Celebrating Sylvie

‘What the…?’  I exclaimed surprised.  A wet nose nudged my cheek and a soft purr hummed in my ear. Sylvie was pleased with herself at having leapt up onto my shoulder. From now on, this would be a ritual. Every time I went out to water plants, Sylvie would leap onto my back and claw her way onto my shoulders.

 I did not have the heart to discourage Sylvie she always seemed so pleased with herself.

Sylvie was a grey purebred Burese feline, a very intelligent cat and not because she was our cat.  Both my husband Bruce and I, brought up around animals from a young age, agreed we had never had a cat that was so intelligent.

I encouraged the wild birds into the garden by planting up the garden with shrubs and trees that would attract them. Sylvie was the ultimate hunter.  I would sit watching the birds and so would my grey mate, her tail twitching in anticipation of tasting warm flesh and blood.  I would say in a commanding voice, ‘Sylvie, you leave the birds alone.’ The tail would twitch in disgust and the ears flick.  She would sit there sulkily. She knew though, the birds were off limits, and not because she was hungry.

 ‘You can’t stop a cat from hunting.  They are born to hunt.’  Bruce would say.  Sylvie knew not to catch the birds. However, when we went away for a few days, I would find a pile of feathers on return, Sylvie had caught a bird.

Sitting over a cup of coffee out on the front veranda, a crow flew into the garden to drink and catch a grub or two.  Sylvie thought it might be fun to catch the crow.  She stalked the bird until quite close. Crows are wily birds, and this one was not going to be intimidated, so he picked up a big twig, stepped toward Sylvie, and dropped it.  Sylvie, not used to this behaviour, stopped and thought about the situation and then crouched to sneak up again.  Mr Crow instead of retreating picked up the stick again and hopping two steps toward Sylvie dropped the twig in front of her.  This time Sylvie backed off and walked away from Mr Crow who in triumph flew off.  It was amazing to see such by-play between the crow and the cat.

In the evening, I would prepare Sylvie’s food and then Bruce would take her and shut her in the shed at night.  If we had shut her inside, she would want to sleep with us.  We left the car window open and made a nest of Bruce’s old jumper and she slept curled up in this bed on the seat behind the steering wheel.  When I went to the fridge for the food, Sylvie would smooched around my legs.

One evening I said to her, ‘Have you told him yet?  You tell him, go on, you tell him.’  To my surprise, Sylvie wandered over to where Bruce was sitting and smooched around his legs. ‘What do you want?’ he said to Sylvie. 

She looked at him as much as to say, ‘Come on, I am hungry I want my tea and bed.’  This became a nightly ritual me preparing the food, Sylvie making sure it was her food, my telling her, ‘Have you told him,’ and Sylvie drifting over to Bruce and in cat language telling him to get up and give her food. 

In a sequel to telling Bruce tea was ready, Bruce accidentally shut me in the plant nursery one day.  I climbed up on a plant stand to try to climb out.  I called out to Bruce but he is deaf and I thought he went inside and knew he would not hear me. Because of my yelling, Sylvie came to investigate.  She knew I was in trouble but did not know what to do, ‘You tell him, go on, you tell him,’ I said to her. I did not know what she would do or how she would tell him but I was interested to see what she would do.  ‘Go on, you tell him,’ I urged her.  She wandered across to the house.  Just then, Bruce came from the front of the house and Sylvie met him. In the meantime, I had found a piece of wire, lifted the latch, and freed myself. Sylvie had proven that she was not just a moggy but also a very special creature.

Sylvie was born to travel. As soon as we opened the car door, Sylvie shot into the back of the vehicle and we could not get her out. 

‘Oh let her go,’ Bruce said, ‘we’re only going around to the local store.’  That was the beginning of Sylvie becoming the travelling cat.   We thought it was cute she wanted to ride with us and we let her.  When we did the weekly shopping she came along.  She would sit up on the seat and watch the world outside. 

‘You’ve got a cat in your car,’ someone said very surprised, when I returned to the car one day. ‘Yes, she always comes with me when I shop,’ I explained. 

‘Amazing, I’ve never seen a cat before in a car.’  From then on, many of our friends watched for Sylvie the travelling cat.

 ‘Would you like to come with us to see the Christmas lights in the town?’ our neighbour invited us one Christmas.

‘Yes, we would love to,’ we replied.  We walked across the block next door to the neighbour on the other side who had invited us.  Sylvie thought it a lark and tore ahead of us. Then she disappeared to determine if there were any bogeymen in the shape of a dog.  Sylvie hated dogs with vicious intensity.  If we hunted a dog from our yard that was the signal for Sylvie to fly at them tooth and claw and send them home tail between legs.

We rode around exclaiming, ‘Oh, look at that display, what a lot of work and isn’t that display beautiful.’

Returning home our neighbour took us to our front gate and we climbed out.  It was time to put Sylvie to bed.  We called and called and no Sylvie.  I remembered she followed us to the neighbour’s home.  We went back to the neighbour and called. Sylvie rushed from her hidey-hole at the sound of our voices.  She had not gone home as we supposed but waited where she had last seen us.  That was our Sylvie. She would wait until forever for us to return to where we left her, rather than go home without us. 

Sylvie became an extension of us.  She wanted to share our lives. She was a two-person cat; there was no room for another in the relationship.  Sylvie was our family for seventeen wonderful years.  We called an end to her life when we could no longer bear to see her suffer from heat and cold. She hated the heat and could not bear the air conditioner; the cold in winter was agony to her old bones. We said goodbye to Sylvie, our child, our faithful and loyal friend and most intelligent cat we had the privilege to know.  Sylvie’s faithfulness and love was beyond the call of duty.