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Much Ado About Publishing

Jessie: A Literary Tail & A Warm Nose for News

by Nina L. Diamond

If you've ever shared your life with a cat, a dog, or with any other creature you've loved, you will understand.

If you've loved a story, a book, a movie, or a television show about an animal that gave you warm fuzzies, you will also understand.

If you can't relate to any of this, you will not understand, and you have my condolences.

Speaking of condolences, three weeks ago, on February 17, 2010, only 11 days before her 19th birthday, my cat, Jessie, went to kitty heaven.

She should be sitting on my lap as I type this. She should've been trying to sit on the newspaper as I read it every day for the last three weeks. She should've curled up on each page of the book manuscript I've been editing.

But she's somewhere else now.

In order, Jessie loved three things: me, paper, and plastic bags.

I still write on my typewriter, and since 1991 Jessie personally sat on every page of every magazine and newspaper article and book I've written. She also snuggled up on most of the manuscript pages I've edited for other authors.

One of those authors joked years ago that her son had a phrase for kitties who liked to do this. Because you can't read something completely covered by fur and a tail, he called it "Cats Against Literacy."

As far as I know, Jessie only sat on a bookshelf once. I could be wrong. Who knows what she was up to when I wasn't home. But, one day, I was at my desk when she leaped onto one of the shelves and just stood there in an open space with books to her left and right, above, and below her. I grabbed my camera and took a picture. Just above her head in the middle of the shelf, cover facing out, is The New Yorker Book of Literary Cartoons. Jessie had this look on her face (I speak cat, so I know these things) that said, "I'll bet this is something I'm not supposed to be doing. Are you going to make me get down now?"

"No," I said to her. "It's okay. You can stay there because this is just too cute for words."

I'd been told that plastic kitchen trash bags are made with a beef by-product. That explained why I simply saw a plastic bag, but Jessie, with her warm nose for news as well as all things no vegetarian would approve of, "saw" a steak.

Jessie was nothing if not determined, and she was pretty damned determined to eat plastic bags. So, I had to put a rubber band on the knobs of the cabinet below the kitchen sink where the garbage bag lives. Still, she could open the cabinet and I'd hear her chewing.

"Jess, get out of there!" I'd say, as any protective mother would. "You know you're not supposed to eat plastic!"

She wouldn't stop, of course, until I pulled her out of the cabinet. Then, she'd give me a look that said, "Well, you know, I just had to try, on the off chance that plastic is suddenly safe and won't get tangled up in my intestines."

She also liked to chomp on the plastic bags I used as litter box liners. We cat moms have a heightened sense of hearing when it comes to the welfare of our kitty children, and I could hear her chewing that liner from three rooms away. I used tape to fasten down any ripply parts that she could get a grip on. She still managed to get plenty of chewing in.

Jessie was mostly a fur person -- I'm told that "person of fur" is more politically correct -- and sometimes a small dog in a cat suit, but not at all like the stereotypical cat. There wasn't one aloof bone in her eight-pound body.

She was extremely affectionate and liked to be in the middle of everything. She was brilliant, funny, and lovable. She came when you called her name. Like a dog, she greeted me at the door when I came home. Only, instead of barking, she'd meow an entire monologue as I walked in: "Where've you been? I'm so glad you're home. Wanna know what I've been up to while you've been out?"

Then she'd follow me around, often nipping at my heels in puppy fashion, for at least ten minutes.

She knew how to fetch. I'd wad up a small piece of aluminum foil, throw it, and she'd run to it, pick it up in her mouth, then trot back to me, drop it at my feet and wait for me to throw it again.

She loved to sit on my lap. She practically lived on my lap. And if there was no official lap for her, she'd make one. She loved to spoon. Once, when I fell asleep on the sofa while watching TV, she must've tried to spoon but since I wasn't entirely on my side she got inventive. When I woke up, she was asleep on top of the side of me that was facing up.

