A year ago, we had three cats.

Then a neighbor dog got Ernie, an orange Cornish Rex (think Austin Powers’ cat with a bit of hair). And last night — ironically, during  a game called “Pets on Parade,” featuring discussion and celebration of each pet in the house — Annabelle found Izzy. Izzy was Ray’s first Cornish Rex, bought a million (14 or so) years ago to keep his original cat company. The cats never liked each other, but Izzy and Ray fell in love. He once wrote a short story featuring Izzy as President of the Earth.

Izzy was painfully old, and frail. Her kidneys had given up and I hadn’t seen her in days; she was sleeping — and peeing — in a cat bed under a desk in a far corner of the house. Annabelle took it better than expected, as did Ray, though there were a few tears when I got home and found them standing over her, the game over.

That leaves Lulu as the Last Cat Standing. Lulu is only 2, she’ll be around for a long time. It wasn’t til she was gone that I realized how little appreciation I had for Izzy — she was the only cat who didn’t bird (or rat or mouse, is that an expression I can get away with?) and she was the only other mother in the house. She once gave birth to three kittens in what is now Sophie’s closet.

I’m tempted to buy Ray a kitten for Father’s Day, but as the staunchest anti-cat person I know, I’m also tempted not to. Still, like so many things — sea creatures, roller coasters, hikes down the Grand Canyon — cats are something my kids appreciate. So maybe, in appreciation of that, I’ll make a call to the Cornish Rex breeder in town.

“Take my picture!” Sophie demanded first thing this morning.

I really mean first thing. It was 6. Between the big girl bed and summer’s approach, there will be no more sleeping in — not for a while, at least.

Sophie was sitting on the floor next to Rosy, thumb in her mouth, rubbing the dog’s fur. She clearly thought she looked cute and I agreed and thought, I better take pictures now, while I can, so I grabbed the phone to snap one.

Rosy is 14. As I write this, the vet is at the house (bless Dr. Kennaway, our mobile vet) to give Jack his last puppy shots, and also to take a look at Rosy.

Rosy pooped on the kitchen floor this morning. That’s not unusual and I can’t blame her. When I’m her age (what is that in dog years? 98?) I expect I’ll poop on the kitchen floor, too. I also plan to eat whatever the hell I want, which is why I’ve taken to sneaking Rosy lots of baloney and other people food. Rosy is arthritic and Dr. Kennaway gives her pills that control the pain and make it a little easier to get around, but still, she has accidents.

We have some very old pets. Izzy the Cornish Rex (the almost hairless, scary looking, rat-like white cat Ray absolutely adores and to be fair, even I consider her a member of the family) is 15 and for a few weeks not long ago, she peed by the kitchen sink several times a day. Rosy’s once-black muzzle is quickly going gray. She’s pretty deaf. At some point, quality of life will diminish enough that It Will Be Time.

I can’t think about it. Ray is right when he says that I don’t spend enough quality time with Rosy; to be honest, I never have, and that dropped dramatically after the kids were born. I won’t pretend that I’ve been a Good Dog Mom. But I love Rosy, she’s my first child in that way that dogs are your kids before you have kids, and I named her after my most sacred possesion, Rosie the Blanket. (Note the different spellings.) We have spent our share of time hanging out together.

Now, Sophie’s the only one in the house with a really serious sensory thing going on (one of the things to be addressed with the elusive occupational therapist at school) and she’s pretty obsessive about rubbing her fingers over her bangs, Piglet’s ear, or the bristles of a paintbrush. We call it softing.

But the term “softing” predates Sophie. It even predates Annabelle (she’s a big softer herself) though I’m fairly certain that before the kids I never uttered the word, only thought it to myself, as in “softing Rosie”.

If you have a blanket (and more of you do than will admit it, I know from the number of you who do admit it) then you know what softing is. My college friend Heather perfected it with a pillow to which she’s still particularly attached. (And she’s a successful LA lawyer with two kids and a cute husband, fully functioning.)

I don’t bring Rosie to work and Heather doesn’t bring Petty with her, either, though I believe Petty still travels. (Rosie’s just a crumb, as I’ve written before, so she stays in Tempe.)

