Neo, My Friend: October 13, 2000 - December 18, 2019

Neo, My Friend

October 13, 2000 – December 18, 2019

A friend: Someone who is there through all your joys and sorrows – and perhaps more importantly, through all the mundaneness of the times in between. In ministry, we often speak of the importance of “presence.” Especially when people are going through difficult times – loss of a loved one, divorce, difficult news of a health diagnosis… We often say presence is the greatest gift you can give someone in these times. Words aren’t necessary, because words will always fail in moments of our deepest grief or most intense joy.

If presence holds as much weight as we give it, then certainly our furry companions have mastered the art of ministry (and friendship) in a way no human ever could: Every day presence. I want to tell you about my furry companion – my friend – Neo. Many of you had the fortune of knowing him in real life (and even caring for him at various times while we were traveling). Others know him through his adventures on social media. But I’m now the soul guardian of his entire story. And I think it’s important to share the stories of our friends…

Neo was a black short-haired domestic cat born on Friday, the Thirteenth of October, 2000, who loved to eat SpaghettiO’s, picante sauce, and generally anything of Italian or Mexican cuisine (it’s like we were soul-mates from the start). I sometimes joked that I should have named him “Lucky,” given all the Western superstitions of bad luck associated with black cats and his birth date. But in many cultures, black cats are considered lucky or fortunate – and he was quite the lucky cat indeed! His mother was a stray who wondered into the yard of a dear coworker whose little girl begged her dad to keep. 

Having no idea the cat was pregnant, my friend reluctantly agreed (even though there was a strict “no pet” policy on the home he was renting), and soon found himself with EIGHT cats under his roof! In need of some pest control in my own apartment (also not allowing pets, and therefore infested with mice) my senior year of college, I jumped at the chance to help my coworker downgrade the number of unauthorized pets in his home by adding one very special unauthorized cat to mine. When I went to his house to choose my kitty, a sweet little black kitten walked right up to me and allowed me to pick him up. I snuggled him close to my heart, and his tiny claw got stuck in my shirt, so I told my friend, “Well, I guess he’s the one!” (The movie The Matrix was a big hit around that time, so I figured, if he’s always going to be wearing black like Keanu, and he’s “The One” – his name had to be Neo.)

I suppose I also could have named him “Blessed” because when he was around six months old, he participated in a “Blessing of the Animals” service at the church where I worked. Consequently, he made the cover of a local newspaper, which seemed fitting because clearly, he had the greatest star quality of any animal there. I mean, I did teach him how to use the toilet like the cat in Meet the Fockers when he was a few months old. But an eviction notice for an unauthorized pet meant he had to go live with my parents for a brief time, and as soon as he found their cat’s litterbox, the toilet training went down the drain.

Lucky, blessed, whatever he was – throughout his long life of nineteen years and two months, Neo lived more than his cat’s share of nine lives. I think this cat may have had closer to 99 lives! When he was just a little guy, he developed a skin allergy and licked all his fur off his belly and inside of his legs from the waist down. He looked like he’d forgotten to put his pants on! After trying some Rx meds that made him lethargic and not very “kitten-like,” we switched to fish oil (and also moved out of allergen-prone Oklahoma), and he cleared right up. A few years later, he ate a pom-pom string from one of my stepdaughter’s toys. This landed him in the hospital with major surgery as the string had become entangled in his intestines. But, by the time I picked him up (I had to travel right after his surgery, so he remained boarded at the vet clinic for several additional days), he was walking all over the receptionist desk as if he owned the place. The vet said their whole staff loved him so much, they wanted to keep him as the clinic pet.

Neo had a way of doing that – making everyone fall in love with him. He never met a human he didn’t like, other than toddlers. I give my stepdaughter credit for that one too. She was nearly two years old when she came into our lives, and she had a bit of an obsession with putting her face right up next to Neo's and trying to poke him in the eyes. But, eventually, she grew out of that,
and Neo grew to love her just as much as any other human.
In fact, I think he always remembered her scent and was happy to see her when she would come visit throughout the years. I am so thankful he got to spend a week with her this summer, as she kitty-sat for us while we were on vacation.

She also gets credit for bringing Neo’s little brother, Thunderbob, into the family. When she was four years old, she asked her dad and I if she could have a baby sister for Christmas. We settled on a kitten instead. From that moment on, Neo had a furry companion of his own – and in true sibling relationship fashion, I think Neo was equally annoyed with and grateful for his presence.

We often described Neo as “obnoxiously friendly.” He was the type of cat who wanted to meet and greet every person who walked in our door, and over the years, he made countless human friends. Often, he would first investigate their belongings by sticking his head in their purses or bags, and laying on their jackets and coats to ensure these human visitors were of good quality. Then he would move on to inspecting the humans themselves. I remember the first time my dad visited my apartment after Neo moved in. He was sitting in a chair and little Neo crawled onto the back of the chair and proceeded to start digging in my dad’s hair as if he were a mama monkey searching her baby for fleas. My dad has always been more of a dog person than a cat person – but Neo quickly managed to win him over. In fact, throughout his whole life, if a person who wasn’t too fond of cats ever entered our home, he tried his best to convince them otherwise. I think he didn’t know he was a cat, but considered himself just one more member of our family, and couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want him in their lap!