Until three years ago, she slept with me at night in bed. She'd usually start out at the foot of the bed, but I'd wake up in the morning with her on the pillow next to me. Three years ago, she suddenly decided that the recliner in the living room was a nifty place to sleep, so she'd put herself to bed there every night and I'd kiss her goodnight before I went to bed.

Once she began her overnight sleeping (during the day she had short naps and long naps all over the place) on the recliner, she'd come into my bedroom sometimes in the early morning, and I'd wake up to find her asleep in bed. A couple of years ago, though, she began a ritual that continued almost every day until she went to kitty heaven: Between six and seven in the morning she'd come into my room, hop up onto the bed, and sit next to me as I slept. I sleep on my right side, and I'd awaken each morning to Jessie gently pawing my left cheek.

As adorable as this was, on most mornings I was not interested in waking up at six o'clock and would open my eyes, look into her beautiful green ones and whine, "Aw, c'mon Jess, it's too early, I don't wanna get up!"

A flashback to childhood mornings when my mother woke me up for school.

But, Jess would not be deterred from her mission. She was up, so she figured that I should be up. She'd continue to pet my cheek with her paw ever so gently.

"Jessie, I know there's dry food in your bowl, and plenty of water. You don't need me to get up in order to have breakfast." I'd try to scoot her away, but she'd always come back.

So, I'd get out of bed, walk into the kitchen with Jessie following close behind, turn on the light, and then open the blinds in the living room so she could sit on the back of the sofa and look out the big windows with their sliding glass doors and watch the great outdoors. As an indoor cat, her communing with nature was limited to watching the birdies and the squirrels in the tree from the comfort of a leather sofa that cat fur could not cling to.

She thought I was up. But, most mornings I'd pull a fast one on her and go back to bed. And she would usually let me.

Jessie liked to box and wrestle, and she'd try it with any willing male visitor. I adopted Jessie when she was only nine weeks old -- a little fur ball who could fit in the palm of my hand with her big, fluffy tail hanging over the side -- and during her first two years she spent a lot of time with my friend, Jim, who taught her how to box and wrestle. She got the idea that men were ideal for those rough and tumble contact sports, so she never tried to box or wrestle with me.

A couple of years ago, when I was a hybrid of ghostwriter and editor for traditional country singer Dale Watson, and helped him write his memoir, Dale and I would spend hours at a time many times a week, for more than a year, sitting at my dining room table working on his book. And during each session, Dale took breaks to box and wrestle with Jessie.

Boy, was she fast!

"It's the only time she ever gets to be a cat!" he'd say, as he'd try a left hook and then a right one.

Jessie would've made Muhammad Ali proud.

Everybody loved Jessie. And she loved them right back.

When she was 12, she had a Cat Mitzvah.

I just couldn't help myself. It was too cute. I had to do it. Her Cat Mitzvah was simple and very dignified. I had about a dozen friends over for dinner and I made brisket. My friends, Diane and Eugene, brought lox. We raised our wine glasses and I did The Blessing of the Cat. Actually, the Hebrew blessing over wine that I'd adapted in order to bless Jessie, instead.

On the floor, Jessie walked around the table receiving morsels of brisket and lox from everyone.

Diane made her a Cat Mitzvah certificate and I taped it to the wall behind the dining room table.

While Jessie didn't read from the Torah or do a Haftorah (well, really, what cat can?) we deemed her an official Cat Mitzvah, anyway.

That night, she was very well behaved and didn't try to take anything out of anyone's purse or briefcase.

Usually, that was not the case, pardon the pun.

I always warned people to keep their purses and briefcases zipped and closed because otherwise Jessie would likely poke her head in and come out with anything she could sink her teeth into.

Once, she took a friend's checkbook and was halfway across the room with it hanging out of her mouth before we noticed.

Another time, she stuck her head into my friend Jim's soft briefcase and came out with a bag of his cherry pipe tobacco. We watched her trot across the living room with it hanging out of her mouth. As she was about to round the corner to the hallway, I walked over to her, scooped her up, and retrieved the stolen merchandise.

