aye, calypso

We had to say goodbye to Calypso last month. We were so fortunate that we got to spend the last precious days with her doing all her favorite things, if a bit more limited than when she was in better health. Walks around the yard to check on her favorite spots, bite her favorite grasses, and make sure the squirrel siblings that always taunted her knew that she was still in charge. Watching a Timbers game with Sal. Chair time with Sal, lap time while he ate breakfast, and lots of shoulder rides, her favorite perch. Naps on the back porch, keeping an eye on her peoples while we finished a project. Ice cream. Sleeping in her spot in the entryway bookcase. Shepherding her peoples at bedtime, making sure our teeth were brushed and we got to bed like we were supposed to. Curled up in the window sill to sleep in the sun. Lots and lots and lots of loves and ear scritches.

Calypso came to us in July 2017, during a hard time in an especially hard year. She just appeared out of nowhere, marching up to me as I got out of the car and headed up to the house, talking to me as if to say, “There you are! I’ve been looking all over the place for you!”. She was dirty and a little hungry, but was wearing a flea collar so we thought she’d go back to wherever she called home; we didn’t want to confuse her by inviting her in. But she was so sweet and friendly and insistent, I couldn’t stand leaving her on the porch alone. So I took some food and water out to her and spent the whole evening on the porch with her until Sal came home. And then we both sat out there with her until we finally had to go to bed. When we got up the next morning, wondering if she’d finally headed home, we opened the living room curtains to find her standing on the living room window sill, waiting for us.

We posted her picture on NextDoor and neighborhood FB groups, hoping to find her people. We decided that if she was still there by the 3rd day, we’d bring her in and see about next steps. At the end of the 3rd day, we opened the door to her and she marched right on in like she owned the place and settled in Sal’s lap and went to sleep.

And that’s pretty much how it was with Calypso. Once we’d exhausted every avenue of looking for her people, it took a couple of weeks to make her adoption official. But I often say she knew a couple of suckers when she saw them that day, and our fate was sealed. From the moment she came home to live with us, she became the center of our little world like a queen ascending to her rightful reign. She got what she wanted when she wanted, but she also took care of us like we were her loveable but slightly dim charges, shepherding us from one room to another, anxious that we generally be in the same room together to make it easier for her to watch over us (otherwise going from one to other if we weren’t in the same room), and positioning herself in a sentinel position at the door of a room, stoically waiting for us to finish whatever it was that was holding us up from sitting down on the couch with her where we should be.

She was feisty and mercurial, sweet and silly, rambunctious and bossy. So many other adjectives, too: lovey, imperious, naughty, clever, sassy, regal, mischievous. A bundle of personality crammed into a little body. She slept in weird ways that twisted her spine up like a pretzel and crammed her head into the blanket, acted like soft comforters and pillows were lava, attacked ankles from behind like a ninja, loved to shove her paw in my mouth to wake me up in the morning, marched us around the yard like we were the ones on the leash instead of her, and turned into a hilariously demanding but politely aggressive fiend for either cheese or ice cream.

Her whole entire day revolved around Sal and she spent as much time as possible riding on his shoulder, sitting in his lap, laying at his feet. We should all be so lucky to receive the utter adoration she heaped on him. It was revoltingly endearing. She loved roughhousing with him even though she was a very sore loser who had no compunction about playing dirty. When she would get frustrated that she wasn’t getting the best of him, she’d suddenly need to take a bath like a little kid yelling “time out!” when they were about to be bested at a game of tag. And then when he’d turned his back, she’d go right for his ankles.

She only liked play fighting, though. On the rare occasions we raised our voices in argument, she would frantically scurry between us, distraught and needing attention, effectively deflating the tension. Once during an argument while we were each seated in the living room, she leaned up on my arm and pressed her paw over my mouth, literally shushing me so I had to stop and reset to gather her up for a hug and reassure her that everything was okay. And everything was okay.

Calypso was 10 years old when she came to us, a whole life lived whose details we’ll never know. Which is part of the reason she got her name – that line from the John Denver song:

Aye, Calypso
the places you’ve been to
the stories you tell

(The other reason we chose her name is because she had the attitude of a little goddess as mercurial as the sea.)

