So few things remain constant in this life, for me it was my cat, Feisty. She passed away today after 19 and a half years of being a faithful feline companion. She was the best cat I could have ever hoped for and there will never be another like her. I remember the day we got her and her sister. My family and I had just moved out into the country in the fall of '93. In the spring of '94, a family up the road had a litter and my parents let me pick out two, sister tortoiseshells. Adorable. We put them in a crate and I sat in the back of the van to make sure that they wouldn't jump out. One sat there quietly, so I named her Mellow, the other couldn't wait to jump out of the crate, so I dubbed her Feisty.
The kittens lived in our basement until they were old enough to defend themselves, we would often find them curled up in a different place every night whether in my dad's helmet or in the piece of chicken coop my parents had salvaged. One day when we came home from getting groceries we found that a dog had got loose and come through our farm. He had killed Mellow, but Feisty sat in the crook of a nearby tree looking down at us. She was a fighter and she had instinct. Being an only child, she became my partner in crime. We would sit atop my playhouse and soak in the sun, she would sit on my lap as we would sled down the hill after which she would jump off at the bottom and run up to the top to wait for me to go again, she would curl up on my lap and let me pet her for hours. In the winter she lived in the barn, protected from the elements, coyotes, and owls.
She bore two litters of kittens which greatly amused us and livened up the place, but we always gave them away. We kept one but she died too soon. Feisty remained and I began to grow up. My best friend and I loved to sleep in our camper, one particular sleepover, we brought the cat in to sit with us. She loved the warmth and free rubs, that and she loved watching us play nintendo on the tiny tv and would put her paw on the controller. She was fascinated by the tv and would sit outside and watch it from the windows. When our sleepover was over, and Liz had gone home. There was Feisty patiently waiting outside the camper, ready to be one of the girls again.
When I say she loved warmth, that was no passing comment. Feisty would do anything to get in the house. Ever sly, this cat knew when we were distracted, when our hands were full, when we let the screen door open a little too wide. Pew! She would shoot past our feet and run upstairs or hide in the basement. One time she did this while we were taking luggage to the car for a trip to St. Louis. We were gone for 4 days and when we returned we froze when we heard meowing in the house. Feisty had inadvertently been locked in the house without food or water for 4 days. She didn't poop or pee for 4 days. She didn't break anything, although there were paw prints on just about every single window. She may have drank out of the toilet, but that's a secret she took to the grave.
I loved to walk our long lane and Feisty used to follow me then lay in the gravel and wait for me to pass and pet her at each lap. She would lay in the most relaxed positions and roll over repeatedly to take a sandy dirt bath. The angry birds on the telephone wires would dip and dive at her. Likely getting even for her expert hunting skills. She was an extremely good huntress, I remember her dragging whole rabbits to the back porch with pride at her prowess, much to my mother's disgust. There was always one organ that she refused to eat, the stomach. She'd eat everything else but that, I guess she didn't want to get heartburn! And every morning she waited at the back door to drink my dad's leftover bowl of milk from his cheerios, she was picky too, she didn't like skim milk or the bargain brand food. She had taste for a country cat.
As the years went by, she was always there. After I had moved out and got a place of my own a few years ago, I always came back to visit and there she'd be curled up on the glider on the porch watching me walk up the sidewalk. She'd meow and I'd meow back, and so it would go until I reached the porch and petted her head. One Christmas I stayed the night and when I awoke, I found her curled around the top of my head like a Russian hat with her nose to mine. Mom had let her in to wake me up, and commented that she couldn't get much closer to me if she tried. She loved my parents as well. Mom had the best lap and Dad enjoyed teasing her and keeping her spry. Eventually more gray hair showed up in her tale, the extreme cold and extreme heat were hard on her and thus my parents began bringing her indoors part of the time and she and Dad became very close. She liked watching PBS with him in his man cave, Feisty even would stick her nose to the tv during the nature programs, whales and eagles were her favorites. She had a chipped tooth, one white whisker, and a light patch on her breast. She had character.
Last night I got to scratch her under her chin in her favorite spot on her favorite blanket. I'll never forget her, she was not just a great cat, she was a great friend. And she lived every one of those nine lives, and then some, to the fullest. Love you Feisty.
Love, Nicole.
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