Jessie's done a lot of interesting and amusing things since she's gone to the other side, but they're a column in and of themselves, so I'll save them for another time. A few of them have some rather mystical literary parallels. Stay tuned.

Jessie was never sick a day in her life and was as active as a kitten until she had a stroke on the morning of February 16, 2010. She would've turned 19 (that's 92 in human years) on February 28th, and I really thought she'd get to 20 or even 21 since she was a Long-Haired Brown Tabby, and they can do that.

I raced her to the vet, and it was like a scene from ER. They stabilized her and she stayed there for the day. I brought her home at six o'clock, hoping for the best, but knowing that it was not likely. Something was awry with her platelets, and I knew that she could bleed out at any time.

I stayed up all night with her. She was as determined as ever as she tried to walk. I couldn't keep her from walking even though her back legs barely worked. She drank a little and ate a little and peed a little. She walked all over, from room to room, saying goodbye to her home. She knew.

And by 2:30 a.m., I knew, too. I knew that I couldn't let her suffer. That she would not get better, she would only get worse.

We hugged and snuggled and kissed and cried. We talked for hours. I made sure I told her everything I needed to tell her. She did the same.

I took photos of her throughout the night. She looks fine in them and you'd never know that anything was wrong. If only 92-year-old people who'd had a stroke and were about to cross over looked this good.

She fell asleep on the rug in the kitchen at about 6:00 a.m., so I took a nap on the sofa. When I awoke at 7:30, she was no longer in the kitchen. I found her in my bed. How she was able to jump up on the bed, I don't know. She was alert and adorable, though a bit weak. I picked her up, kissed her, snuggled and cried some more.

I called the vet shortly after the office opened and made an appointment to bring Jessie in to receive the shot that would send her to kitty heaven. The nice woman on the phone assured me that I was doing "the right thing, the loving thing."

I couldn't stop crying and hugging Jessie. My kitty child. My best friend. My roommate for nearly 19 years. Let's be honest: my best relationship, ever.

My soulmate.

I held her and walked from room to room reminiscing with her. I took her to every window so she could look outside and reminisced some more.

I took one last photo. She's sitting on the floor of my office, not far from the litterbox that's lined with her beloved plastic bag. It's the last photo you see here, the full-body shot of Jessie, aka "Jessie Belle," "Sweet Face," Fur Face," "Sugar Plum," and most recently crowned by David, my ex-husband (whom she replaced): "Her Jessiness."

I brought her to the vet. Oh, how she hated to ride in the car. But, during this ride she was eerily calm on my lap, snuggled in a green pillowcase that matched her eyes.

In the examining room, she had little energy as she laid on the blanket on the table. I had 15 minutes alone with her, then the vet came in and we talked about Jessie for another 15 minutes. I told funny stories and laughed while I cried. More hugging, more petting, more kissing.

I picked her up one last time and held her and talked to her. I told her how much I loved her. Then I put her down and was petting her and kissing her as the vet slipped the needle in. Jessie went to kitty heaven in no more than one second, her eyes half closing.

It was gentle and peaceful.

The vet and the vet tech stayed in the room with me for another 15 minutes. We were petting her still warm fur. Her beautiful green eyes were open.

The vet left and I stayed with Jessie for a few more minutes. Then, I kissed her goodbye and walked out the door, looked over my shoulder and took one last look.

I delivered kittens once, more than 30 years ago, and now I had been there for the other end of the life cycle. I had helped Jessie go to kitty heaven.

When I got home, I took the rubberband off the knobs of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. But, throughout the day, after 19 years of this habit, I kept reaching for the rubberband every time I opened the cabinet.

By the end of the day, I'd put the rubberband back on.

It's still there.

Rest in Peace, Jessie. You can have all the plastic you want, now.



Jessie Diamond: February 28, 1991 - February 17, 2010.



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Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

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