On November 7, 1994, I was working the graveyard shift at the Comfort Inn in Sweetwater, Tennessee. Although it was late in the year, it was an uncharacteristically warm night, and I had the front door standing open.
At around 4 AM, I began to hear a frantic mewing. I looked outside to see a small kitten, who couldn't have been more than a few months old. She seemed hungry, so I walked to the convenience store across the street and got her some food, which she gratefully accepted. She continued to hang around until my shift ended at 8 AM.
As I began the short walk home, she followed. When I arrived at my apartment and opened the door, she followed me inside. I thought, "what the hell, we'll see how it goes". I awoke mid-afternoon to the sound of contented purring and the feel of a wet nose against my own. This isn't all bad, I thought. I fixed some coffee, and put on the Smashing Pumpkins CD Siamese Dream.
While I lay on the bed with the cat, listening to the music and enjoying my coffee, it occurred to me that I should probably try to think of a name for her, since it looked as though she might be staying. Idly picking up the CD case, I saw the title for track #7, "Soma", and directly beneath it the title for Track #13, "Luna". Somaluna. Hmmm. I believe "soma" is Greek for "body", and "luna" Latin for "moon", so when people asked me what her name meant, I would shrug and say "moon body", which was somewhat appropriate considering her dusky coloring.
Somaluna slept on my bed most every night. She moved with me twice, and outlasted many girlfriends. Believe it or not, in six years I never heard her hiss or growl (even when my nephew tried to pick her up by her ears), and she never broke litter box training. She was just a good cat. When she decided I was being lazy and sleeping too late, she would very gently and deftly tap my nose with her front paw until I woke up.
On December 9, 1997 (my 30th birthday, coincidentally), I awoke to find Somaluna gasping for breath. I rushed her to the vet, who determined that she had extreme fluid buildup on her chest. They drained the fluid, and ran a battery of tests to determine the cause, which they warned me was probably either heart disease or cystitis, either of which would be fatal. They could find no evidence of either of these conditions, however, and she continued to enjoy fairly good health. I had to take her back periodically to have more fluid drained.
Then, on March 6, 2000, Somaluna took a turn for the worse. She became lethargic and lost her appetite. I took her back to the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital, where she had been treated previously. At that time she was diagnosed with chronic renal insufficiency (kidney failure), in addition to the chronic idiopathic chylothorax (chest fluid). Several treatment methods were attempted, and she was in and out of the hospital for the next two weeks.
She made her final trip from home to the hospital on March 22, 2000. She had again stopped eating and drinking, and had been coughing up a clear fluid. As all treatment options had been exhausted, I made the difficult decision to end her suffering. At approximately 4 PM, she died in my arms after receiving a painless injection of barbiturates. I had her cremated and brought her ashes home with me.
This picture was taken by me in Sweetwater, Tennessee, in early 1995.
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