This my beloved partner in life, Mrs. Thing, she was with me throughout my adult life for she and I resided together for sixteen years. Mrs. Thing came into my life when I was 21 and was a constant for the next sixteen years. She was always there for me. A few months after she entered my life she had kittens; however, she had them in bed between my partner and myself in the middle of the night.
She was there for me when I went through a messy breakup seven years ago. Whenever I would get depressed she would rub up against me and cuddle into my arms trying to console me. After that we had moved several times, finally we ended up in a rural setting.
While there I had a traumatic injury for which I was hospitalized for six months. She spent that time outside hunting for me and waiting for me to come and get her. One day a friend brought her to visit me, but she wasn’t too enthused about being there and did not want me to hold her (she did not like being held for she was too independent for such things).
Finally I was released from the hospital and returned to my Mothers home, so a friend and I went to go get her from where she was. When I had found her she was super-skinny and looked raggedly with blotches of hair missing from her coat. She would not come to me in my wheelchair, all she did was run away when I wheeled closer to her. Finally my friend starting calling her using baby talk which she responded to. She finally was in my arms again, after awhile she started to purr again and rubbing herself all over me. I felt joy again.
That was in 1996 and from that time till this last July 28th, she always kept an eye on me. Her coat grew back in and she gained so much weight that when I brought her in to get shots the vet asked if she was pregnant, I said “No just fat.” That was fine with me for she deserved it after being abandoned as she was. She slept near me from then on. She never asked for much, unless I was eating potato chips then would come up and bat my hand until she got her share. Somewhere during that time she learned to bat my hand whenever she wanted attention, which she did often.
Finally, she was becoming so old and feeble she sometimes could not control her bodily functions on occasion. She was becoming blind also. I knew that one day soon I would have to do the humane thing and let her go to sleep sometime soon. But I wanted her to have a full life and she wasn’t in any pain, yet.
I think she must have sensed that something was amiss with her.
I live on the sixth floor and have a balcony which she enjoyed lounging on. For years she had been out there ‘looking down on the people below’ without incident. That was her favorite place when it wasn’t raining or too cold. She would demand to be let out in the morning before I went to school and she’d spend all day out there.
On Monday I was sitting here at my computer and she was out on her viewing platform when I received a phone call from a neighbor. He said your cat just fell off your balcony and she looks like she’s dead. I rushed down there. There she lay not moving, her eyes were half glazed over. Her body was still warm and for a second I thought she was just sleeping, she had a peaceful look on her face as if she had no terror from the fall. Her claws were not extended as one would expect from a cat in panic.
She left me, I never thought she would. She was always there for me. We were soul mates. She could read me and I her. We were symbiotic, we were one. Now it is just me…..My babies gone…
Casey Jones
Love Always....
| Mrs. Thing |
| Casey Jones |