This is a post about Suyom, international cat of mystery and mayhem, with ninja skills and built-in cloaking devices. This is a post about how a pet can weave their lives so indelibly into your own that when you think about life's grand moments--both big and small--there's a cat perched in the corner, sharing it all with you. This is a post about my love for my unlovable cat and how she is no longer here.
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| Suyom when we first adopted her, Hawaii, 2009 |
Three weeks ago, Suyom escaped the house. I don't know how or when, probably at some point during the day when the kids were outside playing and running in and out, leaving the screen door gaping open in their wake. I didn't see her get out--or if I did, I didn't think much of it because Suyom is afraid of her shadow and never stayed out of doors for long before being spooked and racing back inside.
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| Testing out the Bumbo, Korea, 2010. |
Apparently not that day. And as it would happen, it was an unusual day in that it was a day when there were guests and visitors and early arrivals, and I was not downstairs much to notice Suyom's absence. I ran errands with the girls, went to the park, and then my sister-in-law had the missionaries over for dinner. David arrived home early enough from work to join us for the meal and help put the girls to bed before he headed off to a game night with his brother-in-law. His sisters, meanwhile, came over here for a girls night. It was a good day and Suyom, who so often kept to herself, was not missed until very late.
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| Suyom under the Christmas tree, Provo, 2012 |
So it was past midnight, before I went downstairs to finally rest my weary head and I realized that Suyom was no where to be found. I searched the whole house for her, and went outside and called around as much as I could, but no cat appeared. She'd never spent this much time out of doors and I would have assumed that she'd be close at hand. I thought that maybe the constant flow of visitors must have frightened her from approaching the door. In the morning, I hoped, she'd come home.
When morning came, Adelaide woke me up early and I wrapped in her some blankets and went looking for Suyom in the neighborhood. No sign of her. Georgia is a hilly place with dense forests and trees, and the backyard, such as it is, and much of the surrounding neighborhood, is really just an overgrown forest, dense with fallen trees and crawling ivy. Suyom could have been anywhere in the brush and bracken.
This was so unlike Suyom, an indoor cat with little natural hunter instincts left in her. My fear for Suyom's fate wasn't helped when my sister-in-law said that she had heard a rather loud and prolonged cat fight the night before, right around the time when I was downstairs putting the girls to bed. She'd had no reason to think Suyom was involved and so hadn't gone to investigate.
Suyom has always had an unnatural dislike of other cats and I was not surprised to hear that she had had a rumble with some other felines. What I fear, though, is that she was injured during this fight and ran off far from home and hid herself where she couldn't be found and laid down to die. My only other hope is that she ran so far that she couldn't find her way home again. My even slighter hope is that someone found her and took her in.
But it's been three weeks now since she disappeared. I put up signs around the neighborhood and visited the County's Animal Control shelter multiple times in the hopes that she would have been brought it, but no such luck. I did receive a few calls about the cat, but each time, it was for sightings of the other resident black cat in the neighborhood. My Suyom is gone.
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| Suyom thinks she'd make a tasty dish, Korea, 2010 |
My grief for Suyom's disappearance has surprised even myself. She was often a troublesome cat who mostly disliked other people and especially other cats. She was jumpy and scared, and constantly getting underfoot. Her black hairs found their way into everything (our food mostly) because she always wanted to sit on the table while we ate. But all her faults aside, I loved that cat and miss her terribly. She was our first baby--David and me--and she saw me through many long days and nights, gave comfort and companionship, and was a silent, but capable confidante. When sad, or depressed, or lonely, I needed only to find Suyom and her reassuring purr almost always made me feel better.
We had many (MANY) cats as a child and so I am familiar with the process of losing a beloved pet. In a life largely devoid of many tragic or unexpected losses, the death of our numerous pets taught me the realities of grief and loss. Three weeks have passed and I can finally think of Suyom without crying or a sense of immense guilt.
We adopted Suyom 5 years ago from our friends in Hawaii. Although Suyom was only about a year and a half at the time, she had gone through many homes already, being passed from one person to the next. I assumed that her jumpiness and fear was a product of a traumatized kittenhood. I had hoped--and tried--to provide Suyom with a sense of safety and security and though it took time, she finally came to love us in return.
So it eats me up that Suyom should have met her demise in so traumatizing a fashion, that her absence was not sensed or felt for so long, and that she probably died alone and scared, not knowing that we cared and that we desperately wanted to find her. That we haven't yet found her allows me, however, to hold on the tinniest little shred of hope that she's alive and well and romping through the forested hills of Georgia, feasting on the copious birds, mice, and squirrels the populate the area and embracing her survival feline instincts.
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| Suyom in our Provo house, 2013 |
I still live in hope that one day I will return home and Suyom will be there. I often think I see her out of the corner of my eye, but most often it's just my black sweater or David's black computer bag. Everytime I hear a cat's meow from the TV or computer, I think it's Suyom. When I open the door to the basement, I think I'll find Suyom perched on the first step as she so often did.
As I went through our photos of the last 5 years, I was surprised and amused to see all the ways and places that Suyom was there, watching us and joining in as our family grew. She was there during our first year of marriage, when we were learning how to be us and shape our new identities as husband and wife. We packed her along--much to her annoyance, I'm sure--on the long plane rides from Hawaii to California, California to Georgia, and then finally from Georgia to Korea.
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| Suyom sleeping in our bed in Seoul, 2009 |
Part of the reason we were so eager to adopt Suyom in Hawaii is that her presence meant that we wouldn't be allowed to live in on-base housing at Yongsan. And since we most definitely wanted to actually live in Seoul, she was our ticket to our beautiful apartment in Huam-dong, which we absolutely loved. And I loved telling our Korean friends and neighbors that our cat's name was Suyom, which is Korean for whiskers.
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| About 20 weeks pregnant with Zara, 2010 |
She was also there when we decided to have our first child. In fact, I swear that she knew when Zara was conceived, because that night, Suyom came and slept on my stomach, which she had never done before. In fact, she mostly stayed at the foot of our bed, if she slept with us at all. But after that night, she slept in the space right next to my pillow and head. Even when there were babies there, she'd find a tiny spot for herself and sleep with me.
She was there when we brought Zara home from the hospital and they were roughly the same size. (That didn't last long.)
She was there as our baby grew bigger and we grew closer together. She allowed herself to be dragged back onto an airplane (which she hated, we had to drug her) and move her from Korea to Utah. And then again from Utah to Virginia (4 days in the car) and from Virginia to Georgia. We put that cat through a lot. I doubt you'd meet a more well-traveled cat.
I worried how Suyom would treat the girls, but she was surprisingly tolerant and patient with them. She didn't let the girls maul her (which they would have loved to do), but she did let them pet her and touch her. But all bets were off if they pulled her tail. She kept a close eye on them, especially when they learned to crawl and walk.
Her presence was the reason that for a long time, Zara thought she WAS a cat and that her first word, aside from mama and dada, was cat. (Dat!)
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| Christmas and cats, December 2012 |
She was there for holidays, and birthdays, anniversaries, and moves, cold winter nights, and summery afternoons. She used to always be there and now I look for her, and she isn't there.
I had thought we'd have many more years with Suyom. I feel like I failed her somehow. But I at least can console myself with the fact that while she was ours, she was loved and I'm pretty sure she knew it.
So I don't forget, David and I composed several verses of a song about our cat. Here are some of the ones I can remember:
Suyom, the kitty cat.
Spends all night a-chasing rats.
Suyom, the kitty cat.
Sleeps all day then takes a nap.
Suyom, the kitty cat.
All dressed in black just like a bat.
