My Cat

I should have written this two days ago. I wanted to write about it when it was all fresh in my mind and pressed hard on my heart.

Our family was privileged to have a pet cat, Tiger, for almost twenty years. On this past Wednesday I took her to the vet for the lethal injection. As I sit here in the family room/TV room, I am reminded why we had to take that fateful trip. Even with no teeth, minimal eyesight, poor balance, and a feeble gait, she was healthy. Except for an occasional coughed up hairball, there was minimal evidence of her advanced age. Her favorite spot was my lap, laptop computer keyboard, or the quilt I was currently quilting, wherever would be the most inconvenient. She would curl up in a tiny ball, weighing not quite five pounds, she was never very big; curling up, purring loudly and making herself very comfortable up on whatever part of me she could find flat and stationary.

The reason she had to go to the vet, she seemed to have forgotten where her litter box was kept, and honestly I think she was not even conscious of her number one activity. The furnace blower just kicked off and the fumes have dissipated. The odor is still around. Much carpet and a bit of furniture will need a good scrubbing to rid the house of the smelly leftover memory. I am anxious to get that done. Still, I am sad. That tiny feline has left a large void. No pun intended. Heh, she might like that.

When my boys were young she was like a second dog. Wherever you saw the two boys you would see a reddish-yellow lab mix, and a small gray tiger cat. I have a memory of the boys, well trained in some areas, walking up the road single file, behind them a dog, and then the cat. Its not atypical to see boys and a dog walking up a country road, but to see a cat tagging along behind was quite the sight. I a sure my mom's memory may have colored the picture a bit, but to me it is one of the sweetest I own.

I have to quit for now. I want to share what a trooper this little friend was despite being an outside pet and having a diet of cheap dog food for over ten years. Playing with a fishing lure dangling from a boys pole on the back porch, she was caught, hooked, in the gum. My husband and I posing as oral surgeons removed most of the hook, snipping it off at the barb above an eye tooth. The remaining brass had sunk deep into her jawbone and left to rot out. OK, I guess I did continue on. Now, off to supper.
I miss my cat.