Whatever her previous life was, she had really bad teeth when she showed up at our house and the vet had to pull almost all of them, including her top right canine. Which resulted in the little snarl on that side she often has in pictures, hilariously undermining her queenly air of regal disdain for living amongst the commoners.

Because of that, I always imagined that she had a lisp when she ‘talked’. (Oh yes, she talked. You know what I mean, don’t pretend you don’t. You do it, too.) “You guysth!” she’d say, to get our attention. Or in exasperation when we were, in her opinion, more dim than usual. “Time for bed, get upsthtairsth!” Or stand at my feet when I had cheese in hand like the most hopeful but dangerous predator in the jungle with the sweetest “Ctheesthesth, momma?” look she could muster. You try saying no to that little face.

I really cannot overstate how exasperatingly delightful this furry ball of ridiculousness was.

After losing an alarming amount of weight in a really short time a few months ago, we found out that she had hyperthyroidism, which is thankfully treatable. But during testing to find out what was wrong, there were other numbers that told us not to take the time for granted. Nothing definitive – could’ve meant months or years and there were a few times where it seemed it might only be weeks. But it was clear that we’d reached the stage of her life where we were walking the fine line between deciding whether there was still good time left or it was time prepare for goodbye. Our focus was on managing symptoms and comfort care for quality of life. It’s the hardest part of loving little creatures in our life, isn’t it? The responsibility to do right by them. To navigate the time of making their lives as good as we can for as long as we can without causing suffering.

It took a couple of months, but by mid-June, we were able to get her thyroid under control and it seemed like we’d have a while longer with her. But in the first weekend of August, it was clear that the time had come to rest. It’s always a heavy and profound responsibility to make that decision, but also a profound privilege and we do our very best to make it as peaceful and loving as we possibly can.

Our last days with Calypso were emotionally exhausting and exquisitely, beautifully heartbreaking. We were incredibly fortunate to be able to be at home with her for the whole weekend, to soak up that time together, just the three of us, hearts heavy but glad for every little moment. And on a lovely summer morning with the windows open to the sun, soft breeze, and sound of birds, the vet came to our house so that Calypso could go quietly in the comfort of the home she made for us.

The place she occupied in our little family is filled now with a deep sadness that makes it hard some days to believe she’s gone. I’m reminded of something I heard once: “What is grief if not love persevering?” And I think: yes, this sadness is what it means to love greatly, and this love is what it means to survive it. This is how I know it will get easier with time, and eventually, we’ll add to our family again. Not to take her place, any more than Calypso took the place of any of the others we have loved and lost; they are all here with us.

One night a few weeks after we said goodbye to her, Sal opened the front door to get the mail and a kitty that had been on the front porch scurried down the steps when he opened the door. He came inside and said, “I think we may have had a visit from our little spirit.” I immediately had a vision of Calypso as a little guide to the animals nearby saying (with a lisp), “Go here, this is where my peoples live. They take good care of you.”

The kitty looked okay, not hurt, and like it had a home. We keep water dishes out for wildlife when it’s hot so maybe it was just getting a drink. We don’t know where it went and we haven’t seen it since, but we’re keeping an eye out just in case.

I think a lot about how she came to us amidst one of the hardest times in our lives and saw us through the recovery of that time, the building of a new life, and then the tumult and loss that came with the pandemic and the times that have followed, to the period of stability we’ve managed to eke out for ourselves despite everything. The five years that she was with us were some of the most seismic of our lives, and through it all, she was there taking care of us in her endearingly weird little way. As if she came just when she knew we needed her most, and once she was sure we were going to be okay, decided she was ready to rest.

If you’ve ever had a beloved animal companion, you know that deep love and that devastating grief. Yet we still sign up for that heartbreak, willingly, again and again. The word “kith” from the phrase “kith and kin” is the Old English word for “known”, and I read someone’s suggestion once that we should use the word kith for the animals we bond with so deeply. That seems right to me. To be known is to be greatly loved.

Whatever cosmic intervention brought Calypso to us that day, July 5th, 2017, it turned our world upside down in all the best ways. She went to sleep in our arms for the last time on August 8th, 2022, and we wouldn’t have missed it for anything.