There was one person, however, who he had some misgivings about: my ex-husband. I wouldn’t say he didn’t like him as a human, he just had a very subtle way of letting me know he wasn’t the guy for me, and didn’t want him living in the same house as us: he peed on all his stuff! Never my stuff – just my ex’s. After I finally got the hint, Neo and I spent several years, along with Thunderbob, living the good life – just us three amigos. We went through some ups and downs after the divorce: He and Thunder had to move in with my parents for a few months, while I lived with my sister and an allergic brother-in-law and niece. Neo didn’t seem to mind too much because he quickly became enamored with my mom’s cat Sassy, trying desperately to convince her to fall in love with him. Unsuccessful, we was happy to be reunited with his mom. Eventually, life started to turn around for us, and I found myself in a fabulous job and a lovely apartment in Downtown Dallas. Neo loved being a city kitty. He’d sit on our fifth floor balcony and watch the cars zoom down the highway in the distance, or just soak up some sun while people-watching and listening to the sounds of the city. This time reminded me of how far he (both of us, really) had come – from a mama roaming the streets of Oklahoma City, to his own balcony in the arts district with a closeup view of the Dallas skyline – living the high life!

There were, of course, a few additional twists and turns along the way. Neo was the best travel buddy a human could ask for. He loved going on long car rides. He’d crawl around, wide-eyed, taking in everything that passed by the windows. For a brief time, my ex-husband and I moved from Dallas to work at a YMCA camp in Alabama. A few days after our arrival, Neo got out of our little cabin in the dark of night, and I couldn’t find him. He was missing for ten days, and everyone was telling me he most likely was trying to make his way back to Dallas. But I (and Thunderbob – who never stopped meowing for the entire ten days) never gave up. And one day the camp maintenance man heard me talking about my missing cat and told me he’d seen a black cat with huge green eyes in one of the bathrooms in Cabin 5. Sure enough, Neo had been around the whole time – he was just confused about which cabin was our new home. After that little adventure in the woods, which I like to think of as a sort of “rite of passage into cathood,” he never tried to run off again.

After our brief time in Alabama, we spent a year in two different areas of Washington state, before divorce brought us back to my parents’ home in Oklahoma, and then eventually back to Dallas. I’ll always think of Neo as a Dallas kitty, even though he spent is final year or so in Denver. My dad says he was the most traveled cat in the world, which might just be true. Even in Dallas, I moved from apartment to apartment, on average about once every 1.5 years. Adding that to our Alabama/Washington adventures, a couple brief stays at my parent’s, and eventually Denver, in his 19 years he lived in 19 different homes. But he was always up for a new adventure, and unlike most cats, I think he actually got excited about moving. As much as possible, I would take him first, before the movers came to load the truck. He would spend those first few hours inspecting the new place, and by the time I arrived with the movers, he would escort me around, showing me his favorite walls by rubbing his long lean body against them, and looking up at me as if to say, “Don’t you LOVE this new wall?” On the first night in a new place, while Thunderbob would spend his time hiding or meowing all night, Neo would curl up next to me as if nothing had changed, sleeping soundly in his new home with his same old person.

By the time we eventually made our way to our downtown Dallas digs, Neo was pretty settled into the life of the three amigos. So much so, that when I took in my sister’s cat for a few months, it solidified the fact that he was certain he was not a cat, and wanted nothing whatsoever to do with any other cats. It was a testy time, with a minor scuffle every other day or so. But the one time I saw Neo get REALLY aggressive was when he thought my sister’s cat was trying to attack me. I was attempting to put some flea treatment on the stranger in our midst, who began to growl angrily at me. Neo witnessed this and darted across the room in attack mode. Fortunately, I was able to calm them both down with no major injuries. But it was only then that I knew I had a real “guard cat” to protect me from any home invaders. (Although, if the home invader were a human, I’m sure Neo would have tried the slightly less effective “kill them with kindness” approach.)

Shortly after my sister reclaimed her cat, another “invader” began hanging around our home: my life partner, Ben. I was concerned at first that Neo might treat him (or his stuff, at least) with the same disdain he had for my ex-husband’s belongings. But Neo quickly fell in love with Ben, and despite being a little upset that he eventually took over Neo’s spot on the pillow beside me, he welcomed him whole-heartedly into our lives. That is, with one exception: He did pee on some Washington Redskins paraphernalia Ben tried to bring into our apartment shortly after we got married. As a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, Neo was having NONE of that crap in our home!

But once he had established that boundary, finally after all those years, our little family was complete. Neo enjoyed playing video games with his new dad as much as he enjoyed helping me write sermons or papers for school. I’m pretty sure he believed – from the time he was a kitten and proceeded to walk all over the keyboard and lay on all my papers and books I had spread out in my college apartment as I worked on my senior thesis – that no good written work could be produced without a cat on my lap. He was the truest definition of a gentleman and a scholar. A theologian, to be more precise. One of my saddest thoughts now is that he won’t be helping me write my dissertation. But I take comfort in knowing his presence will still be there in the portions I pull from research papers I’ve written over the last year and a half of coursework. He was there on my lap for every. single. one. of those. 

