We miss you Soss

As I mentioned in the last post, our cat Soss died last week while I was on my trip. Since this blog serves as my external memory bank, I wanted to write something for our kitty boy.  It's long and emotional and kind of pathetic, so feel free to skip this one.


I adopted Soss from the pound as a birthday present for myself in 1998. They thought he was about two years old. He was sweet, very shy and extremely soft. He was also kooky, acted like a dog (came when we whistled, begged, followed us around the house), and was the biggest wuss you ever saw. Except when it came to killing baby animals – then he was mister tough guy.


Rob, steady beau at the time, gave him his name, which was the way my nephew Jonah said “soft.” Although he was initially skeptical of this cat, Rob was soon under his furry thumb as much as I was. Soss came out of his shell with Rob and I, but was always very wary of strangers. 


In 2002 Soss was diagnosed with a chronic heart condition (as we were getting ready to leave on a vacation no less) and we were faced with the decision to “let him go” or get him on medication and see how he responded, with the caveat that he would never live as long as a “normal” cat. Rob may make me edit this part out, but when were trying to decide what to do, sitting on the back step watching this cat act completely goofy while sitting in an empty birdbath, me and my man, who doesn’t cry (I’d seen him cry exactly once in our life together, and that was when his grandpa died), were both bawling our heads off. We obviously chose to give Soss a chance to get better (and also camped in the back yard with the cat since we had to scrap our vacation) and he continued on his happy kitty life for many more years.


When Colin entered the picture things changed for Soss, as it does for all pet children. However, being a cat he kept doing whatever he wanted to do for the most part. When I was nursing Colin he would make himself comfortable on my lap, even if that meant draping himself on baby Colin to do so. When Colin started crawling, and then walking, things got a little more interesting. Soss spent less time on the ground and more time in our laps or in our room hiding. Around this time years of perplexing skin issues and rather frequent barfing was resolved when we figured out he was allergic to fish (of all things for a CAT to be allergic to?). So a special diet was added to the medical mix.


When we moved into our current house Soss got a lot more exercise than he had been getting since there were stairs to go up and down. He lost quite a bit of weight, and had started yowling a lot at night. I took him in and it turned out he now had Hyperthyroid. By this point the poor cat was on multiple medications daily, with aspirin and antacids in the mix. But he acted fine for the most part. He liked to cuddle up with us to watch TV and always came downstairs for his evening treat. He slept with us every night and had somehow weaseled his way into sleeping under the covers so he would stay warm.


We knew he was slowing down, he had lost his hearing, he slept nearly all day and woke us up several times a night with his aggressive (and pathetic) yowling. The vet’s best guess for that was feline dementia. AKA Kitty Alzheimers. He would basically forget where he was and get lost, then yowl for us to find him. I started making sure he moved around the house with me as I went about my chores, since if we left the room without him seeing us he would just yowl when he realized he was alone. We kept him gated upstairs with us at night, then in the last few weeks we moved his food and box into our room in an effort to keep him calm and get some sleep. We bitched and moaned about it, but it didn’t ever occur to us to not help him be comfortable. There were days when I got home and had to go find him, my heart in my throat wondering if this was going to be the time when he didn’t wake up when I stroked his head.


Unfortunately that nightmare happened to Rob. The boys had had a busy day and Soss was sleeping the day away as usual.  He had woken up with Rob but didn't want to get out of bed like he usually does in the morning.  Rob came upstairs to go to bed and found Soss, tucked in where Rob had left him earlier in the day. This time he didn’t wake up with his usual annoyed look and kitty bed-head fur sticking up all over.


Poor Rob, I can’t imagine finding Soss, then spending that night alone. He said it was the most horrible thing to happen to him, and I believe him.  Rob called me and had to tell me that Soss was gone.  It was horrible.  The most lonely feeling in the world and feeling guilty for not being there.  I changed my flight to get home earlier and spent a sleepless night crying and wishing I could have been there to, I don't really know what, but just to be there.  Rob moved Soss to a safe spot out of Colin’s path so that I could say my goodbyes.  I had been up for over thirty hours by the time I got home. We said our last goodbye to Soss at the vet’s office and then went to pick up Colin.

