My Sweet Little Trixie

I lost my cat over the weekend.  On Saturday night I was in the living room paying bills and I heard a really funny noise.  It sounded as if the cats were fighting through the basement window with a cat outside.  There was some weird meowing and banging and it did sound as if it was coming from the basement.  So I went to investigate and found my oldest cat, Trixie under the dining room table with her head back behind one of the legs.  I knelt down and gently moved her head forward and found that although she was still breathing it was labored and she was unresponsive.  I stroked her fur to comfort her and get a sense of what was happening and within a minute or so she was gone.  Being Saturday night our vet’s office was closed and I just knew that by the time I got a hold of the emergency vet she would not have been alive to even get to there.  I was glad I was there for her at the end rather than just finding her dead somewhere, but it was very sad.

Trixie was 18 and we had gotten her as a kitten.  One of the women I knew at work had asked me if I wanted a kitten because and knew I liked cats.  A pregnant, feral cat had delivered kittens in her barn and she wanted to give them good homes.  We had one cat, Ralph, and had recently lost one, Alice (yes it was the Honeymooners we named them after), and named her Trixie.  My friend brought her in at lunch.  I had already planned to take her home that day and brought in the cat carrier.  We exchanged the kitten from her carrier to mine and I had her at my desk until I left that day.  She made a bit of a fuss and I was so fearful that someone would hear but no on apparently found out.  Her introduction into our house was uneventful.  She and Ralph got along and we were all happy.  My son, who was three at the time, took her on as his own cat.

That cat was really smart.  She seemed to understand us all the time.  We usually put the cats in the kitchen at night.  This is to prevent the cats clawing things while we are not around to stop them, and to generally keep them out of our room during the night.  It is my husband’s rule more than mine, but it has gotten to be quite the routine.  Maybe it was the routine she knew but when it was time for bed, and we called Trixie and said it was time for bed, she generally came trotting on down.  If she had followed me to the third floor and I wasn’t staying up there long, I would tell her that I was not going to be long up there and to head on back downstairs and she would turn right around and go down.  When my son had his wisdom teeth out, she stayed with him all day after the surgery lying on his bed and being with him.  She would not do that with us.  She seemed to sense all that was going on in the house and act accordingly.

So she is now buried in the back yard and we arranged some stones over the grave.  I might get a little marker with her name on it and add it to the stones.  I am happy we were able to share our home with her and blessed that I have these memories.  Although she was a cat, she was very much a member of our home and she will be missed.  RIP, Trixie.