Dewey's Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions

by Vicki Myron

  And she did. She made it safely to the vet, although she could barely see through her tears, and she held Cookie in her hands, lightly and lovingly, until her final breath. She held her until the little cat glanced up one last time as if to say, I love you, I’m sorry, before she folded under and Lynda felt, with her soul as much as her fingertips, the very last beat of her heart.

  I have never been loved by another human being, Lynda wrote in her letter to me, not even by my daughter or my parents, the way I have been loved by my Cookie.

  I could tell, even from her brief letter, that Lynda wasn’t lonely. Her life was filled with happiness and love. I wanted to include a story like this—an ordinary story—because a majority of the letters I received where from ordinary people like Lynda. Why her, you ask? Because of that one beautiful sentence, which celebrated a kitten’s extraordinary love without a whisper of despair:

  I have never been loved by another human being, not even by my daughter or my parents, the way I have been loved by my Cookie.

  “I know that sounds strange,” Lynda told me, although after my life with Dewey, it didn’t sound strange at all. “It almost sounds sad, I know. But it is absolutely the truth. As much as my daughter loves me, as much as my parents love me, as much as other people have loved me, I have never felt . . . I have never felt what that cat felt for me.”

  And that love was returned. I’m not saying Lynda loved her cat more than the other people in this book, because love can manifest in myriad ways, but she was the only one who said, “Thank you, Vicki, for doing this for Cookie. She was such a good cat. She deserves to have her story told.” She was the only one, in other words, who explicitly put her cat before herself, and I admire her for that.

  “She was just your typical tabby,” Lynda admitted. “She was gray and white, the tiger markings, your little garden-variety kitty. I can’t say that she did any extraordinary things. I can’t say she was a hero. I can’t say she saved somebody from disaster.”

  Not even Lynda. Cookie, after all, didn’t save Lynda Caira from illness . . . or occasional loneliness. This isn’t a story of redemption. It isn’t a story of need. Lynda Caira has been and will probably always be happy. This is simply a story about being chosen, about being loved so fiercely that it changes your life.

  Dewey. Cookie. All the other cats that touch our hearts and change our lives. How can we ever thank them enough? How can we ever explain?

  After Cookie’s death, Lynda wrote a remembrance of her precious cat. It closed with this: “There is nothing more to say—life will go on, although I will miss her each and every day! Jennifer will get married, I will have precious grandchildren, I will love and lose more pets. But one thing is certain: there will never be another pet who will be my best friend; there will never be another animal who could bring the joy that Cookie brought to my life.”

  Amen.

  SEVEN

  Marshmallow

  “He was a tough cat. For a cat that was a runt and so weak, he ended up being a pretty strong man. He reminds me of Grizzly Adams a little bit. You know, big heart but you can’t see it on the outside. Marshmallow rarely showed his true colors.”

  “Only to you, huh?”

  “Only to me.”

  I’ve known Kristie Graham her whole life. I was beside her at her communion. I attended her high school graduation. I did the floral arrangements at her wedding. I even changed her diapers. When she was younger, of course, when she was just a sweet baby girl. When I started college in Minnesota in my thirties, after a bad marriage to an alcoholic that left my life and finances shattered, Kristie’s mother, Trudy, was one of my first new friends. While I attended class, she’d often babysit for my daughter, Jodi. When I wasn’t working, we’d sit for hours and drink coffee while our children played. That’s what Kristie remembers, anyway, that her mother and I drank gallons of coffee. She was only four or five years old at the time, so her memories are pretty scattershot. She remembers that my washing machine didn’t spin, so I stirred my laundry with a big wooden spoon (maybe once, for about a week). She remembers that my rusted car never seemed to run (only occasionally); that I bawled my eyes out when Elvis died (not true; it was her mom who cried); and that I was, in her words, “a very hardworking, hard, hardworking woman.” (I’ll agree with that one. I had to be!)