We tried to explain what happened in really basic terms. For the last several months we’d been telling Colin that Soss was getting old and fragile, that we had to be careful with him (ie – quit pounding on the cat). So we tried to use terms that Colin would understand. That when something is alive it has kind of a battery in its heart, and just like batteries, it runs out of energy. Soss died, his battery ran out because he was an old kitty.


Colin looked like we were going to spring a box of cookies or something on him. It was surreal to see his expression – a half-smile, wondering what the surprise was going to be. Clearly he wasn’t quite getting it. He first asked if we could get new batteries for Soss (really, no analogy works to describe death – there is always a “fix” in a child’s mind). Then he said he would go find him, that Soss was hiding. So he ran around the house looking in all Soss’ normal hidey holes. Then he was kind of done with that discussion and went to play. By that evening he had asked for a puppy, a horse and a pig. I envy him his lack of understanding about death and grief. And I wish more than anything to keep him from learning more about it.


Rob is as sad as I am, and I’m selfishly glad for that. I can’t imagine being the only one that misses our kitty. I know that we were given a gift that Soss just went to sleep on his own, that we didn't have to make that horrible decision that so many pet parents have to make. But it really doesn't make it easier, I think.

Since Soss spent so much time sleeping it wasn’t as if he was in the middle of our family life all day long, but going up to our room I still automatically look to see him on the bed. It has helped to put Soss’ things away, give his food to someone who can use it. The tears stopped, as they do. But little things bring them back. I found a whisker the other day, and a little wooly toy that he played with for years. I was working in the garden and kept thinking I saw him out of the corner of my eye, lounging in a sunny spot. Colin breaks our heart with his innocent offerings. “Here mommy, now that Soss is gone you can use his brush!”


Soss was our only baby for a long time, and had been a part of “us” for almost as long as there has been an “us.” We will have other pets, and we will love them. But there is never a pet as dear as your first.


We miss you maow maow. 

Back to the Prairie

After the drawn out library let-down and overall inability to find a different job, I was feeling a bit blue and the arrival of a free ticket from Southwest sparked an idea to head out to a few more Little House on the Prairie home sites ALONE. As well as Colin did on our South Dakota adventure, it’s still as well as a four year old can do. And as good a sport as Rob was to head out to the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t sure how willing he was to do it again. Lucky for me, the man had the same idea as I had, so I was happy to start planning a long weekend to Missouri and Kansas.


The plan was to fly into Kansas City, Missouri, rent a car and head south to base myself in Springfield, from where I could venture out to Mansfield, Missouri and Wayside, Kansas, then close the loop back in Kansas City.  And so on April 16th I took my leave of my lovely boys and started my first solo, non-work trip since I took myself off to the UK after college graduation.


Mansfield, Missouri is where Laura and Almanzo finally settled after a rough start in DeSmet. They bought forty acres of rough Ozark ridge land, christened Rocky Ridge Farm, and over the next several decades turned it into a several hundred acre sustainable operation primarily supported by orchard crops and chickens. Almanzo built the farmhouse largely by himself, at Laura’s direction. It’s a beautiful house by any standards, but proportioned for a couple who were a bit lacking in the vertical department! Laura was 4’9” and Almanzo was 5’4” – so the counters, cabinets and furniture, - were all built by Almanzo on a smaller scale than normal. The kitchen counters came to my thigh! There were many custom nooks, crannies and surprising innovations that the couple incorporated over the years. For example, Almanzo built a water cistern to supply the house with constant water supply – in the kitchen he ran one pipe behind the wood stove so that Laura had hot water to do dishes. They didn’t allow photographs inside, which was really annoying, but I bought some postcards showing the interiors.


Mansfield has the treasure trove of LIW artifacts, since she did live there for sixty years and upon her death the house was kept as is. The LIW Society has built a nice museum on the site, a bit too close to the house in my opnion, but it has everything from Pa’s fiddle, to Mary’s Braille slate to Laura’s dresses and so much more. I probably spent a good two hours just taking my time and seeing everything I wanted to see.


