Billiam Cullen Orson Snowstar

Billy showed up on our street one autumn day, running across the street to rub his head on my shoe in a friendly greeting. I thought he belonged to the neighbors, so I wasn't concerned whether becoming friendly with him would lead to an adoption! After a week or so, however, it seemed the neighbors weren't responsible for him, after all. I noticed he had gotten a wound on his back, right between the shoulder blades. I took him around to all the neighbors nearby, asking if they had lost a kitty, or knew where he belonged. No one claimed him, so I brought him home to treat his wound. Well... you know already how that turned out! He soon became our #5 cat, and was a great companion for Luke, as they were about the same age.

We named him Billy, in a vain attempt to convince our friend Bill that he should take him; this was before we had decided to keep him. Later, we dressed it up a bit to Billiam, a variation on William. We chose Cullen from the baby name book, meaning "Good to look upon", which he was! Orson was in honor of a former cat of Doug's brother, Fred; Snowstar was because he was so white!

Billy quickly adapted to our household, becoming great buddies with our other younger kitty, Luke. The two of them raced through the house, turning corners on a dime and literally flying over furniture! Billy usually tackled Luke, playing pretty roughly; sometimes it seemed Luke was too timid, and was letting Billy push him around too much. One day that changed, when Luke discovered he had grown bigger than Billy. (To read more, see Luke's story...) Billy was always ready for fun, instigating games and wrestling matches with Luke, or baiting Tigra just to see how far he could push her. He didn't seem to bother Dietrich, who watched his antics with benign goodwill.

I soon gave Billy the nickname of Mr. Friendly, the neighborhood greeter. He was well-known to our neighbors, running to rub his head on their shoes, "polishing" them, and accepting caresses as payment. He also became notorious for playing with a crow; the two of them seemed to have an understanding, with neither one trying to hurt the other. I would hear the crow cawing outside, and pretty soon Billy would be dashing out the cat door. As I watched from the window, Billy would find a high perch and wait: the crow would swoop down, "dive-bombing" Billy, who would feign an attempt to catch him. They would play like this for a good fifteen minutes at a time, nearly daily! I truly believe they understood they were playing, and even enjoyed the fun of the game. And of course, the day we brought home our new video camera, with visions of capturing this extraordinary relationship on tape to send to one of those "funniest home video" type shows, was the last day we ever saw them play that way!

Billy was instrumental in teaching our nephew, AJ, to crawl, and later, to walk. Whenever AJ was visiting, he was fascinated by our furry kids, but could never get close to them. They were too quick! And they weren't used to little children, let alone babies, so they wanted nothing to do with this noise-making, milky-smelling short person. All except Billy, that is. Billy stayed close enough for AJ to touch his fur at times, but then would move away, not far --- but far enough that AJ had to crawl to him in order to touch him again. Then Billy would move again! Pretty soon, AJ was crawling fairly quickly across the floor in pursuit of Billy. Then of course, Billy decided to take it up a notch; he began to perch on higher surfaces, forcing AJ to learn to pull himself up and stand in order to reach him. It wasn't long before AJ was tottering about, and Billy was hard-pressed to keep out of reach!

We took Billy to France with us; that had been part of our debate in deciding to keep him, we weren't sure how much extra it would cost, or whether there would be quarantine. We learned the cost would be the same as for extra baggage, and there was no quarantine between France and the US. So, off to the Old World we went, with five kitty-kids in tow. In France, Billy was still the neighborhood greeter, meeting children on their walks to school, or families as they took the air on a Sunday afternoon. But a quiet worry was growing on my heart; Billy didn't seem quite himself, and had episodes of vomiting that didn't seem to be normal. He was sometimes quite lethargic, and began showing a tendency toward pica, wanting to eat gravel or lick strange surfaces. These symptoms actually predated the move, but the visit to our vet for the health certificate didn't show any problems, so we chalked it up to nerves from all the preparations to leave the house.

Finally, one day in late October, I summoned my courage and command of French, and made an appointment for the veterinarian another American family had suggested. I was not impressed with this vet's office; the table was dirty, there was dirt on the cotton he used to wipe some goo off of Billy's eyes, and his lab coat was dirty with previous animals' hair. But, I reminded myself, we are in a foreign country, and I shouldn't impose my American standards on this vet. He did a saliva test for FeLV, and palpated Billy's abdomen, claiming to feel a tumor deep inside. He even had me feel the spot, and I tried to determine whether what I was feeling was really a tumor, or a normal organ, like the kidney. In tears, I brought Billy home and waited until I could call our American vet, Dr. William Wheeler, at Button Veterinary Hospital. In talking with him, I was a little consoled about Billy's chances, but not much. Dr. Wheeler explained what it would mean if it was FeLV, and how best to test for that. Based on his explanation, we decided to seek out another vet; we asked some more American families who they would recommend, and it was overwhelmingly in favor of Dr. Philippe Legrand. Meanwhile, poor Billy's eyes had become infected, probably from the "bad vet" messing around with them. He was now blind, feverish, and pitifully weak. Little food or water passed his lips, as he could no longer smell anything. Doug and I carried him from room to room in a blanket, holding him and trying to comfort him as best we could. Billy would just "melt" into us, communing his love and trust in total relaxation as he lay in our arms. I think our hearts knew the eventual outcome, but we couldn't face it yet.

We took Billy to Dr. Legrand on Saturday, October 26th; he performed the blood test required for an accurate diagnosis of FeLV, which also tested for FIV, another deadly disease, as well as performing a hematocrit. Billy was positive for FeLV, but nothing else, and his hematocrit reading was 10; Dr. Legrand explained if he had been a dog or a human, he'd be dead by now... but with cats, one could never tell. Normal hematocrits were about 38 or so. We discussed treatment options, chances of success, and came to the difficult decision that Billy's suffering should be ended. One of the deciding factors was that Billy would remain blinded from the eye infection, if he ever pulled through the illness, and as an FeLV positive cat, he could no longer be around our other four cats, meaning he'd have to live in isolation. For our social Billy boy, we knew that was no life for him. We had Dr. Legrand set him free, with our loving arms as much around him as possible. I was comforted by his quiet death, feeling he was now at peace and no longer struggling.

Because FeLV is a communicable disease, we had the other four cats tested as well, worrying that we were going to have to lose all our kitty babies in one day. Thankfully, the others were negative; I had had them all vaccinated against it, but had not had them tested prior to the vaccine. We figure Billy had probably already contracted the disease, perhaps from that initial wound when we first took him in.

One day after Billy's death, as I was looking out one of our windows, a crow flew very near the house, and settled on a bush across the street. To me, it seemed it was looking at our house, and me, in a meaningful way. After several moments of looking, it took to the air and uttered a single caw as it flew away.