Zizi Amyn Rafiq January 27, 2009 to September 4, 2024.
Our cat Zizi left us yesterday, and it was so hard to say goodbye. For weeks we have known that her last day was approaching, but we kept hoping that she would stay with us a little longer.
Her hips collapsed two weeks ago. I found her behind the couch, legs splayed out sideways, unable to stand or to take a single step. I immediately dissolved into tears and called Om Prakash, our house-calling vet. It’s an exaggeration to say that Zizi liked him. She scratched and urinated on him when he gave her injections, but during these last few years she has at least allowed him to shave, bathe and blow-dry her when necessary. In her prime she was the
terror of every veterinary clinic, requiring at least two people to examine and treat her. But as she got older, all Om Prakash had to say was easy, easy, in his gentle voice, and she would stop hissing and accept her medicine. Aware that her end was near, he came quickly, gave her a vitamin shot and promised that she would be up and about in a day or two.
She wasn’t, so on the following Monday we took her to the clinic we frequent for more serious problems, Healthy Tails. Our regular and gifted vet was on leave, celebrating the birth of his first child. His replacement insisted that nothing was wrong with Zizi’s hips, but that she was severely constipated. An abdomen X-ray caused her such pain that she tried to bite the radiography assistant, accidentally biting me instead. She felt bad about it, but my thumb
immediately swelled up and became infected, due to all the bacteria in her poor old mouth. The replacement vet prescribed laxatives for her, vitamins, painkillers and a liquid diet of chicken soup. Zizi hated the soup, swallowing barely two mouthfuls from a syringe, and Om Prakash came every evening to administer her injections, which Zizi graciously accepted with only a minimum of hissing. No longer able to use her litter tray, Om Prakash shaved the area, and my
husband and I went shopping for the smallest nappies we could find. What a trip down memory lane that was: not having bought nappies for almost a decade, we were shocked by the price. Zizi always wanted to be my favorite child, so in spite of the pain she actually seemed to enjoy being cleaned, having lotion applied and a nappy put on. I would have enjoyed it as well, only she wasn’t getting better. Dr. Ishmael returned from paternity leave last Tuesday, but after examining Zizi his kind face was sad. We will give her a week and another round of treatment, he decided, then you will have to say goodbye. Give her whatever she wants to eat; mutton, chicken, and prepare your children for the end. But two days later, Zizi yowled in pain when I picked her up, something she had not done before. Her eyes, which up until this point were bright and alert, were dull with pain. We have to take her back to Dr. Ishmael today,
I told my husband. But when I considered the practicalities of burying her, I started crying and couldn’t stop. When animals die in Pakistan, most of the time they are eaten, left by the road or thrown into a rubbish bin. How could we give Zizi a resting place equivalent she held in our hearts? Like most things here, it wouldn’t be straightforward.
Our eleven-year-old son could not bear to come with us but at the last minute our daughter, who has never lived in a home without Zizi, agreed. She chatted casually with us all the way there, making us laugh and raising our spirits. She pretended to remember the silly things that Zizi, desperate to retain our undivided attention, had done when she was a baby: fishing cotton balls out of Mysha’s baby bath and once even jumping in, biting the nipples off her
Dr Brown’s bottles and running around with dummies in her mouth, hiding under the playmat and in its bag when we packed it away, so that it looked as if we had packed her away with it.
Mysha also talked about normal things: a detention which the crazy computer-operated discipline system at school erroneously gave her, why she wants to specialize in sharks (no, Mysha!) when she becomes a marine biologist, whether her friends can come over on Saturday (of course).
At the clinic, our number was called too quickly. My legs felt numb, and I wanted my husband by my side as I carried in our now featherweight cat. Dr Ishamel confirmed our worst fears. Zizi was dehydrated. Her kidneys had shut down; in a few hours she would start vomiting. We discussed logistical issues. If he put her down immediately, to prevent any more pain,
was there a fridge we could keep her in overnight and then bury her in the morning in my mother-in-law’s garden? No, Dr. Ishmael shook his head. But he could send people to dig her grave and prepare it with salt so that wild
dogs would not disturb her. In the end, our guard, Hasan who over the years has searched for and retrieved Zizi plenty of times, was more than happy to dig the grave. Only when he reached my mother-in-law’s house, he discovered that our common gardener had, for some inexplicable reason, taken the shovel when he went home for the day. They would have to dig the hole with only an axe and a dustpan, which they managed.
