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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Sorry for the late submission.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Buffy Slayed the Vampires<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Marcia J. Wick, The Write Sisters<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>December 2019<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Word Count: 1108<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, was a little bit of a black cat, all black like the kind you don’t want walking under your ladder. When Buffy came to live with us as a kitten 18 years ago, my girls were only 10 and 12. With young children banging in and out of the house, our curious kitten ventured outside at every opportunity. She harassed the squirrels in our yard and brought home birds as unwelcome gifts. She scaled the fence and stalked the bunnies in the open field behind our home for hours on end. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A sleek 10 pounds at maturity, a damsel in distress she was not. During the day, bold Buffy loved nothing better than to roll in the warm dirt, turning her black coat brown. At night, she was camouflaged. Only her flashing yellow eyes would catch the porch light, like a werewolf on the lookout for vampires. Being a vampire slayer, Buffy had excellent night vision, unlike me. If I failed to get her inside the house before bedtime, I could anticipate a screeching cat fight in the middle of the night. Buffy protected our home from phantoms. She wasn’t meek. She took on feral Tom cats and held her own. When she fought, which was often, she limped home with torn ears and puncture wounds which seemed to heal overnight. The next night, she howled to get out and have at it again. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I once arranged for a live trap to relocate a feral feline, a vampire that visited often, but all we caught were squirrels, insanely unhappy squirrels far more dangerous than any feral cat.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Natural predators weren’t the only demons Buffy took on. My husband, ironically the man who had “gifted” Buffy to me and my children 10 years earlier, began a crusade to get her out of the house when we married eight years ago. To his credit, he scooped her litter box and purchased her food, but he soon tired of cleaning up her vomit. (Buffy also was known as “Barfy” because she regularly puked up the prey she had consumed on the carpet.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Seven years ago, when I applied to get a Guide Dog for the Blind, my husband seized the opportunity to declare, “Buffy must go!” After all, a cat wouldn’t be compatible with a dog, he insisted. I didn’t share his assumption and I argued that we should wait and see. My husband advertised to find Buffy a new home but there were no takers; my children accused him of throwing Buffy to the wolves when they found out. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I wasn’t worried. I knew Buffy could hold her own. For a decade, she had stood her ground against the fox and the bear and the bob cat. She had fought off back yard predators twice her size. The old girl had kept pace with my grown children and grandchildren. I figured Buffy could hold her own with my grumpy husband and a docile dog guide for the blind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When I brought my 60-pound yellow lab home from guide dog school, she was totally deferential to my pint-sized vampire slayer. The dog never challenged the cat as queen of the castle. In fact, my dog wouldn’t cross the cat’s path for anything – if Buffy stood in the hallway between me and my guide, the dog would not “come” when I called; if Buffy stood in the doorway when I instructed my guide to “hop up, inside,” my guide stood like a statue until I shooed Buffy out of the way.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As the cat observed the special treatment I gifted my guide dog, Buffy decided she wanted in on the act. She started competing for attention, following me around the house like the dog, sitting to my right if the dog was on my left, meowing for equal time. My ferocious feline transformed into a docile lap cat. She compelled me to start brushing her black coat after watching me groom the dog every day. She drank out of the dog’s water bowl instead of her own, and she insisted on eating out of my hand like she saw me reward the dog with kibble. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Buffy stopped barfing thanks to a special (expensive) diet, but she started losing weight. As she approached her 18<sup>th</sup> year, she dropped to six pounds. Her shiny black fur draped her bones like a vampire cloak. She still ventured out to sun herself on the patio, but she needed a step stool to hop onto my bed at night. I switched her from dry to wet food when she began shunning her kibble, but she required enticement like cream cheese topping or, better yet, cream cheese she could lick straight off my fingertip. At that point, I figured she could eat whatever, whenever she wanted.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This fall, as Buffy declined, I tended to her like I had my Mom who passed two years ago. Mom stopped eating the last week of her life. Although we worried she would die, she couldn’t eat because she was dying. Mom was 91; she passed peacefully in her sleep at home.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Buffy offered me the same gift. I realized on Thanksgiving Day when she turned down a piece of turkey in my palm that she was tired and ready to move on. She never seemed to suffer. She drank water and purred in my lap. She let me brush her thinning coat which she was no longer cleaning herself.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On Buffy’s last day in early December, we knew, like we knew with Mom that her time had come. She took one last tour of the yard and curled up on the warm dirt in an empty flower pot. Buffy loved the dirt. I’m sure it was warm, but we carried her in before dark and nestled her into a bed of towels near a heating vent. She stretched out in a relaxed pose and acknowledged my touch with a turn of her head. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>“Good kitty,” I whispered, “You slayed all the vampires so you can rest now.” We buried Buffy out back between the lilac bushes where she can continue to keep an eye on things.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My Dad is 95. His arthritic bones protrude through tissue-thin skin. His bright blue eyes see strange people and unfamiliar surroundings as his six children care for him in his own home. We tell him to trust us and not to worry. We spoon feed him soft food during his remaining wakeful hours. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Each one of us will take one last bite before letting go to discover a new life source. I find reassurance in the natural way of things.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal># # #<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>