  I simply remember a wonderful girl. Trudy’s oldest daughter, Kellie, was Jodi’s age. She was a beautiful, outgoing kid. Kristie, three years younger, was just as beautiful and outgoing, but she never felt she could compare to her sister—even though Kristie was the one who would eventually become homecoming queen. So at the age of three, she went the other way. Kristie became the snot-nosed kid of our little coffee club. Literally. That girl always had something encrusted beneath her nose. If you put her in a clean white dress to have her picture taken at Sears, she walked out of the car covered in dark smudges. It didn’t matter how clean the car was. She found a way to ruin the dress. And I’m not making this up. The picture happened. Even Kristie admits (with some pride, I think) that back then, she was always covered with “runny booger dirt.” I guess that’s why I called her Pigpen. I loved that kid. Pigpen was my term of endearment.

  But the thing I remember most about Pigpen Kristie wasn’t her dirty face and soiled dresses. It was the way we had fun. She and Kellie were the laughing-est, goofing-est, playing-est kids I’ve ever met. I remember Kristie and a few others convincing (or possibly forcing) Susan, the daughter of another friend, to slide down the laundry chute. Thank goodness there was a pile of laundry at the bottom, because it was a twelve-foot drop. I remember being the “house mom” for big slumber parties of eleven or twelve preteen girls, and always having to come in at 2:00 in the morning to tell them to pipe the heck down. I remember being snowed in during a ferocious blizzard and coaxing Kristie, Kellie, and Jodi to dance and lip-sync to 1970s soft rock songs. Then Trudy and I put on costumes and “sang” a few 1950s girl-group hits. We laughed for years about the Weekend of the Blizzard when, as always, we girls made the best of a tough situation.

  I also remember Kristie’s cat, Marshmallow. He was a huge, fluffy, off-white fellow who, really and truly, resembled a marshmallow. Not that I saw him much. I usually only glimpsed his tail as he was running away. I liked him, but I’m not sure Marshmallow would have been special to me if it weren’t for one thing: He was special to Kristie. If ever a child loved a cat, it was Kristie Graham. She loved her Marshmallow. The girl talked about him all the time.

  So when I thought about stories for this book, I thought of Marshmallow. I thought of how much Kristie loved him, how much he was a part of her life, how important it all seemed to her, and how much he loved her in return. Kristie and Marshmallow’s relationship was the closest thing I’d ever known to what Dewey and I shared. That is part of Dewey’s legacy, of course: the opportunity to tell stories about other special cats and special girls. The opportunity to show the world that those kind of wonderful relationships are happening everywhere, all the time, and that it’s okay—in fact, it’s perfectly normal—for a cat to be your very best friend.

  I also knew Kristie could tell a funny story. I expected her to make me laugh. And she did. What I didn’t expect was for it to touch me so deeply. I knew Kristie’s life hadn’t been perfect. She’d had hard times. Who doesn’t? That’s life. As Kristie told me: “It was an awe-some journey. I wouldn’t be where I am today without going through all this so I count it as a blessing, obviously.” I do, too. I count it a blessing to have known her. I love Kristie and Kellie and their mother to the bottom of my heart. Their presence upgraded my life to first class, even if my washing machine didn’t spin and my car broke down. But Kristie’s story still surprised me. I expected her to be smart, but I guess I never expected her to be wise. I mean, the girl’s only thirty-five. What’s she trying to pull?

  So, Kristie, let me step aside, for once, and let you tell your tale in your own words. How many stories have been in this book so far?
Six? Seven? It’s time for my coffee break anyway.

  I’ve been blessed. That’s what I always say. I’m so blessed, in fact, that I put a list of my blessings in my Christmas card every year. It looks like this:I am blessed because all of my kids like mac and cheese, hot dogs, and frozen pizza.

  I am blessed that both boys think, talk, and act rough and tough but still sleep with their favorite Teddy.

  I am blessed because every day I receive four credit card applications in the mail. Some would call this junk mail; I call it “free envelopes.”

  I am blessed that my children live on the edge and will do anything if it’s a dare and not a sin. Like drinking “Mom’s special sauce” for five bucks. Chocolate syrup, ketchup, mustard, and pickle juice.

  I am blessed that when Reagan wakes up, she yells “Lucas, D.J., I’m awake, come get me,” and I can get another five minutes of sleep.

