Calpurnia

Adopted 24 August 1996 in Tulsa – died 2 April 2012 in Houston

 A rare hail storm hit our neighborhood just before we left the house for the last time together.  I like to think it was Nature’s loud drum roll heralding the end, at 3:15 PM, of a quiet, gentle life few knew.  Calpurnia never once misbehaved in the 16 years she lived. 

Her known history takes off in mid-1996 when she gave birth to dead kittens on a patio overlooking the banks of the Arkansas River, where Tulsa pets are often “set free.” A resident gave her shelter but couldn’t keep her.  She became a ward of the Tulsa SPCA.

The pretty calico with ecru eyes soon was The Tulsa World’s “Pet of the Week,” publicity the first rescuer used to strong-arm a coworker into adopting her. He took “Cat” (as he named her, ha, ha) to a bachelor’s pad, minimally furnished with a stereo and a sleeping bag.  So here’s a cat who in a matter of days, was dumped by the river -- following who knows what other abuses, miscarried, landed in the animal shelter, and shortly thereafter in a sensory deprivation chamber.  Cat was not even one year old.  

“Cat’s can live how long!?” gasped the new owner  when I told him …  Clearly, this train wreck had to be stopped. He eagerly brought Cat to my home the next day.  She sat beatifically on a chair, pleased to be there, which sums up her worldview wherever she was. I called her “Calpurnia,” and indeed she was virtuous and modest like the third and last wife of Julius Caesar.

Calm but not passive, Calpur welcomed new cat arrivals, regardless of their own attitudes, and was friend, even mother, to all.  She accompanied the solitary Violeta (blog bio 18 OCT 2011)  cleaned the soot off Pertinax’s coat after his chimney escalades,  tried to tame Antares and Montecor (blog bio 25 MAR 2017)… her kindness  inexhaustible. If challenged, she maintained Zen-like composure until  the antagonist gave up.

From 2006 to 2008, while Chris and I worked for Saudi Aramco, company housing limited us to two pets and so we took along my two aging dogs. My niece Lanette Dietz generously offered to move in to care for the nine cats I sadly left at home in Tulsa. Upon our return,  Calpurnia, Sultana, Pomponia, and Pertinax (the tame four) moved with us to Houston, where they quickly adapted to a new home and even to the irrepressible Basmah and raging Farhaan, the cat and dog we rescued in Dhahran. 

One minor oddity of Calpurnia was changing “residence” within the house. Basement dweller for months, she suddenly moved to the top of the kitchen fridge for a while, then into the dark recesses of a closet she went, until she decided to occupy Chris’ pillow, a basket, a cabinet … which for a month or two or more would become her exclusive spot. She rarely revisited a former hangout.

Withal, it was the serenity that emanated from her ivory-colored eyes that defined Calpurnia.  She stared down the good and the bad, and even her final moments with equanimity; that was her enviable strength and her charm.