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"When furniture turns 50, it becomes a priceless antique. I just want equal rights with a sofa. -- "Girls Night Out" on A&E 8/94
"When furniture turns 50, it becomes a priceless antique. I just want equal rights with a sofa. -- "Girls Night Out" on A&E 8/94
My Old Cat Sophie TuckerMy Old Cat Sophie Tucker
(This is long, so stay with it until you get to the date at the bottom)
I lost Sophie Tucker today. She was a beautiful old cat. She weighted over 18 pounds. She had become so heavy she could hardly walk. After it was over, I realized that I don’t have a picture of her. That makes me very sad. She was so precious lying on the bed on her back with her head on the pillow. Her fluffy white belly was irresistible! She loved tummy rubs. Sophie was one of those cats who looked as if she started out as a grey tabby, but had white paint poured on her. She had grey eyes and a white (not pink) nose. The first cat I’d seen with grey eyes. Such a pretty face.
Sophie liked to sleep with her back next to mine at night. I called her my heating pad when my back would act up. I called her a little furnace when I would wake up with that daily 5:00 a.m. hot flash, and would shove her away from me. Then she was merely so BIG and so HOT and no comfort.
She came to us in a man’s car trunk. He stole her from his neighbor because he had a bird feeder and the cat, being a cat, would try to catch the birds. He was at my folks’ house with the trunk of his old car open when we returned one day. That evening when Mom called her cats to come to eat, she had one more cat than she did that morning.
We knew where she came from because about a year later her owner turned up at our house for a visit. “That’s my cat!” she cried. And the story came out. Mom explained that Sophie had been spayed and had shots, and the woman could to take her back when she reimbursed the vet bills. The woman said her neighbor would just haul her off again and she was better off with us.
When she was a few years old Sophie developed bladder stones and had surgery. Mom couldn’t care for her post-op, so I took her. I lived next door. However, when she had recovered, she didn’t want to go home. That happened a lot with Mom’s cats. I would take them in so they could recover from some health issue, and they wouldn’t go home later. Sophie had surgery twice for bladder stones. She was a tough old cat. Just like a tough old woman who would refuse to give up. She would struggle and fight her way back to health.
Mom had not named her when I took her in. (My folks were not creative with pet names. Their pets were named Dog, Pup, Fuzzy Cat, etc.) She was felt so soft with rabbit fur hair that I started calling her “Softie” and that grew into Sophie, and as she got fatter it became Sophie Tucker.
Sophie’s best friend was Blackie Bear. The other cats in the household have siblings. Perhaps because these two were alone, they became friends and groomed each other and slept together like the siblings. More about Blackie at another time.
Sophie had become so very fat that she would sometimes roll off the bed. And I think that may be what happened to her. The vet said she appeared to only have feeling in one front leg. She was not able to stand. She appeared to be in a lot of pain and was very frightened. She had trouble breathing and had stopped eating.
She would look me straight in the eyes and meow so pleadingly, obviously asking me to fix it. After all, I had fixed all her ills up to then. I will carry that sweet, pleading face with me for a long time. She seemed to be fading slowly from the back to the front, with that intelligent old cat brain still active but the body no longer responding. It reminded me so much of how my Mom and her sister died of strokes. And memories of them are still so raw.
I held her as she went to sleep for the last time. The vet and assistant left me alone in the room with her for a while to say good bye. They are very kind and compassionate there. They know how much I care for my animals. (And, of course, they make a lot of money on me and my menagerie.) They will keep her body until I decide what to do. I can’t bury her here because the dogs will dig her up. I considered having her cremated, but the expense! However, I could bury her at the farm. And I think tonight that I need to do that. There is no one to help me dig a hole big enough to bury a 20 pound cat, but I’ll manage. I just feel like I need to do this. I’ll have to be careful of my back. I’ve lost my heating pad.
6/11/08 bjs
BJsBook says:
Thank you, Myrt. And thank you to everyone who has offered sympathy. Many don't understand the grief that comes with the death of a pet. Or how pets grieve for housemates. Blackie Bear now sleeps on the floor where Sophie spent her last days after she could no longer climb up on the bed or couch. She appears to have now lost her appetite and she always ate everyone else's food after she quickly finished her own. I make an effor to pet her a lot and feed her treats. We comfort each other.
Posted: June 16, 2008 10:12AM EDT
myrt says:
My sympathy. My daughter had an old kitty that she named Sophie. She was a tortoise shell and not even what I thought was a pretty cat, but she was a dear and loyal friend to my child. Sophie lived to be 17 years old, but the loss was nonetheless hurtful, and had my Judy read your story, she would now be in tears some twelve years later. Just know that you have sisters under the skin.
Posted: June 14, 2008 7:17PM EDT