  I’m blessed that my kids love worms and bugs, since I do, too. I’m blessed that they eat tomatoes and beans straight from my garden, and dig up baby carrots, and bite right into peppers, because I did that, too. I’m blessed that Sioux City is cold enough in the winter for snow forts and hot enough in the summer to throw up a temporary swimming pool in the backyard. I’m blessed that my kids are constantly grass stained and hate to wear shoes, even though my daughter has Fred Flintstone feet just like my husband. (I wonder how that’s going to look in high heels.)

  I’m blessed that Lucas is the kindest, most empathetic kid I’ve ever met. I’m blessed that my middle boy, D.J., is so strong-willed that he refused to use his real name, which is Dawson, and everybody said fine. “Why didn’t you name me Bruce Wayne or Cowboy D.J.?” he used to whine. He was in a Batman/cowboy phase; he dressed like one or the other every day for three years. I had no trouble pushing Batman through the supermarket in a shopping cart, but I finally had to get his kindergarten teacher to tell him cowboys weren’t allowed in school. My three-year-old daughter, Reagan, meanwhile, is a mermaid. She wears orange hair from the dollar store and three-size-too-big tap shoes from the Goodwill and calls my husband Eric (his real name is Steven), since that’s the prince from The Little Mermaid. “My prince is home!” she yells every evening when he walks in the door. And then they dance. Reagan never dances with me. “Sorry, Mommy,” she says, “you’re Ursula.” (Ursula’s the sea witch). But I’m still blessed, because she’s eight years younger than D.J., and I thought the next time I heard the patter of baby feet I’d be a grandmother.

  I’m blessed with Steven, the man of my dreams. We’ve been married for thirteen years, and I still get butterflies in my tummy when I am getting ready to go on a date. Alone. With a boy. Hee Hee. And when he takes me out, he lets me order “the usual”: a grilled cheese sandwich with crinkle fries. He never tries to change me. He just laughs and says, “You’re a cheap date, honey.” And I say, “Lucky for you.”

  I’m blessed because I have a nice house. Because I have a purposeful job, mentoring fifty-two kids with learning disabilities from age sixteen to twenty-four. A job where I can use my experiences to help people I care about, and where their courage and warmth helps me, too. I’m blessed because when my dog Molly died at seventeen, I cried so hard I thought I never wanted another animal. But some of the kids I mentor volunteer at the Siouxland Humane Society, and they introduced me to another dog, and now I have Princess to jog with every morning.

  I’m blessed because last fall I ran the Sioux City marathon, and I did it the right way. I even gained weight on purpose to compete in the over-150-pound category, where I finished third. Which was amazing! But that wasn’t why I was blessed. I was blessed because every two miles my husband, sister, and even my dad were there to hand me water and cheer me on, and each time they were crying because they were so proud of me, because they knew how hard I had worked and how far I had come.

  Where did I come from? How did I get here? Those aren’t questions I’ve often asked. I’m blessed by God. Every time I hear my three-year-old pray, I’m reminded of that. But it took hard work, too. I always knew that, because I’m the one who did the work. It wasn’t until I started thinking about this book, though, that I realized that maybe Robert Frost was right. Maybe there are two roads that diverge in the yellow woods of our lives, and I . . .

  I married my cat.

  And that has made all the difference.

  If you want an explanation of that, and I hope you do, then we probably need to go back to the beginning, which in this case is 1984, when I was a dirty snot-covered (and proud of it!) nine-year-old kid living in Worthington, Minnesota, a pretty little town on a lake. I was a tomboy, I guess you could say, because I loved gardening with my dad and digging for worms and racing beetles in the palms of my hands. When my mom told me pigtails looked nice, I cut my hair off in the middle of the night and hid it in my jewelry box. I loved sugar, so I would sneak into the pantry and drink all the Hershey’s chocolate syrup straight out of the can. Then I’d walk around with chocolate sauce smeared all over my face, denying my crime. You know, that kid. Never worried about a thing.

