Speedy.
19 years ago a much younger Mark was wandering in the woods near his house in Dundee Illinois and saw a mother cat and her kittens near a pipe that had one end buried in the ground.
My parents were separated at the time and we had been told that we weren't allowed to have any pets. But the kittens were really cute. A plan hatched.
I had a buddy come out into the woods with me. I stationed him at the end of the pipe that was butted up against the ground, I stood over the exposed end of the pipe straddling the opening.
My friend, Phil, started beating his end of the pipe with a baseball bat. I caught the first thing that dashed out of the hole. A *tiny* black kitten. Knowing what I do now, I would have left the underage kitten with her mom for a while longer.
I named her Speedy and brought her home. For the first couple days she hid. Underneath couches, beds, appliances. Once she hid in the fireplace. I swear to god the image of that cute little fluffy ball of fur covered in ashes is one of the cutest things that I have ever seen in my life, it's a picture of her that I will always carry with me in my heart.
She grew a little older and started coming out of her shell. She was fierce. Even in play. It was obvious when I had been rough housing with her, my hands would be covered in scratches and cuts. That didn't keep me, or her from coming back for more.
She came with us to Connecticut, and then Virginia. By the time we hit VA she had grown into her own. She was never a big cat but she was lithe and muscular.
She had full run of the neighborhood in Manassas. She took great care of us.I would even say that she doted on us. Everday she would bring something back for us, leaving us the choicest portions on the same spot on our porch everday. Snakes, mice, birds (lots of birds), rabbits, lizards. She was the lord of her domain. Once she came back rather beaten up with nothing to show for it in the way of a meal, but I have no doubt that the racoon or dog that she tusseled with got the worse end of that deal.
For all I know there is still a tiny little bloodstain on the front porch of that house in manassast a decade later.
She was her own cat. But everyday she would spend sometime on the laps of one of us. She would clean herself and let us know that she still considered us her people.
I moved away, my housing status was never all that sure, college, crappy apts, my parents kept her. She was inevitably the first person I greeted when I returned home.
Years went by and she grew older. She calmed down greatly and actually became much more affectionate. We kept her indoors, didn't want to risk her thinking she could still tussle with some of the beasties that she used to.
She started getting really skinny a couple of years ago, she also lost her hearing. My parents would take her in the vet, and things would start going wrong. She picked up some sort of skin cancer thing which made her skin kinda bumpy, but the docs always said that she was in great health for a cat her age.
Last Christmas we got some great pictures of her sticking her paw into mugs of my dads highly toxic eggnog mix to pull out handfulls of fluffy nog to lick off her paws.
Last time I saw her was this past spring. She looked alright, but she really wasn't moving around that much. I got to hang out with her on my lap for a couple hours and read a book on a saturday afternoon.
My mom just called me to let me know that she had to put Speedy down this morning.
19 years is a great run for a cat. But I am still gonna miss the hell out her.
Edit: Thanks for all the kind words. I have the best friends in the world.
My parents were separated at the time and we had been told that we weren't allowed to have any pets. But the kittens were really cute. A plan hatched.
I had a buddy come out into the woods with me. I stationed him at the end of the pipe that was butted up against the ground, I stood over the exposed end of the pipe straddling the opening.
My friend, Phil, started beating his end of the pipe with a baseball bat. I caught the first thing that dashed out of the hole. A *tiny* black kitten. Knowing what I do now, I would have left the underage kitten with her mom for a while longer.
I named her Speedy and brought her home. For the first couple days she hid. Underneath couches, beds, appliances. Once she hid in the fireplace. I swear to god the image of that cute little fluffy ball of fur covered in ashes is one of the cutest things that I have ever seen in my life, it's a picture of her that I will always carry with me in my heart.
She grew a little older and started coming out of her shell. She was fierce. Even in play. It was obvious when I had been rough housing with her, my hands would be covered in scratches and cuts. That didn't keep me, or her from coming back for more.
She came with us to Connecticut, and then Virginia. By the time we hit VA she had grown into her own. She was never a big cat but she was lithe and muscular.
She had full run of the neighborhood in Manassas. She took great care of us.I would even say that she doted on us. Everday she would bring something back for us, leaving us the choicest portions on the same spot on our porch everday. Snakes, mice, birds (lots of birds), rabbits, lizards. She was the lord of her domain. Once she came back rather beaten up with nothing to show for it in the way of a meal, but I have no doubt that the racoon or dog that she tusseled with got the worse end of that deal.
For all I know there is still a tiny little bloodstain on the front porch of that house in manassast a decade later.
She was her own cat. But everyday she would spend sometime on the laps of one of us. She would clean herself and let us know that she still considered us her people.
I moved away, my housing status was never all that sure, college, crappy apts, my parents kept her. She was inevitably the first person I greeted when I returned home.
Years went by and she grew older. She calmed down greatly and actually became much more affectionate. We kept her indoors, didn't want to risk her thinking she could still tussle with some of the beasties that she used to.
She started getting really skinny a couple of years ago, she also lost her hearing. My parents would take her in the vet, and things would start going wrong. She picked up some sort of skin cancer thing which made her skin kinda bumpy, but the docs always said that she was in great health for a cat her age.
Last Christmas we got some great pictures of her sticking her paw into mugs of my dads highly toxic eggnog mix to pull out handfulls of fluffy nog to lick off her paws.
Last time I saw her was this past spring. She looked alright, but she really wasn't moving around that much. I got to hang out with her on my lap for a couple hours and read a book on a saturday afternoon.
My mom just called me to let me know that she had to put Speedy down this morning.
19 years is a great run for a cat. But I am still gonna miss the hell out her.
Edit: Thanks for all the kind words. I have the best friends in the world.