By Marlys Hersey, Editor

Frieda was a cat who strolled across busy Belmont Avenue in Portland, OR, forcing (well, more like expecting) a city bus to stop for her. Which it did.

Frieda was a cat who found, two blocks away from our house in Boise, Idaho, someone else’s sunny deck and made it her deck – because she loved to be in the sun, we didn’t have a deck, and why would anyone object to her crawling through the fence and making herself at home on their deck? And no one did.

When Frieda and I visited my friend in Madison, Wisconsin, a several day stopover on on cross-country trip, Frieda took all of about three hours to size up my friend’s household; by the second afternoon, she was sitting happily on the living room couch, with two big dogs sniffing her head.

That was Frieda’s attitude – the universe is a beautiful, benevolent place to be enjoyed, embraced; why would anything bad happen to me? – and it carried her long, far, and well.

I met Frieda at the Humane Society in Portland 13 years ago in January. After an hour of testing out other adult females, at 5 minutes to closing on a Sunday afternoon, a staffer brought Frieda in and placed her in a cage; she had, the staffer told me, been at Petsmart all day, where they hoped she would get adopted –to no avail. I was smitten with her beautiful tuxedo looks the moment I saw her; the humane society staffer handed her to me, remarking, “Oh, this cat is very special.” Frieda put her paws on either side of my neck, embraced me, and purred. That was it. We were like that together for 13 years.

It took me a few weeks to figure out a good name for her – the old one from her previous life wouldn’t do. Long after I named her Frieda (after my favorite Peanuts character), and long after I came to know her and what a consistently joyful being she was, I learned that “Frieda” means “joy” in German.

I got Frieda because I thought the Toad, my first cat, my beloved and smart black bobtail, needed a buddy. Come to find out, Frieda didn’t like to actually play with other cats. She was never hostile towards them, either (okay, except to one, my friend Amy’s little calico cat, Olive); she just did her own thing and was way more tuned in to people. When I had a grrl party in Terlingua a few years ago, Frieda was right there in the thick of those of us vying for the too-few pieces of Kerry’s cheesecake.

Once, I had to rush Frie to the emergency veterinary hospital in Boise, on a Sunday, of course. She had eaten something weird and kept vomiting. Frieda was so calm and lovable even there – even while sick, even amidst the chaos and din of dogs and yeowling in pain – that after she was stabilized a few hours later and I came to pick her up, the staff asked if I would please bring her back some time soon so they could just visit with her some more.

Although they didn’t play together, Toad & Frieda were almost always near each other by choice – at home, outdoors, and in the car on our many, many long travels together, normally tough guy Toad would turn to Frieda for comfort, putting his head on her. She was just fine with that, sitting on my lap as I drove (she insisted on that, hated carriers), letting the Toad rest on her. We all did that to Frieda, turned to her for love and affection, depended on her strength and magnanmity. She seemed an endless font of love and joy, even in her old age.

On Monday, January 19 (Martin Luther King Day), my dear Frieda died. She was 17 years old, and had hyperthyroidism and kidney failure for a few years now. Over that weekend, something radically changed: she became really weak, wobbly, and disoriented and incontinent, had a hard time walking and holding herself up to eat and drink, fell off some pieces of furniture.

The only time she seemed really calm was when I held her against my chest, which I did all Sunday evening and most of the night. She tucked her head against my throat while I told her stories: how we met, the many times I smuggled her and the Toad into park service housing and into motel rooms (“You hev ket?” asked a Russian maid at a motel in Florida as I was checking out. Frieda have refused to stay hidden like I asked her, had lounged in the windowsill for nearly our whole stay. “You hev pay extra for ket!”). I reminded her how for years she slept curled next to my head. I teased her about Olive. I told her how grateful I was to have shared our lives.

That morning, Waters and I took her to Dr. Janet Greathouse, in Fort Davis, figuring maybe, just maybe this was another loop-de-loop in the rollercoaster ride of old kitty with diseases (we had had a few close calls already).

This turned out to not be a “Oh, well, time to try subcutaneous fluids now” sort of thing. Instead, it was “Oh, my. She’s had a stroke – or several. She’s blind.”

Frieda was exhausted and anxious, disoriented and wobbly. She might regain some motor coordination and cognition, but it’s very likely she would have more strokes, or heart attacks, or seizures. Soon. Her heart was racing 2-3 times normal and had been for a while, despite the meds.

Plus, she had stopped purring.

The stroke(s) reduced our darling Frieda to mere existence, not a joyful one at all. I didn’t see any reason to take her home and wait for seizures or something else as traumatic. After some agonizing, Waters and I decided to let her go. She was euthanized, while I held her in my lap. We buried her in the backyard next to the Toad, on that crystal clear, sunny, warm January day. Limestone from Terlingua marks their graves.

Friends of mine and Frieda’s from all over the country responded to my email notice of her death. A few said they just can’t imagine me without her & Toad (who died in late August). Me, neither. Not really.

Yet right now, anyway, a week and a half after her death, I’m okay. I used to dread the day I would have part with either of them. Now it’s here. And I am okay. I would prefer they were around, of course. And well. I met Toad & Frieda in my late twenties; they were my only consistent family with whom I lived for the past 13 years, in many, many places.

Plus, Toad & Frieda ushered in a whole new generation of cats in our family, four of whom are still with us, youthful, spry and more lovable by the day. Having them around helps immeasurably. Though there was a wisdom to the Toad and a gentleness, an openness to Frieda that will probably not be matched by the youngsters. (They’re coming to embody some other precious qualities, occupy some other niches in my heart.)

Still, this grieving process has me a little unnerved. It’s nothing like the old Italian widows dressed all in black, depressed and mourning for years, that image from my childhood in Connecticut. I am functioning pretty well and I can already smile deeply and feel intense joy – not just sorrow – when I think of Frieda, and of Toad, when I hear or tell stories of them, when I see photos of them. I know they lived long, well, happily and we did right by other. Given that we all are going to die, I figure this is as good as it gets.

Admittedly, I grieved a lot while they were still alive, knowing their passing was close and seeing their strength ebb. There’s something about seeing your old friends get older, then really old, and seeing them struggle with their bodily challenges that makes it a lot easier to let go.

“Her leaving was at a pace to allow you to prepare for it,” wrote a good friend.  True enough. By the time both Toad and Frieda died, I felt relieved that at least they were free of their tired old shells.

But I am left wondering: is this wallowing in gratitude and joy for what they gave me, what we shared – more than in the sorrow that they’re gone – just some deep denial?

Or is this yet one more gift from them? I smile, teary-eyed.Wouldn’t that be just like Frieda, I muse, to leave me at peace with her passing?

In the spirit of my dearly departed Frieda, and in her magical honor, I ask you to sit in the sun, or in front of a really really hot heater, until it feels like your fur might ignite. Smiling. Purring. This is as good as it gets.

Above: The dynamic duo, Toad and Frieda, in our backyard in Marathon, summer 2004.

Aboev: Frieda basking in the sun, thoroughly enjoying retirement in Terlingua. (Note cactus thorns against which she  is nearly leaning – but they won’t hurt her, why would they?). After long cold and rainy years all over the Pacific Northwest and after sunnier but still cold winters in southern Idaho, Frieda was thrilled to live in Texas: sun, heat – and then she had our company most days and nights since we started working at home once we acquired the Gazette.