Pico

It was three years ago today, Valentine's Day of 2009, that we lost Pico. He had a very little brain and the body of a moose, but in fact, he was all heart. Moreso than any other animal or human I've ever known, Pico embodied pure, unmitigated love.

That's Pico, pressed against Sandy. Belly is further down her
lap; Nada is on the other side of her leg, not visible in this photo.

The three boys came to us as feral kittens in August 2005, and Pico was by far the healthiest. I cried myself to sleep the first few nights, unsure Nada would make it to the next day. Belly's healthy growth stalled for a while, and he became the smallest of the three. But Pico consistently ate, slept, played, and grew, looking like a little bear as he galloped toward us. Fairly early in his life, he perfected the art of something we called Face Love. All the boys are interested in lips and mouths (Nada used to stick his entire head in Sandy's mouth when he was tiny), and they all rubbed their heads against our faces. But for Pico, there was an unusual urgency and persistence. He spent quality time pressing his cheek against yours, and then moving to the other side of your face to do the same thing; in bed at night, he'd stand on my chest, giving me Face Love for a good long while, and then he'd look over at Sandy, give my face a quick goodbye swipe, and stand on her chest to give her a long face-love session. Then a swipe goodbye to her and back to me. It was our bedtime ritual. Sandy and I both cherished it.

He was a total goof, and he had no idea that his body was so big. He was first called a moose by a friend who heard him clattering down the stairs. I always thought he somehow had too many legs, though he appeared to have the standard set of four. We'd hear crashing sounds from the kitchen and go in to discover that Pico was throwing his awkward body around as he chased moths, running into cabinets and drawers in the process. Once, he was chasing a butterfly across the back yard, paying absolutely no attention to anything on the ground, and he dragged Reemay, its stakes, and possibly a few plants along with him for several feet, never knowing he'd nearly destroyed my garden bed.

Sandy with Pico in March 2006; he was about 7 months old.

He loved all creatures, but especially his brothers and his people. He and Grumpus had an okay relationship, friendlier than the one Grumps had with the other kittens. (Belly sat and swiped at Grumps as he walked by.)

Pico couldn't resist his name; strangers received instant affection if they uttered it. He befriended feral and stray cats in the neighborhood, and he liked to touch noses with dogs. We used to speculate about what would happen if a coyote approached Pico; he'd probably have the friendliest (and heartiest) lunch he'd ever eaten. 

While Belly's always been a little sniffly, and Nada has a predilection for eating plastic and rubberbands, Pico was completely healthy and untroubled except when he suddenly faced dramatic life-threatening situations. Over his short life, we spent more than $10,000 in emergency vet expenses. (Sandy used to say, "This cat should have had a note tied around his neck that said Buy insurance for this one.")

We visited him daily at the emergency vet hospital. They fell
in love with our boy, and decorated his bandages! (He had
a port in his chest to drain the fluid, IVs on his legs, and a
few other things.) The boys are smoke-colored, meaning each
hair starts out white and becomes black; everywhere Pico
had been shaved, he had bright white patches.

It started with a seizure when he was about five months old; that, combined with some other symptoms, led to a diagnosis of food allergies that we were able to rectify with a change of diet. At 11 months, he had a chest infection (pyothorax), with a substance the consistency of peanut butter filling his chest cavity; he wasn't expected to survive that, but he did. The only long-term effect we knew he'd suffered was his fear of abandonment, after he'd had to spend a week at the emergency hospital. A year and a half later, he had a urethra blockage. But all the cats switched to a canned-food only diet and all was well again. And then came leukemia, a rare form, and that's what ended his short life. We don't know the cause of the cancer but our assumption was that all of the Xrays he had for his pyothorax damaged his cells; he was still growing at 11 months, and he almost doubled in size in the months after all that radiation.

A few weeks before Pico died, during the time that steroids
were temporarily reversing the effects of leukemia and he
was very much himself, our friend Tina came over with her
fancy lights and high-end camera and professional skills,
and she took amazing photos of all the boys for us.

When Pico died, we put his body in his burial box, without a lid, and kept him in the house for close to 24 hours. That was our habit with cats' deaths; I wanted to make sure that their energy had a chance to be freed in their home, and mainly, I just couldn't bear to bury them when they were still recognizably themselves.

I put Pico in his box next to me on the sofa. Grumpus, not related to the boys, sniffed the body and wandered away, disinterested. Pico's brothers had a very different reaction. Belly crawled up onto the sofa, pressed his body against the edge of the box, and placed his paw across Pico's torso. He stayed that way for a long time. Nada, too, said his goodbyes, sleeping near the box, keeping an eye on it, and returning to it over and over again throughout the evening.

By morning, neither Nada nor Belly were interested in Pico's body anymore, and I'd stopped feeling a connection to it as well. Sandy dug the hole (I couldn't help because I wasn't supposed to exert myself in advance of heart surgery), and we buried our beautiful boy where we'd buried Prudence and Roo a few years before.

It was intense to see Belly and Nada mourn. They spent the day visiting all the places Pico had hung out in his last week, as the energy drained from his body. He'd been denning, finding safe hideaways where he could still keep an eye on things, places he didn't usually hang out. Now, Belly and Nada went to each of those places, repeatedly, and yowled. Painful, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking yowls.

The next day they were both pretty quiet. They seemed sad, resigned to their brother's death, though I know that could just have been our projection.

The following day, they were back to normal, having put their grief behind them. In some ways, I'm jealous that they can love intensely and then move on. But since my biggest fear is that my memories of Sandy will fade, I don't actually wish I mourned like a cat.

I say Pico's name every now and then, just to keep it alive for his brothers. But I don't know that it means anything to them. They each know their own names, but they don't seem to understand each others'. The truth is, I say Pico's name more for me than for them. He's still our goofy moose of a boy, and we knew how blessed we were to have him with us even for such a short time.