him but in vain. He had completely disappeared and we, his family, had no idea why, where or how.

More than a month later, about a block away, some painters were assailed by an odor coming from under the front porch of the building where they were at work. There they discovered the decomposing remains of a large grey cat lying on a piece of plastic.

We do not know the cause of death, but we think of Grey, crawling under the porch and depositing himself on the plastic as totally in character, one more and final act still polite and considerate so as to give his discoverers the least amount of trouble.

John Markarian, PhD., 92, is an ordained Presbyterian minister and retired president of Haigazian University in Beirut, Lebanon. He and his wife Inge reside in West Pittston. John’s memoir, entitled “The Thirsty Enemy” and detailing the seven years he and Inge spent in Beirut during a raging civil war, is due in bookstores in October.