Humans and Cats

In 1968, while at the University of Southampton in England, I first learned about the love of cats by the people who live in the West. During my first week in Southampton, I went to Hafeez Sheikh's house. He used to live in a bed sitter (a bedroom in a house). The owner of the house (landaldy) was an elderly lady. She had three cats. Each cat ate different kind of food. On days she had to go out with her husband, it was Hafeez's job to give them food at specific time and at different stands in the kitchen. The cats were her life and occupation.I still remember the story that after a few years Hafeez went back to Southampton to visit the landlady. She spent the major part of the encounter talking about the death of the one the cats. She only mentioned in passing about the death of her husband during the same period. Based on this event, we used to joke about this that Western persons have more love for their cats than their spouses.

During the time the kids (Faisal and Nassir) were growing up there was always discusion about a pet in the family. However, being the dad, I always used to overrule about adopting a cat in the house.When Faisal got married, his wife Fatima got a cat from a nurse who used to work with her. Initially, I thought it was such a bad idea. Then the cat started coming to our house and we started sitting the cat while Fatima and Faisal went on vacation. I finally started enjoying the cat named Billy. She would come and sit in my lap and went to sleep in the lap like a baby. Tanzila and Fasial were very jealous about this. At night, the cat will come and sleep in our bed.

When Fatima moved to New York for her residency, Billy started staying at our house on the weekends because Faisal travels to Brooklyn every weekend to be with Fatima. This developed into a strong bond between the Billy and Tanzila, Nassir, and I. Billy would get up when I went to the bathroom in the moring and wait outside the bathroom door. When I went down stairs, she will lead me to fridge in the kitchen and anxiously wait for her favorite food tuna taken out from the fridge and put in the bowl. It was and still is a ritual.

Billy is a beautiful cat and only three years old (30 years human age). Lately, Billy has not been herself. She seems tired and does not have a good appetite. Faisal finally took het to the vetenary doctor last night and found out she has lost two pound in weight, which is alot for a small cat. This morning when Fatima called from New York called and told me that Faisal is really sad at his house because the vet has called him to give the bad news. The test results showed that Billy has renal (kideney) failure which is a terminal disease for the cats. This was a major shock for all of us. We do know that the only practical choice now is to pu Billy to sleep with an injection. However, we are not sure what Fasial is going to decide. So now I have come a full circle and compare myself to the landlady at Southampton. Life is funny.