I hesitate to write this. Especially with the anniversary of Columbine coming up. And hundreds of people were killed in an earthquake in Italy yesterday. And a big chunk of Antarctica just fell off the bottom of the earth….
I had to put my cat to sleep today, and I am so sad. Really sad. My heart actually aches.
I’d known Grace for sixteen years. I got her out of a barn in rural Indiana--- the owner of the barn had tons of cats that I assume he kept around to keep rodents in line. He did feed the cats: he’d throw a 20-pound paper bag of cat food into the hayloft. Because of this neat trick, I always had to put my cat food on top of the stacking washer/dryer, as Grace was adept at tearing into cat food bags.
Gracie’s earliest name was “Patches,” as she was a mostly-white calico. Apparently the owners of “Patches” decided they didn’t want her and dropped her off in the barn. I was told that they informed their kids that the cat ran away, and I always thought that was cruel.
When I met her in the barn she was a scrawny teenager, with long legs and coarse fur. She also “talked” lot, which at this meeting was loud yowling. But I wanted a companion for my little black cat, Spooky, and she was free, declawed, and had all her shots. My brother-in-law the country vet gave me meds to keep her sleeping on the drive back to Cleveland. I think I needed a tranquilzer gun. She’d periodically close her eyes between bouts of crazed howling and gnashing of teeth against the wire cat carrier door. If you’ve never sat in a car with a screaming cat for seven hours, you really should try it sometime.
I brought her home and my roommate took one look at her and said “that is the ugliest cat I have ever seen.” Gracie marched out of her cat carrier like she owned my place and from that moment on she was “Princess Grace.” She had absolutely no interest in Spooky and rarely gave him the time of day for the rest of his lifetime. After I came home without him the day I put him to sleep, Grace practically danced for joy. While Spooky was alive she had always been a standoffish cat; my roommate used to pick her up and hug her close for “enforced love times.” Once she was the lone cat in the house, she became a lap-cat.
It took Grace about a year to get off of “barn time,” which meant she started howling for attention and food at about 6 AM every morning. I do not know how I lived through that period without throwing her out the window. I kept waiting for her to acclimate, and eventaully, after a year and a move to a new condo, she did. She grew into her long legs and developed a lush soft coat that she groomed with impeccable regularity.
Grace was smart, and talkative. When I’d come home from work she’d be waiting at the door and cluck at me about her day. We’d “talk,” me asking questions and she answering. She always had a lot to say about her day. I never understood how she had so much to report, since she slept all day between bouts of sitting on the windowsill and watching birds.
Because she was so territorial, when I got another cat, I went to the pound and got a tiny kitten. Grace would have none of THAT. For the rest of her life she spat at the new cat and the only time she showed any interest was cuddling to keep warm in the winter. This went on for 10 years.
These last few years she’s been very frail, and thin, due to some kind of cancer and/or renal failure. She became very clingy, and so I spent most days at home wearing her around my neck like a fur stole. Three months ago I took her into the vet thinking it was her time to go, but the vet gave her steroids and chemo, and she got better for a while. But in the last weeks she hardly ate anything and yesterday she had a moment where she went totally comatose, so I knew today was probably the day.
But still. She was my companion for sixteen years. And I’m a single gal. And I miss her already. I want her wrapped around my neck, purring. Or cuddled next to me on the couch or in my bed.
I love the cat I have left, but she’s kind of a doofus. And a scaredy cat. Not a cuddler at all.
If you’re the praying sort, will you say a prayer for Gracie’s little soul?
There’s a Gracie shaped hole in my heart right now.
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