Kitty

I never was much on pets, particularly cats. Mike got one to "keep me company" while he was at work, our first year of marriage, but it was a Siamese with a complete Siamese personality and reputation, and I was not upset when we moved and had to get rid of it.

That all changed about ten years later, when a little girl begged for a cat for her seventh birthday. Her daddy, who always has been "wrapped around her little finger," finally gave in and told me to go to the animal shelter and pick one out. After one trip I thought I'd chosen the right one - a gray cat with a pearly appearance to her fur. I told the people at the shelter that I'd be back later that day to decide for sure. At that second trip, I was very grateful for my hesitance at deciding earlier in the day - the pearly gray cat had shredded everything in sight, and gave every indication of having a ragged personality along with a ragged cage.

Then I saw a small gray tabby, sitting calmly alone, not demanding attention like the rest of the caged cats in the room. She just looked at me, as if to say "I'd be a good one, but I'm not putting pressure on you." I decided on the spot, then left her to be spayed while we took a brief trip to the Smokies.

The afternoon of the seven-year-old girl's birthday, Andrew and I went back to the shelter to pick up the cat. When we got home, her dad told her to go look inside the box her brother was holding in the car. She looked in, pulled out her little cat, and we observed what love at first sight really does look like.

Kitty, whose official name was Pearl, was never really known by anything but Kitty. She always had a sweet and endearing personality. She was never any more demanding than she was at the animal shelter, and she reveled in anyone's attention, particularly that of her owner. They had a long and sweet friendship. Even as a teenager, her owner could talk to her cat when she couldn't talk to anyone else.

Kitty used up several of her nine lives very quickly. She was only about a year old when she climbed under the hood of Mike's truck and he started it soon thereafter. That's how she lost the sight in her left eye. We think she might have lost at least some of her sense of smell also, because there were times when she couldn't find her food unless we pointed her in the right direction. About a year after that, she got her head caught in the back of a dresser drawer. We had to wake Mike up out of night shift sleep for that one - because if he hadn't forced her head back through, she would have strangled. For weeks she avoided Mike, knowing only that he had caused her pain, and not realizing that he had saved her life.

There were probably other times she used up some of her lives that we didn't even know about, because occasionally she would disappear for a day or two. Who knows what she was into during those times. And we knew she finished even more of her lives during this last illness. Last week, when she was so sick while ML was on her senior trip, she used up what must have been her eighth.

Sometime late Friday or early Saturday, Kitty finished her ninth life. We knew she'd been missing, so after Sunday dinner I went looking for her, and after walking the perimeter of the yard, discovered her behind the pool house. This afternoon Mike and I buried her, wrapped in a soft shirt, on the edge of our property. The week after next will mark eleven years since that seven year old got the gift of her childhood dreams for her birthday. It's almost like the cat waited until after ML got back from her senior trip and got through graduation - as usual, Kitty didn't demand attention, but just quietly went on after all the hoopla was over. It's also ironic that her passing marks the end of an era - right at the same time that graduation also marks the end of the same era of her owner's childhood.

Kitty worked her way into all of our hearts. She will be greatly missed - even by the one who formerly didn't care for cats, the one who picked her out and brought her home eleven years ago, and who carried her to her final resting place today.