Amos began his life in my parents' garbage can one July day in 1993. My younger brother was leaving for work that morning and heard some tiny cries. Upon investigation, he found three baby kittens in the garbage can, apparently abandoned by their mother right after birth. One was already dead, and Tim took the other two over to the duplex that Steve, Matt, and I shared at the time. Steve immediately took both kittens to the vet and we began bottle-raising them. They had to be fed every four hours.
At first we kept them in a box in Steve's bedroom with a lamp over it for warmth. We were worried about how my dog, Alex, would react to them, but her motherly instincts kicked in right away. She was fiercely protective of them and would sit next to their box watching them for hours.
Sadly, one of the babies died shortly thereafter -- it couldn't have been more than a few days or so -- and Amos was left with no siblings.
With three of us living in the duplex and working different shifts, we were able to keep up with the every-four-hours feeding schedule. I remember coming home from work one night to find Matt standing at the stove, holding Amos against a towel draped over his shoulder while he heated up a bottle for him. Cutest scene ever!
Amos would flail his little limbs about while being bottle-fed, and one day before his eyes were even open yet, he managed to hook a claw into his left eye while Steve was feeding him. It got horribly infected and the vet initially said it would have to be removed. Thankfully, the eye was saved, but the outer eyelid did have to be removed and Amos was never able to see out of that eye. The vet thought that maybe he could see a bit of light and shadow, but nothing else.
Alex helped him out when it was time for him to start walking. She taught him how to walk by scooting him along the carpet with her nose.
Like a worried mama, she kept a close eye on his progress.
He later had some difficulty making the transition from the bottle to solid food. He became very ill and Steve and I had to rush him to the emergency animal hospital late one night. The doctor there advised us not to waste our money because Amos wasn't going to make it through the night, but Steve insisted that they do everything they could to try to save him. Amos made it through the night and we took him to our regular vet the next morning. I remember that he had an IV catheter sticking out of his neck for a few days, but he began to thrive. Due to his illness, he lost all of his fur temporarily. I was surprised to see that his skin had the same color pattern as his fur did. Though he was completely bald, his skin was pink with grey splotches. Little bald Amos was soon eating solid food like a champ and turned into quite the little butterball (and eventually grew his fur back).
He developed a water-drinking trick to make up for his lack of depth perception due to his bad eye. He'd dip his paw in the water bowl and then drink the water out of his paw. He also enjoyed drinking from the faucet and even figured out how to turn the faucet on by bonking his head against it.
A couple years later, he had to have one of his hind toes removed. It had a slight deformity that caused his claw to grow back around and dig itself into the toe, which was causing him pain and infections. By this time, Amos hated the vet with the fire of ten thousand suns. When the vet called me to tell me that the surgery was over, she said, "He's awake and he's angry." When I arrived to pick him up, the receptionist announced, "Hey, everybody, this is Amos's mommy!" and then they took me to the kennel area in the back rather than bringing him out to me. He was inside his carrier, with a towel draped over it, and the carrier was locked inside a kennel cage. And he was yowling like a demon. They opened the cage and I retrieved the carrier. It was mid-December, and they had a plate of Christmas cookies on a table in the back. As I made my way out with Amos in his carrier, one of the vet techs said, "Here, take a cookie. You'll need it."
When I got him home, I took his carrier upstairs and opened the door. He tried to bolt out of the carrier and ended up banging his bandaged foot against the side. That cat let out a howl like I've never heard before or since. He made his way to the doorway of the bedroom and yowled and hissed, growling at me when I came near him and effectively trapping me in the room. Poor little Amos. Eventually he calmed down, and his foot healed, but that was the beginning of his bad reputation.
Amos loved his people. He loved to be held and carried around the house by me, Steve, or Matt. He would hang on to our shoulders while we toted him around so that we barely had to hang onto him. When I was sitting at my computer or on the couch, he'd climb up onto my shoulder and sit on the back of my neck. But he hated pretty much everyone who wasn't us, with the exception of my mom. When she came over to visit, he'd jump into her lap. If anyone else came over, he'd attack, yowling and hissing and in at least one case, throwing himself at them in a rage. He was the sweetest boy in the world for his people, but everyone else was terrified of him. It was comical that such a little guy with one good eye and a missing toe could strike such fear into people.
For future vet visits, he had to be tranquilized. They would truss him up like Hannibal Lecter, putting him into a small duffel bag-type thing with a drawstring that tied around his neck and a little mask over his face. Once they tried tossing some pheromones into his carrier. That was supposed to calm him down, but it only made him more angry. They asked that for future visits, we sedate him at home before bringing him in.
I will always remember him as my sweet little guy, despite his Jekyll and Hyde tendencies, though.
Like Niko, Amos also had a unique appetite. He once jumped into my lap while I was eating a NutriGrain bar and took a big bite out of it as though it were a perfectly normal thing for a cat to eat. He had a strong preference for crunchy, salty foods such as Chex Mix, which he would gobble up like a fiend, tortilla chips, and crackers.
As he got older, he developed a bit of arthritis and moved a bit more slowly, but he was still my constant shadow. He would follow me from room to room and would always snuggle up with me at night. In his later days, I'd notice him following me and would pick him up and carry him with me because I felt so bad that he was moving so slowly, obviously not having such an easy time getting around any more, but still wanting to be wherever I was.
On my desk I have a framed photo of Steve snoozing on the couch at the duplex while Amos, at maybe six months old, sits on his chest. I like to think they are back together again now. I will miss them both forever.
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