  But in the summer of 1983, Grandpa got sick with colon cancer. He was a big man from a very small town, Whittemore, Iowa, where he owned a meat locker, and to me he was about a hundred feet tall. He was very outspoken, and he had huge raw hands from cutting meat all his life. When my mom and older sister and I moved to Whittemore to take care of him, I was excited because it was like a vacation. And Grandpa was a hero to me. I still remember skating down the street every day to the diner, plopping into my seat, and saying, “I’ll have the usual, please”—grilled cheese with crinkle fries, of course—and feeling like I was some kind of grown-up. But the cancer cut Grandpa down so quickly that he started to wither before my eyes. I could see, even as a child, his big hands trembled. They couldn’t hold me anymore. My mom was strong-willed. She always said, “I have big shoulders. I can handle anything.” When my grandpa stopped fighting, I saw her fear for the first time.

  When I got home to Minnesota two weeks later, I found out my cat had died. I’d left Puff at home with my dad in Worthington, but when we came back after the funeral, he told me Puff had died. I looked at him and nodded. Then I went to my room and cried. I was nine years old. What else could I do?

  A few days later, another cat showed up at our side door. She was a calico, and she had the wildest mix of colors I have ever seen. No stripes or patterns, just a crazy quilt that made her look like a bunch of parts of different cats stitched together. Her ears were missing, like maybe they had frozen off. Her tail was a stump. She was ugly and beat up and undesirable in every way . . . so obviously I started feeding her. I gave her milk and a name and even a few dinner scraps I managed to slide into my pockets. So of course she kept coming back.

  “Kristie,” my dad finally said after noticing Bowser hanging around the side door, “why are you feeding that cat?”

  “Gwampa sent me dis cat,” I told him. I had a little kid lisp back then; I was all “wed woses are pwetty” in those days. But I puffed myself up and said, “Gwampa wants me to have dis cat, Daddy.”

  Typical for a nine-year-old, right? A little parental manipulation? Maybe, but I believed it to be true. And I still do. If there’s a void that someone should fill, but they aren’t, God sends an animal. Bowser was sent. And Grandpa had something to do with it.

  My dad was a lot like me. Or maybe I was a lot like him, at least when it came to nature. He was a farm boy. He loved to be outside, loved to garden, loved animals. I was the kid who held beetles in her hand and stuck worms up her nose to scare her Care Bears-loving sister. My mom took my sister’s side; she was not an animal lover. My dad understood. Plus, he might have been a little guilty about Puff. I don’t think he expected me to take the cat’s death so hard.

  Whatever the reason, it was pretty easy to convince my dad to let me keep Bowser. He put a heat lamp in the garage for her, because the Minnesota winter was brutally cold (the heat lamp was the only way to keep he
r water from freezing, even in the garage), and Bowser was not, under any circumstances, on Mom’s orders, coming into the house. After the heat lamp was in place, Dad moved the old dresser, where he kept his tools, underneath it and put a cardboard box and a blanket on top. A few weeks later, Bowser had kittens, which surprised us both. She gave birth to them outside, right underneath my bedroom window. You aren’t supposed to move newborn kittens, but my dad decided to transport them from the window well to the box in the garage. After all, we had a cat condo, penthouse floor. Why would they want to roll in the dirt?

  Marshmallow, I must admit, wasn’t the best kitten in the litter. In fact, he was probably the worst. He was the runt. He was shy. His hair was poofy, like he was rocking one of the bad perms floating around my small-town Minnesota elementary school in the fall of 1984. He was almost pure white. Almost, I say, because unfortunately his fur had a yellowish undercoat that made him look stained. Think of a sheep. Then think of a sheep floating in a giant ball of static. Or think of a dandelion with its white seed fronds sticking straight out, ready to fly. That was Marshmallow.

  As part of the condo project, my dad ran a board from the dresser to the ground. Bowser would stand at the bottom and coax her kittens down one at a time, like a momma bird teaching her babies to fly. Marshmallow was always last. He would stand at the top of the plank with his eyes bugging out, shaking with fear. His mother would meow. His brothers and sisters would get bored and start fighting each other. Marshmallow would just stand there shaking.