The first time I saw Alistaire was sometime around the end of 1998 or beginning of 1999. I lived at the time with a roommate who owned two cats (they were hers before we moved in together). We would come back from excursions and see this cat, an adult of brownish tabbyish appearance (later we decided he was Abyssynian), around our apartment building. He was always very friendly and enjoyed being petted, had no objection to being picked up, and would generally purr his butt off around us. It being January, with snow on the ground, my heart gave in about the third or fourth time I saw him and I decided I wanted to adopt him. The roommate agreed to it and we took him upstairs. He did not get along very well with the roommate's cats, Imp and Pounce, but eventually entered into an uneasy truce with them, in where they had the run of the back of the apartment and he had the front -- with a (barely) drawn line at the litterbox. He would pee in the bathroom tub rather than in the box... but at least he used the box for everything else.

Debate for a name went on for a little while. I liked Cinnabar, because of the cinnamon color of his coat, but my then-boyfriend (was also living with us) objected. Because it had been storming the day we adopted him, I thought there should be something about a storm in there. Eventually, though, someone suggested (I can't remember who now) that he be named Alistaire. It seemed appropriate, since he had a very dignified and regal way of sitting, and it was also a little tribute to a minor character from Marvel's Excalibur comic, Alistaire Stuart. I also liked it for the way it could be shortened to Ali, and the puns that would lead from that (Ali-Cat, etc.).

Once, not long after we took him in, the next door neighbor knocked on the door to see if she could borrow something. She saw him sitting on the couch and said, "You!" and laughingly informed us that she had taken Ali in for a couple of weeks, bought him cat food and everything, and he'd disappeared on her. We figured he must have been scamming the whole building, and for a while I wondered if he'd take off on us, too, but he seemed content. He also never seemed to be the typical stray; he was a little plump (though not heavily overweight), not mangy (his coat was soft and plush), and the only suggestion that he'd been brawling with other cats were some minor rips in his ears. The eventual conclusion was that he had been owned by students (we lived very close to Xavier University at the time) and that he had been abandoned when they moved.

Eventually, the roommate and her two cats moved out, leaving my boyfriend, Alistaire, and myself in the apartment. Ali flourished. His personality really shone once he was not under the daily oppression of Imp and Pounce. I was surprised the first night he ventured into my bedroom (a place he'd almost never visited before, owing to the other cats' control of their territory), amused when he hopped up to sleep on the bed, and then contented when it became a regular occurrence. He often slept between our legs or behind the crook of mine, wherever he felt most comfortable. And then he began the routine of waking me up for food, since I was usually the earlier riser due to my job. His rippling purr was loud and voluptuous, both sweet and demanding; he'd bump his body against mine and walk up and down the length of me until I awoke. I'd be allowed to attend to a brief toilette and then would give him his breakfast.

Around this time, married friends of mine asked if we could take in one of their cats. They had several and had to adopt out a few since their new roommate was highly allergic. The boyfriend suggested we take Taco (all their cats were named after food), since the two of them always got along. I agreed, but only on the condition that Taco and Ali get along. If they didn't, Taco would have to go back. This was accepted, and Taco came to live with us. I'll never forget the first day after he moved in that I had to go to work. He sat there watching me leave, yowling like his heart was breaking. I could hear the plaintive wailing all the way down the stairwell and until I went outside. His separation anxiety eased up after that, though, and, after an initial scuffling period, he and Ali got along like brothers. They would chase each other around the apartment, play together with cat toys, and caused general havoc together. It was very sweet to see.

The boyfriend and I eventually broke up, and in June of 2000, I moved out of that apartment into another one. On my first day here, I'd messed up arrangements for delivery of the furniture and picking up of the key, so I had to sleep for two nights on the floor, with a computer that had no Internet my only distraction. Fortunately, I'd transported the litterbox along with the cats in my car, so they didn't understand the fuss.

At some point, the ex-boyfriend returned, though we did not get back together, in a temporary living situation until he found another place. When he moved out that time (on September 10th, 2001, I'll never forget), we decided that Taco would go with him. Taco was being more and more problematic, constantly going just outside the litterbox and displaying other signs of discontentment, and we thought that if he was with the ex, he might be happier. I did end up taking him back very briefly at one stage, before the ex moved to Missouri, after which I never saw either of them again.

Alistaire adjusted through all of it, and in the process the two of us became closer and closer. I thought of him as my familiar; it certainly seemed as if he had chosen me as his human, rather than the other way around! By now he had perfected the process of jumping on the arm of my computer chair when he wanted attention, then oozing his way under my arm (which was extended to the keyboard), over my lap, and then up my torso where he could lay comfortably on my chest, demanding the attention that was his due. He particularly loved his headrubs, and grew to enjoy being scritched under the chin as well. He also protested belly rubs, but since he never attacked or showed any signs of dislike, I think he secretly enjoyed them. He'd lay on his back at my feet, flopping from one side to the other, and mew at me when I didn't give him enough attention. He always had quite the voice, though he was most talkative when he wanted food. And he always wanted food. He followed me into the kitchen every single trip I made in there, poked his head in the fridge, would lean up on the cabinets when I was making something, and always with the "mow?" that drove me crazy. He'd also lay next to me as I got ready for work, and I loved how I could stroke him from head to tail and get him to roll over, purring in pleasure.

