She ruled my household for nineteen years. From the start, she was imperious and dominating. She bullied Sula, my other cat, constantly. No matter how many times I told her in no uncertain terms that I was the alpha, there was a part of her that knew that she ruled the roost. She demanded her meals to be available on a regular schedule and complained loudly if they were not – right up to her last week on earth.
Nothing slowed her down. When she was eleven, the vet found lumps in her intestine during a routine checkup. We decided to do exploratory surgery and they turned out to be nothing. Meeka bounced back from her surgery as though nothing had happened. She was always a messy cat. Her long fur caused thousands of hairballs, and often caught poop, which she tried to rub off on the carpet. Besides hairballs, she often vomited for no apparent reason at all.
Nothing got her down. She was the kind of cat who, if she lost three of her legs, would drag herself around on the remaining one, pretending all was normal. Even at the end, she struggled to show me that she was fine, just fine, even though she was in pain and losing control of her bladder. Now that she is gone, the silence is deafening. She was Meeka, and she ruled my household for nineteen years.
Dispatches From Silicon Valley 