Gently, with kindness and love, Dr. Ishmael first sedated Zizi. As the life drained from her still-beautiful body and the soul from her blue and expressive eyes we stood around her. She still so closely resembled the magical little kitten who blew our world apart and paved the way for our children and all the pets who have adorned our home, that it was hard to accept that it was time for her to go. She gazed steadily into my eyes until the very last second, and
then licked my hand. Once she was unconscious, Dr. Ishmael euthanized her. She stopped breathing in a matter of seconds. After checking that her heart truly had stopped, Dr. Ishmael wrapped her in two white surgical clothes, secured them with tape and handed her to me. Still warm and soft, I was scared that she might wake up underground and be frightened, but the only movement
I felt was the pulse of my own hands. Mysha and I said The Lord’s Prayer for her while we waited for Hasan to return, barely able to get the words out through our tears. Then we took Zizi on her last car-drive, an activity which she always enjoyed. Inside, unaware of what was going on, my brother-in-law and his daughter ate dinner. Outside, the hole, beside two cats already sleeping in the garden, was deep. My husband held Ziz while I unwrapped her still-warm body and laid her in the earth. Time has had its way with all of us: at the last minute I stumbled and almost dropped her, since I now have arthritis in both knees and bursitis in one.
We all threw in handfuls of dirt until her creamy-white fur was covered, then the men filled in the rest of the hole. Hugging my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law and his wife, we quickly said goodbye and hurried home to our son. I’m in shock, I told my husband, because everything
around me felt unnatural and clunky, like I was an interloper in my own universe. He was too and yet, not having eaten all day, we sat down to a late dinner. I had not swallowed the first potato when, after a commotion and rustling of bags at the door, Om Prakash burst in with Zizi’s daily medicine. She’s dead, we told him, our words making the situation realer than it felt.
Her kidneys failed, and we had to put her down. He looked shocked and sad, and I felt terrible that we hadn’t called to let him know. We weren’t thinking straight. Unable to manage more, my son just ate ice-cream with tears in his eyes. We messaged school and told them that the kids wouldn’t be in, due to the fact that we were all grieving.
The real sadness flowed when I lay down in bed. Where are you, Zizi, I silently called out to my cat. Are you at peace? Are you happy? Did we love you enough? We were so busy with the kids, our four other pets and all the responsibilities of work and home; did you sometimes get left by the wayside? Eventually I fell asleep, into a comforting dream. A group of nuns were looking after a little boy, whom they left in my charge for a limited time. When they came back for him, I explained to them why
I couldn’t also be a nun. Remembering my dream when I woke, I thought that Zizi’s angels had come back for her, that she was healing and resting from her sickness, but would reach out in due course. I sat down to write this, and that’s when all the memories came rushing back. Barely married four months, my husband and I had just moved into the flat that would be our daughter’s first home.
We had to rent a car to pick up Zizi, because we didn’t own one. I didn’t even drive. I still don’t. The breeder had tears in her eyes as she handed Zizi to me: take her quickly, she said. She’s always slept on my daughter’s bed. Zizi curled up in my lap and immediately started to purr. Always a clean and fastidious creature, when we got to our flat, she used the brand-new poop-tray we had bought in a fever of excitement, had a few bites to eat and then seemed ready for bed. My husband
had never had a pet before. Raised on a farm, I’d had too many. She can’t sleep in the room with us, he said. Fine, I said, and slept on the couch with her. We were so young and silly. If memory serves me correctly, we had hours and days to spend with our new kitten, buying her toys, cleaning her teeth, watching her hide in the potted palm to stalk our rescued love-bird, Berta and taking pictures of her. The young couple upstairs, also childless, were raising a Russian Blue and a Persian. They had taught their cats to use the human toilet, even flushing when done. They lent us the book and the training kit, but Zizi had zero interest in updating her poop-tray skills. The majority of their lounge-room was dominated by a fish-tank which their cats monitored while they were at work.
They thought Zizi might like to join them, and invited her upstairs for a play-date, which was a complete disaster. All three cats hissed and spat at each other. Once their mum separated her cats into the bedroom, Zizi had a nice time watching the fish, but we had to leave quickly, once our hosts’ yowls became unbearable.