Another thing he loved was being in the window. I had the couch positioned underneath the window for a long time, and he would jump to the back of it and then springboard up to the ledge, where he could bask in the sunshine and watch the world around him. As often as I could, I'd keep the window open for him, and many was the evening I came home from work to hear his plaintive little mew from the window, where he would await my return. I would swear he recognized my car when I pulled into a parking spot. One of my favorite pictures of him was one I took of him sitting in the window, silhouetted in the sunlight. After I rearranged the furniture, I made sure to leave a chair where it would still give him easy access to the windowledge.

He'd also come up to me when I came home, anytime I came in the door. He was almost doglike in the way he'd be right there on my heels, following me around the apartment (especially into the bathroom, which was probably the most annoying), and he'd even respond to his name and (for the most part) come when called, as well as to a tch-tch or kissing sound. Or, of course, to the sound of a can of cat food being opened.

As time went on, it became clear to me that Ali suffered from some sort of ailment, but no vet could determine it. He would occasionally enter a phase where he refused to eat or drink, disappeared on me (finding odd, dark hiding spots, like in the rear of a closet or behind the stereo speaker in the corner of my bedroom), and refuse any signs of affection. After three or four days of this, though, he'd emerge again and resume his normal activities, as if nothing were wrong. I took him to a couple of different vets, but no one had any idea what it might be. After some time, I inadvertantly realized that it was the unfiltered tap water causing this; I had a filter, but when the old one ran out and I didn't immediately get a replacement, and Ali went into one of his hiding phases almost right away, it struck me that it must be the impure water causing it. I made sure to keep well supplied on water filters after that, or gave him the good water I'd bought at the store if I was out. This happened once when my friend Mary visited, in July of 2003, and entailed a run to the emergency vet clinic, where, again, they could find nothing wrong with him.

I never knew exactly how old Ali was, since he was already fully grown when we adopted him, so I generally guessed him to be perhaps a couple of years when I took him in and went from there. When I started taking him to Banfield, he charmed all the people there into instant submission (as he did with most people). He was on a regular schedule for vaccinations and exams there, and since I had their Wellness plan that meant office visits were free, I took him in for every little thing that I saw. Generally, though, he was very healthy, the water thing aside, and it was thus all the more unexpected and horrifying when he began to show very strange signs in January of 2006. I'd been worried about him for a couple of weeks, as he appeared to be losing weight and wasn't washing himself, and he actually exuded a reek. When I took him in, on the 13th of January, they all looked very worried and took him in the back right away, whiel I was shown to an exam room. One of the vet techs came in and put a box of tissues down on the exam table, which alarmed me greatly. Then Dr. Tanner came in and told me all the horrible news I'd been dreading: that Alistaire needed to be hospitalized for renal failure. They needed to give him IV fluids and monitor his bloodwork, he couldn't maintain his body temperature, and more that I couldn't take in. I nodded numbly to all of it. That evening, I came back and took him to a nearby emergency vet clinic, where they would monitor him overnight and continue giving him fluids and doing bloodwork if necessary. I remember holding him in their exam room, a thick towel wrapped around him, and sobbing. He smelled of antiseptics and not at all of the sweet, musky scent that his fur naturally bore.

He improved a little over the weekend, though not much, but Dr. Tanner decided to release him to me on Monday, feeling that he'd do better at home. And he did improve. Though not markedly, though he never put the weight back on that he'd lost (before it all started, he was around 10.6 lbs.; when he first crashed, he was at 5.4, and the highest he ever got back to was 7), he acted like himself and continued his usual routines, becoming, if anything, more annoying than ever. He discovered a new favorite spot to lay, on blankets piled on the stereo speaker in the corner of my bedroom, as well as on a fleece blanket I'd arranged on a cat bed at my feet by the computer desk. Before this, the blanket had been on the couch, but I'd moved it closer so he wouldn't have to jump so far to be cozy. He also got back into the window from time to time, though never as much as before. It was around this time that they determined his age to be approximately 12 or 13 years, rather than the 8 or 9 I'd been thinking.

Since I didn't want to learn how to do the sub-Qs (subcutaneous fluids under the skin), I took Ali in to Banfield three times a week, at first, for them to administer the fluids. At first it went well, but after a while, he began to throw up after receiving the fluids. I tried learning to do them, and did manage to give him the fluids a few time at home, but it became a terrible ordeal, stressful for both of us, and I returned to taking him to the vet for them. I also took to doing some knitting while I was there, to pass the time while I waited for them to be done with him. I also got to know all of the vet techs by name, and was such a frequent visitor to the store that even the clerks knew of Alistaire. I also had to give him a special medicated food that was low in phosphorus, and while he took to it at first, he began to grow tired of it and feeding him became a chore and a half.