The second house on the property is the “rock house” which is a beautiful customized Sears house that the Wilders’ daughter Rose built for them. Rose was a successful author in her own right and took it into her mind that her parents should retire and live in a “modern” house. Unfortunately she didn’t seem to care that her parents loved the home they built for themselves… The Wilders dutifully moved into the new house and lived there for about nine years while Rose lived in the farmhouse. When she moved out, they moved back into the farmhouse. Too bad these stories were never captured by Laura – there was obviously quite a bit of drama in this mother/daughter relationship!


Laura started writing the Little House books while she was living in the Rock House, and she and Rose would walk back and forth between the houses on a trail that crossed over the highest part of the land. I was able to walk that same trail, in all my alone glory. The weather was beautiful, birds were keeping me company, the landscape was inspiring, and I could feel my inner narrator give up the silent treatment it’s been holding against me for many months.


I left feeling satisfied and not rushed. On my way back to Springfield, I took a detour to a Civil War battlefield. I mean, why not? We are a bit short of Civil War sites out on the West Coast and I hadn’t seen one yet. I didn’t realize that Civil War battlefields often run to the several thousand acres…so I took a quick look through the museum and called it good. Since I had plenty of daylight left and I was footloose and fancy free, I decided to head south to Branson, where country goes to die lives forever. I had found a Titanic museum online that looked kind of interesting, and I knew that the people watching could be worth the extra two-hours in the car. Unfortunately the museum closed for a private event a half-hour before I arrived, the traffic was horrible and I couldn’t bring myself to try to find someplace to eat – so I gawked at the Las Vegas meets Dukes of Hazzard architecture as I wound my way through the seemingly only road in or out of town and then went back to Springfield.


The next day, Sunday, I pointed my wagon westward towards Kansas, site of the second book, Little House on the Prairie. The eastern part of Kansas isn’t the landscape I expected. I think I was picturing more Nebraska-esque flatness. But, this time of year at least, it was crisply green and had long rolling hills. I’m adding more landscape description to beef this part up, because the actual site only took about a half hour to explore. The LIW historical society had discovered the most likely section of land that Pa had settled his family on by deduction, the census and the presence of a hand-dug well, which Laura describes in the book. Since a farmhouse (itself over a hundred years old) now occupies what is the most likely site of the log cabin (in relation to the well), they have built an authentic replica of a log cabin where Pa’s log barn may have been. It’s a wee little place, and I can’t imagine two adults living there, let alone with two small children (Mary was five, Laura was three) plus giving birth to a third (to baby Carrie).


Pa unfortunately chose a site that was less than a dozen miles inside an Indian reservation. When he received word that the government was going to move any illegal settlers off the reservation, Pa had a hissy fit and left before he could be removed. Unfortunately he didn’t have our hindsight that has shown that time and again it was the Native Americans who got “removed.” In this case, the government “reclaimed” the reservation a few months after the Ingalls left, which would have allowed them to legally homestead the land.


After this quick but fun stop, I drove back to Kansas City. I would leave on Monday and would have enough time to explore Independence, MO – the town where all the pioneers heading to California and Oregon “jumped-off.” Oh, and that Harry Truman fella lived here.


Alas, my story doesn’t have a happy ending. While I was turning in for the night I got a distressing (understatement of the year) call from Rob who had to tell me that our beloved kitty Soss had passed away. I’m not going to go into that here, but I did change my flight home to 7 am instead of getting home at 7pm. There was really no way I was going to be able to wander around and revel in pioneer museums with home being the place I needed to be. So I passed the last few sleepless hours until I had to get up at four to start my long day getting back home.


It’s a shame that my trip started off in such High Spirits and ended in the Depths of Despair, but there it is. I really did have a great time on my solo adventure. I was sent on my way with no grudgingly said “have fun,” I knew my boys were having a good time at home without me, and I was able to indulge in some well-needed me time.

Thank you, my dear heart Rob, for understanding and letting me go.