Zizi loved adventure, and gave us plenty. Always a fan of long trips, she would curl up in my lap or look out the window during the five-hour drive to my dad’s farm. Once there, she terrified us by hiding in the cobwebby curtains and antagonized my dad’s dogs until they got sent out. She responded very positively to cat-nip, zooming around our flat in the dark and banging her eye on a blind.
Typical first-time parents, we rushed her to the 24-hour emergency. Another day, having washed my running shoes, I popped them in the dryer. Always up for something new, Zizi jumped in with them. Luckily, I heard the banging of the shoes, opened the dryer almost immediately, and out she jumped. We rushed back to the vet. Having examined her thoroughly, he said, you have a very dry cat. She’s fine. Her situation was more serious when she ate a
bright-blue condom which we foolishly left in a paper bin. That time, we had to take her to two different vets, who x-rayed the condom in her stomach and prescribed laxatives to help it pass. They weren’t great condoms, because nine months later our daughter showed up. Zizi enjoyed every stage of her birth-journey, licking up my water when it broke, ruining every Dr Brown’s bottle
she got her teeth into, jumping in the nappy-bin every time we emptied it, competing with and surpassing Mysha on the play-mat, monopolizing the pram when I wanted to take Mysha for a walk, hogging the change-table whenever Mysha needed it, and demanding a nappy of her own. I had read many pet-anxiety-forums while anxiously pregnant, but Zizi was the opposite of jealous or possessive. She watched over our daughter like a guardian angel and was so gentle with both of our children (although not, I’m sad to say, with other people’s) that we called her the cat-nanny.
Irresponsible child-parents that we were, we were forced to move back to Pakistan once we ran out of money and options. Zizi flew in the same airplane as us, in the hold. We were terrified to let her go and excited to have her back, in the carrier clearly labelled with her name: Zizi Amyn Rafiq Like any teenager, Zizi disagreed with plenty of our decisions. She did not like any of the new short or long-term cats who came to live with us, especially street-kittens,
whom she bopped on the nose if they came too close. Nor was she fond of any of our many dogs, hissing at and punching them if they invaded her space. She eventually tolerated the adoption of two permanent cats, Max and Charlie and two labradors, under the clear condition that she was number one. She also resented the fact that we filled in holes in our strange Karachi mansion,
so that sparrows no longer flew in. She only caught two but was convinced, if given sufficient opportunity, that she could have caught more. She enjoyed teasing me most, often making the long trip down to my basement, to lie in the middle of my mat while I practiced yoga. As she aged, she grew more lethargic in summer but perked up in winter, still jumping on to our bed to play and
chasing Max and Charlie. She never ventured far from our home but enjoyed taking little trips next door to sit on our neighbor’s couch (not a cat lover), refusing to move until collected by my husband. If visitors shared that they were allergic to or afraid of cats, Zizi invariably sat beside or on them. When I wrote, she often sat on my keyboard. If I sewed ballet shoes, she grabbed the thread. When my husband and son ate fried chicken, she and Charlie sat on the table, gnawing on bones before flipping them onto the floor.
She adored us. Perhaps she wanted us to slow down and spend more time with her, or maybe she was happy with us and her life, just the way it was. She always seemed cheeky, ironic and sarcastic, yet at the same time filled with love and good wishes for every member of our family. When we bought her special beds or toys, she ignored them. But if you put out an empty box to throw away, she’d jump inside,
so that just the black tips of her ears poked out. If you scratched the side of it, she would attack your hands, often sticking her claws right through the cardboard. The same with curtains, carpets and doonas. I loved everything about her, especially the way that she would, during story time, mealtimes and celebrations, stealthily insinuate herself. If I looked up, while cutting a cake and singing happy birthday,
she would be there with us, propped like a human against the wall, two legs up, singing along with her blue eyes.
I fully expect you, Zizi, to go on to greater and greater things. You have loved and protected us, and started us off on the long learning-journey of parenthood. Now you are teaching us
how to let go of the souls we love most, to look after them in their hour or hours or need, and pray for them as they fly high into the future. Go well, Zizi-star, the world’s most miraculous cat. Come back as soon as and whenever you can. We will never, ever forget you.