On June 16th, I took him back in, fearing that he was deteriorating again. He was hospitalized again, his enzymes were bad, and they wanted to do IV fluids and bloodwork. They had to shave both his front legs for the IVs, which gave him the oddest appearance, and he was kept overnight. When I brought him home on the 17th, I was sure he was near the end. Dr. Tanner actually stopped by with some food and a bottle of Alternagel I'd taken in, and she looked at him where he was laying in his cat bed, his head pushed half into the blanket as if that was as far as he'd managed to raise it, and said, gently, that she thought his systems were shutting down; he wasn't absorbing the fluids nor recognizing anything around him. My parents, who were in town visiting, came by later on, and we sat with him. After a little while, he got up and began to wander around the apartment, but in a disoriented, dazed way, as if he couldn't even see where he was going. He stumbled behind the TV and computer desk, and wouldn't lay down again even though I tried to get him to. After my parents left, though, the oddest thing happened. I got up to go to the bathroom, too weary to worry about what Ali was getting into next, and he followed me in, just as he'd always done. He waited patiently, sitting on the rug, and after I was done, followed me back out again. This behavior was so typical of him that, out of curiosity, I went to the kitchen to see if he'd come with me. (I always thought that he associated me going to the bathroom with him getting fed immediately afterward, since that was our morning routine.) He followed again, so I got out some food and put it on his plate. And he ate everything I gave him, then came back out of the kitchen and demanded more.

We went back to the usual routine for a few more weeks, with Ali in the same general state of not improving/not worsening, and I continued to take him in for sub-Qs, doing my knitting and watching all the cute animals that came in. (I met a lot of adorable dogs and puppies and kitties and cats while I was there, it was a perk.) I knew, though, that this wouldn't last forever, and I kept watching him for any changes in his behavior or symptoms.

My friend Mary came to visit again on the week of July 24th, 2006, for a concert and general hanging out. Alistaire was looking about the same when I took him in on that Wednesday, the 26th, but his weight was still low and the vet decided to put him on IV fluids. Because Banfield was closing in a couple of hours, they asked if I'd take him to the EVC to have the fluids done, and they put in the IV catheter and gave me the fluids and all the equipment necessary so that I wouldn't be charged for it there. I did so, saying goodbye to him only a little sadly, and then came home. I didn't think it would be the last night of his life, but somehow I think I had a suspicion. My stomach was tied up in knots and I had a hard time getting to sleep, even with alcohol, my mind racing with thoughts of what I should do, what if this was the end. When I finally did, I had strange, disjointed dreams. The phone rang about 1:30 and woke me up, but I remember that I was sitting on the end of the bed, trying to shut the alarm off (since that's what I thought it was, in my discombobulated state) when Mary brought the phone in to me. Somehow I managed to speak coherently to the doctor at the EVC, who wanted to change his fluids because his bloodwork was looking bad. I fuzzily agreed and went back to sleep.

On the morning of July 27, Mary and I picked Ali up from the EVC and took him back over to Banfield. The regular vet who'd been seeing him, Dr. Tanner, was off, and another vet looked at him, but I already knew what she'd say. He was sitting very carefully, barely able to stand, his eyes unfocused and his tail barely even twitching. For months now I'd been able to feel the prominent jut of his hipbones and the bumpy vertebrae of his spine when I ran my hand over his back, but now his thinness seemed more pronounced than ever. I knew that in many ways, my Alistaire was already gone and this shell of a cat was barely holding on. I was barely able to speak as I said that I felt that it was time.

We all cried. The vet techs all came in and said goodbye to him; Erin, who had given him fluids the most, was sniffling, and Jo hugged me tight and then him as well. I signed all the paperwork and nodded numbly to all of the various arrangements, and stood there by the exam table as they gave him a sedative to quiet him. He laid down on the table in his familiar curled position, his tail drooping off the edge. His fur was wet, but I couldn't stop stroking him as the vet gave him the last injection, and he went perfectly still. I'd dreaded this sight, had woken up in the night reaching for him to make sure I could still feel him breathing, but now it was over. He was gone. Someone gently lifted his tail and draped it over his back feet, and that was it.

He was the best friend anyone could wish for. Despite all his annoying traits (and there were many), he was sweet and friendly, demanding in his need for affection, always staying close and reminding me of his presence by wrapping himself around my ankles at every opportunity. If anyone ever had a familiar, he was definitely mine, and my heart is empty and hollow now because he is gone. Goodbye, my Ali-Cat, my Al, my gooberkitten, my Aligato. May you find peace and contentment, lots of puddles of sunshine and windows to sit in. I love you.