My girl ...

I think this is the hardest thing I've had to write about in a very long time. Early Saturday afternoon, July 5th, my darling baby girl, Creature (aka Creepy) unexpectedly passed away.

My orange fluff ball is gone.

I can't believe I just typed that sentence.

I confess, I'm still in a state of shock. One minute she was fine and the next she was gone. I believe she died of a stroke or an aneurysm. I'm indescribably grateful that when it happened she was in my arms and it was very quickly over. Two minutes. In two short minutes my life has changed completely. Intellectually I realize she isn't with me anymore on this physical plane ... emotionally, I'm scared that if I really let myself start crying I won't be able to stop. My heart feels like a rock in my chest.

Eight years ago the husband and I were living in a rental place, in the process of buying our first home together. I had two cats (though I wasn't supposed to) at the time. I really wanted to keep them inside until we moved but both of them loved being outside too much. They always had and they only stayed inside for a couple of weeks to acclimate whenever I have moved from place to place over the years. Medford, a beautiful and unbelievably sweet gray tabby, had been with me for 11 years. Scooter, a silly white guy, had been with me for about five years. Long story short, in June of that year they both disappeared. Poof! Vanished into thin air. To this day I have no idea, though I have suspicions I hate to even contemplate, as to what happened to them. I was horribly upset and swore I would never have anymore cats. Losing Scooter was bad, but losing Medford, well, I still grieve and miss her terribly. I can hardly think about her without crying.

One Sunday evening 'round about August or September, the husband and I were at home, in the kitchen cleaning up the breakfast dishes, when we heard a neighbors' dog in the front yard barking. I looked out the kitchen window and saw him standing there, barking at the front porch. Just then I heard a tiny meow. I mashed my face to the window, looked toward the porch, and saw a little orange fuzz ball between the railings. I told the husband to go to the back door and call the dog around to the back of the house so that I could open the front door and get the kitten.

As fast as I opened the door this little bitty, scared shitless, kitty came flying in and climbed straight up my leg and into my arms. Shaking and squeaking like a mouse, it snuggled under my chin and clung to me for dear life. From it's size I guessed it to be about 7-8 weeks old at best. All I could think of was, "Well, damn, what do I do with this?" Honestly, I didn't want her. I was still too emotionally raw from losing Medford. But I figured the least I could do was give it some food and water, keep it safe until I could call the Human Society the next day. All the remainder of that afternoon and evening the kitten stayed glued to my lap if I was sitting down, or scrambled around under my feet if I got up for anything.

I spent some time that day looking around for more kittens but never found any, nor any sign of how the kitty came to be on my porch. We didn't have close neighbors, lived on a main road but still 10 miles from town, and all I could figure was someone had set out kittens somewhere near our house. When I checked the kitty over I discovered it was a she, was sort of skinny and undernourished, and her claws were shredded and bloody. She was also scared of everything and particularly horrified of being under a blanket or put in a box. Which, of course, made me assume she must have clawed her way out of something, box or bag. I felt bad for her, cleaned her up and doctored her paws, but wasn't going to get attached.

On Monday I tried calling the pound to find out their hours so I could take her to them. No one answered the phone. All day, calling every 30 minutes, I got no answer. The next day I even drove the 20 miles to see if they were there, to check the hours they were open. No one was there. The door sign said they were supposed to be open 7:30 am to 4:00 pm. I went home frustrated. I kept calling every hour or so. I called, every day, for a week. Never got anyone on the phone. If I went to town and drove over to check no one would be there.

By this time the kitten was starting to grow on me. She was my shadow. Hated to let me out of her sight. Screeched like a banshee if I went out of the room and she couldn't see me. She snuggled beside me, as close as she could get herself, in bed at night. One day near the end of that week I was kicked back on the sofa reading a book. She was snooping around the living room and checking things out. When she got brave and tried to kill the curtain I called her a creature she came running over to me, climbed up on the sofa, nudged my book out of the way and curled herself into a ball next to my heart. She reached her little paw up and touched my chin. She started purring for the first time.

I was hooked and cooked.

She got named, as you can guess, Creature.

I stopped trying to call the Human Society and took her to the vet for her shots, etc. Spent money at the store for toys, scratching post, cat litter and all the stuff a kitty should have. Since Scooter and Medford had preferred to be outside there were things I didn't have in the house. And since I wasn't really supposed to have pets, I didn't want a repeat of the vanishing act. I knew I had to keep Creature inside, hidden, until we got moved into our new house.

Creature, who's monikur eventually became "Creepy", was, without doubt, a "Momma's girl". Whatever happened to her in her first few weeks of life left an impression. She would hide from anybody except me. She barely tolerated the husband's presence when he was home. If anyone came over they didn't realize I even had a cat unless they saw the toys. But with me, she was loving and sweet. She was in my lap if I was sitting down, playing at my feet if I was standing up, tagging along behind me if I was walking through the house, snuggling close if I was in bed sleeping. If I talked to her, she talked back.

Over the years she gradually lost some of her skittishness and would stay in the same room if people came over. She began to like the husband, playing with him or sometimes sitting next to him on the sofa if he was watching a movie. At some point, maybe two or three years ago she began to sleep next to him on the bed sometimes, laying just at the perfect distance from him for him to be able to reach her and scratch her shoulders the way she liked. As more time passed she became friends with some of my friends. She really liked Sue and Paul became her "boyfriend". She trained him to get her pounce treats whenever he came over and rewarded him with a show of flirtation ... rolling over, showing him her tummy and batting her eyes.

I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but the most dramatic change in her behavior was to become one of the most precious to me ... sofa napping under the blanket with me. I have an afghan I keep folded over one arm of the sofa for taking naps or if I get cold while watching a movie or reading. I don't care where she was in the house, she had an incredible cat-sense when I got on the sofa and covered up with that afghan. She was johnny-on-the-spot to climb under it with me. I had to lay on my side, with my back pressed again the back of the sofa, knees drawn up to form a little snuggle spot next to my stomach for her. She would get under the blanket, circle around a couple of times then tuck up close to me and start purring so loud you could hear her across the room. I also had to put my hand on her side, letting it just rest there, or she would keep wiggling around until I did. We had some awesome "cat naps" and movie watching/reading afternoons curled up together under that afghan.

I could sit here for hours, telling you story after story about my girl, my Creepy. I could spend the rest of my life telling you how special she was, about how much she came to mean to me over the past eight years. Instead, I will fill the rest of this post with pictures to show how incredibly beautiful she was. Sadly, there is no way these images can express the deep love I felt in my heart for her, nor the infinite joy she brought to my life for having chosen me to be her Mom. The time was too short, but it was a living definition of a true blessing.