Our cat Lacey died yesterday. She was old, 18 or 20, which is ancient for a cat. She was a Holstein variety, mottled black-and-white like the namesake cow. Chris, Annie, and I took her to the vet after she went a week without eating. She was still getting around but losing weight fast. She spent most of her time wrapped up in the cat bed in my home office. We had watched her snuggle up to the heater vent for awhile and we put an electric blanket at the bottom of her bed. She seemed to like that.
Sometimes it's easy to tell when a pet has reached its end. We've had so many. Annie's Shelter dog Coco had a huge tumor on her head and blood tests revealed cancer. She was still pretty young but we knew she was in for months of pain so we took her for one last walk and opted to say goodbye at Avenues Pet Clinic. We spread her ashes in her favorite pond in the park. Not sure if that was legal but we were crying too hard to care.
Annie found Lacey five years ago at the Loveland, Colo., Animal Shelter. It's a really nice shelter, newer than most in the area. Annie, Chris and I had come to find a kitten to keep Annie company in her new Fort Collins apartment. So many cute kittens. Annie didn't show much interest so we passed by until we got to a large cage with one noisy occupant -- Lacey. A very pretty cat with a very loud voice. She came right up and pressed her face against the cage, begging for a touch. Annie obliged. I read the cat's description: "Dipstick, healthy older cat, declawed, female." As Annie played with the old lady cat with the dumb name, Chris and I found other cute kittens that Annie roundly ignored. We knew which cat Annie was going home with.
As it turned out, Annie left Fort Collins shortly thereafter and moved home to Cheyenne. She brought the cat with her, now called Lacey because that seemed to fit her better and it reminded Annie of the Irish Lace she likes so much. Teddy, our big male cat, was not amused. He's an outdoor cat who prowls the neighborhood and everyone knows him. He's a hunter. Annie adopted him as a kitten along with another kitten she named Bubba. Teddy and Bubba grew up together until Bubba disappeared one night and we never saw him again. We thought it oddly coincidental that a big owl made his home at the top of the neighbor's blue spruce around the same time. Owls are hunters too.
Teddy and Lacey did not get along. Teddy ruled the roost and Lacey was old and cranky. Teddy would whack at her with his big paw and Lacey backed up and hissed like a cobra. With no claws and small stature, she had to be vocal and scary. We also found out quickly that she was deaf. To make up for the silence, she filled the house with vocals. You always knew where she was, and maybe that was her point.
When Annie first took her outside on a nice spring day, she seemed stunned. It was all new to her, this outdoors stuff. She wandered through the yard sniffing at everything. She discovered grasshoppers and it was one prey should could snatch without claws. All that summer, she captured hoppers in her mouth and they bounded around our house for months.
Lacey found a home in my office. I write every morning and she seemed mostly content with sleeping at my feet or in her bed. When I rubbed her head, she looked up at me with those big eyes and seemed a bit surprised that I existed.
Annie and I looked into her eyes yesterday as the vet administered first the numbing shot and then the kill shot. It was sad to see the light go out of her eyes. Before her spirit flew, she uttered one more meow.
She had such a beautiful presence in the world. I know I am going to wake up in the middle of the night and hear her. I may hear her over the coming years. I may hear her when the light goes out of my eyes, welcoming me to The Great Beyond, where cats have their voice, their hearing, and their claws, and where I can spend eternity with the pets and people who made this life living.
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