Neo was a fighter in more ways than one. Not only did he overcome skin allergies, pom-pom strings, multiple cross-country moves, and being lost in the backwoods of Alabama; but in his later years, he also became a “protest kitty,” helping me make signs for justice-centered rallies, protests, and marches. He even marched with me and Ben in an ICE protest in the summer of 2018. He was having the best time until he got overheated and we had to duck out early to get him into some air conditioning, followed by what I believe was one of his favorite adventures of his later years – kayaking with me in the creek behind my
parents' house. I’m not sure how many cats would calmly sit on their human’s lap in a kayak – but Neo loved watching all the fish pass by (thankfully, without jumping in and trying to catch any of them.)

Outside of his special adventures, Neo was also a real party animal. I think his favorite day of the year was the annual “Friendsmas Dinner” we would host. It was too bad if anyone didn’t want a cat crawling on them while they tried to eat because Neo INSISTED on being at the center of the action. If we tried to put him back in the bedroom for this, or any friend-filled occasion, he would howl at the door incessantly until we let him out to be with the people. This all really started way back when he was a little bitty guy and I had a few friends over for a good ol’ fashioned college holiday party. He was happy to be in the middle of everything right up until he passed out – as if he’d been the one drinking too much – right in the middle of the living room floor!

But perhaps my favorite thing about Neo was that he loved to snuggle. He was more than a simple “lap cat.” He was a “sleep-on-me-all-night-long” cat. Once Ben moved in and took over his pillow – I became his pillow. Nearly every single night of our marriage, Neo would sense when we were getting ready for bed, and jump in first to establish his position. Before I could even manage to get myself settled under the covers, he would already be crawling on me to claim his place on my chest, his head tucked under my chin. When I would roll over onto my side in the night, he would deftly “surf” his way down to my hip, never once falling off or losing direct contact with my body.

During the waking hours, he always had a way of sensing when I was sad or sick or just in need of a cat on my lap. The older he got, the more I think he needed to be on my lap. Sometimes I thought that was just for warmth. But mostly I believe it was far more than that. As much as I loved my little buddy, he also loved me. I was his companion too. And the move to Denver was rough on him. He had already been diagnosed with kidney disease a year or so before the move. When we arrived in a new, dry, high altitude climate, it quickly became apparent that arthritis was an issue too. Through the good fortune of a google search, I found a veterinary clinic with high ratings and took him to see a new vet. She became a life-saver for him as she diagnosed a skin cancer that had developed on his front leg and shoulder, along with successfully treating him for a chronic sinus infection. She also said that it would likely take him several months to adjust to the altitude and climate change.

That, it did. Along with surgery to remove the tumors. It was a rough and scary time in that first Denver winter. We made many visits to the clinic, and while I began to love his vet for the care she and her team gave him, Neo began to resent her and the seemingly constant trips to her office throughout the month of December.  It was the first time I saw him growl at a person who wasn’t a toddler! But she loved him through it nonetheless, and eventually, my lucky little Neo overcame one more obstacle – beating cancer! (He also became a true Colorado kitty and started taking CBD oil every day to help with the arthritis.)

And so, he had what I like to consider a “bonus year.” He didn’t do a whole lot other than lay around on the couch, or on me, or out in the sun on our balcony during the warm months. Every now and then, in the annoyingly early hours of the morning, we’d hear him and Thunderbob chasing each other up and down the hallway. But the one thing he did consistently was love. Every new friend we invited into our new home – he loved. Our sweet neighbors who lived across the hall and looked after him on our holiday travels as he was still recovering from surgery – he LOVED. And every day that I spent at home, reading or writing, he loved, loved, loved me as much as he could. On his last day with us, I was sure he couldn’t walk on his own anymore. After taking him to the vet and her helping me decide that it was time to let him go, I brought him home and sat him on his blankie on the couch. I assumed he would stay in that spot while I went to the bathroom. But when I came back, he had gotten down and walked over to the water bowl. He took one last drink, and then hobbled his way back over to my feet and looked up at me. I picked him up and sat him back on his blankie, as I thought that would be the most comfortable place for him. But he immediately pulled his tired old bones up and crawled into my lap one last time. There he remained for the next three hours – just loving – until the in-home vet came to assist him in taking his final sleep. I hope he could feel all the love my heart poured into him during his final moments, right up until he took his last breath. It seemed a lot to squeeze into such a short time.

His brother Thunderbob also came and said a brief goodbye at one point, and his dad was right there beside us too.

So there we all were. Our little family. Trying so hard to give back all the love our Neo had given to us – and so many others – over all these nineteen years.

Thank you, Little Buddy. My lucky Neo. My friend. You were, and will forever be, “The One.” I hope you’ve found your sunny spot in heaven. Chase some birds and butterflies and squirrels around now that you are free of arthritis and kidney disease. And find a good lap to love on until I meet you there.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 

– Galatians 5.13-14