The Spirit of Spirit
Spirit was found as a tiny baby at OSU in an outside storage area of my building that was shared with Agronomy, Plant pathology and Natural Resources. He and his sibling were not being cared for by his mom (she was barely a teenager herself!), as he was undernourished and dirty.
The grad student found him and saw that the sibling had been half eaten. Spirit no doubt witnessed that and had to fight to avoid being a meal. He was tenacious from the very beginning, but so wretched and bedraggled and sick that the secretary of Plant Path named him Victor, after Victor Hugo. She bottle fed him for two days but could not care for him, so she asked me, a born sucker.
I immediately adopted him. He came to work with me each day as he had to be bottle fed every few hours. He also went to church with me and was loved by the entire congregation!
Soon he became stronger but would have terrible nightmares in which he would cry and fight and bite. I couldn’t touch him without being clawed and bitten. I became convinced that it was only his vigor and God’s oversight that enabled him to survive so I renamed him Spirit Hugo.
Being a kitten in a house with two mature female cats and a large dog, I watched him learn to be Alpha cat. Even the dog minded him. Spirit never bit or even clawed the others but he had a look and a fierce growl.
He loved to be held and would spend hours sleeping on my lap. He esp. liked to have his forehead and chin rubbed. Spirit got along very well with his two step sisters, Slurpee (another OSU rescue) and Itsy Bitzy, a Clintonville feral that was caught in a Have-a-Heart trap.
He loved corn on the cob (esp with butter) and would chew it down to the inner core. He was afraid of mice and my racing pigeons, but if a mouse was caught in a snap trap, he would carry it around the house, in the trap and howl like Tarzan of the Jungle, as if he needed plaudits for catching it.
He was fastidious with the litter box and even covered the other cats’ messes. He’d make a face and turn his head as he covered their feces.
He was visibly depressed after, first Slurpee (24 years old), and Itsy Bitzy (26) passed. He spent most of his time with me and I noticed a decline in weight. I felt guilty as I had neglected him a little caring for his sisters, but the vet confirmed he was in kidney decline.
I bought the special food which he hated, and tried to give him everything to help. It must have helped, as he lived two more years, but this last year, he has visibly lost weight and lost muscle mass. In the last week he preferred not to leave my room. He liked to sleep on my back so I let him, even his last night, though it was harder for him to stay on.
I will miss his deep purrrs and sweet personality. Although he did not let the others push him around, he was well mannered. He was very good and had no bad habits. He was a good Kitty and I will miss him deeply.