And then there’s Rosy the Dog. For years, the springer spaniel and golden retriever in her made Rosy extremely rambunctious. It feels like she left puppyhood for senior citizendom overnight. She’ll still get excited for a treat, but mostly she’s on the floor, relaxing. Enjoying her later years, Annabelle and I decided last night. (As much as Jack will let her; he wants to play ALL THE TIME. Hard to blame him.)

All that is to say that Rosy is perfect for softing. Sophie found a good spot, sighed, and settled in for a good cuddle. Not a bad way to start the day.

It’s also horrible, losing someone you hated.

Ray opened the back door and walked into the kitchen. He shook his head. I hugged him hard. True, the tears in his eyes were more abundant than the tears in mine, but still, I was a little damp. I was sad. Truly sad.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He looked at me. “You hated him.”

“But I love you and the girls, and you loved him.”

That is true. Ray loved his little cat. And the girls will be devastated. 

I never weighed him, but Ernie had to be well under 5 pounds, soaking wet. Like the eldest of our 3 (now 2) cats, Izzy, he was a Cornish Rex, tiny (yes, rat-like, you’re not the first to think/say it, here he is on his favorite perch, the stove) and almost hairless. Sort of like the cat in Austin Powers, which is a related breed called a Sphinx.

Ray bought Izzy when we first started dating. I was very allergic to cats, and couldn’t spend much time at Ray’s condo around his original cat, Tigger, a manx mix. Ray’s also got allergies so when he went looking for a cat to keep Tigger company, he did some research and found the Cornish Rex breed. (Because they are almost hairless, Cornish Rexes are supposed to carry fewer allergens. Who knows — ultimately my allergies to all of our cats dissipated, along with my one good excuse for getting rid of them.)

Others may have called her a rat-cat, but Ray fell in love with Izzy, even wrote a short story in which she ruled the world.

Tigger hated Izzy. She hated me. She didn’t like Ernie, who came along on Father’s Day, 10 years ago this Sunday. Tigger wasn’t so crazy about anyone else, either, except Ray. She did give us the ultimate gift by dying of liver cancer just days before Annabelle was born. I don’t know what we would have done otherwise, since by that point Tigger was regularly snapping at young children.

Tigger was gone, leaving her toys, water bowl and cat box to Izzy and Ernie. Izzy’s a mild soul with drippy pink eyes (cat herpes) and a whiny meow. But Ernie (even I have to admit it) had personality. The breeder was horrified at the thought of Ernie going outdoors (risk of sunburn — that’s how little hair he had), but you couldn’t keep him in. He owned our street, strutting down the middle of the blacktop like it was, well, a catwalk.

And Ernie was a hunter, a horror I’d never before experienced, having grown up cat-less. (My parents knew it was true love not because I didn’t care that Ray was a Republican, but because I didn’t care that he was a Cat Person.)

Each spring — but particularly the spring I was pregnant with Annabelle — Ernie brought his prey into the kitchen. Some cats (like LuLu, our youngest) will bring in a live bird and let it go, but not Ernie. Not if he could help it. Ernie regularly left just the beak, feet and feathers as evidence of his meal. (I’ll never get the sound of him crunching down on a bird skull out of my head.)

My anxiety at an all-time high, concerned over all those germs cats (not to mention birds) carry, the pregnant me had a couple of unpleasant run-ins with Ernie (I will say no more, let us not speak ill of the dead, or, frankly, of me) that cemented our relationship, or lack thereof.

Then Annabelle was born, then Sophie, and it got harder and harder for me to hate any of our cats as I watched them develop relationships with the girls, relationships the cat-less me had never had. (And never will have, I stand by that even though I’m happy for AB and Sophes.)

Annabelle carries LuLu from room to room, just like the fictional Olivia the Pig carries her cat. Sophie can’t lift LuLu, but until this morning I regularly found her with an armload of Ernie, the cat blinking patiently as Sophie inevitably lost her grip around his slender waist and he tumbled to the ground.

He always landed on his feet, of course. ‘Til this morning, when the neighbor’s dog literally snapped him in half, breaking his spine and leaving Ray with little choice but to put him to sleep.

“Let’s just wait ’til Annabelle asks where he is,” Ray said this afternoon, when we were discussing what and when to tell the girls. “I figure that’ll take a week.”

I don’t think so.  But for once, I’m keeping my mouth shut.