Goodbye Amelia!

We had to put our little black cat of 10 yearsto sleep. She was very sick and was down to 4 lbs 7 oz of skinand bones. It was pretty clear that it was time, but was wasstill hard to say good bye.

I still remember bringing her home with anothercat, Pounce, back in 1994. The first night they got out of thekitchen and found their way to our bedroom. Amelia climbed intothe bed and curled up between us.

She was initially very timid, but once Ameliawas the only cat in the apartment she became much more social.When she was a kitten, she used to hop on my lap when I was atthe computer and bat at the spacebar. As she got older, shestarted laying on the keyboard and eventually sat next to it orbehind me in the chair.

She used to do laps around the periphery of thebed to wake us up in the morning. Sometimes VERY early in themorning. Or she would sit on my wife's end table and knock thingsoff to get our attention. Or she would just purr very loudlyuntil we were awake.

She taught us to play fetch with crumpled uptea bag wrappers, and was quite insistent about it. She evenknocked over a ceramic tea cannister to find new toys to for usto throw. When we moved out of our old house, we found in excessof 100 crumpled up tea bag wrappers under the stove!

She liked to look out the windows and slidingglass doors at the birds and the squirrels, and she did a flyingleap into a picture window once to get at something on the otherside, but our little huntress was too gentle. One night we wereawakened by harried footsteps in the living/dining room. We cameout to see Amelia proudly carrying a mouse to us, but when shedropped it at our feet, the little critter ran off and I had tocatch it and put it outside while the cat watched.

As time went on, she became more relaxed. Wecaught her watching tigers on TV once. She would hop in our lapswhen we were watching TV at night. At first, she would only do soonly after she was sure we weren't going to get up. That usuallymeant during the closing credits of the movie. In the end shejoined us on the couch and sat between us, or moved from me to mywife and back over the course of the evening.

She was a sweet kitten and a valued companion,especially when my wife was away on travel. When I was conflictedor upset, she would sit near me and talk to me and/or demand myattention and make whatever was bothering me less important. Shealways greeted me when I came home and followed me from room toroom until she was fed. She was great with kids and got alongwith everyone.

I'm going to miss her.