Pour one out
Let's be clear: Cindy is a dumb name for a cat.
It was my mother's idea, and goodness knows where she got it from; but then again, this was the eighties. Regardless, none of us could agree on anything concretely better, so Cindy it was.
I don't think we really gave Cindy enough attention growing up. Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that almost everybody in the house was allergic to her, although I got used to it after a while. But while she was quite grumpy with us most of the time, she'd always put on a good show when there were visitors around, purring and sitting in laps and being generally nice.
When I left home, Cindy was fat, lazy and capricious. On Sunday, though, when I went round to see Mum and Dad, I was struck by how frail she looked, almost as if she'd regressed to the gangly post-kitten stage. Oddly, I was reminded of how my grandmother looked, late in life.
Mum called just now to say that Cindy was run over last night and killed. It seems that, at age 17, she was quite deaf and had taken to sitting in the middle of the road: my parents live on the kind of bend that it is exciting to drive round in a hurry, I guess.
I'm sadder than I thought I'd be.