The Long Goodbye

[elleflies]

Rosy

January 1988 - June 2006


Rosy was a present for my 6th birthday. I'd been begging my parents for a cat for the longest time and they finally caved in after taking me on vacation with them to the Dominican Republic where I spent most of it with a bad case of the Chicken Pox (Much fun was had by all...) It seems my parents solution to appeasing me has always been to get me animals.

Rosy was a very serious kitten. She was never very playful, but then again, when you lived in a house with 2 young children, you usually spend your time trying to survive rather then play. My brother, when we got her, was two years old and thought that kittens were meant to be picked up by the neck. It's a miracle she survived his terrible two's to make it to 18. Funny, my brother will be 21 on the 20th of June and probably doesn't remember a time in his life when she wasn't there and demanding our complete and total attention.

I feel like I should be more upset that the cat I've had for 18 years is gone, but I'm not. I could see this coming. I made my goodbye's at Christmas knowing I probably wouldn't see her again. She'd been getting more and more frail, and while she's always been a vocal cat, she'd been getting more and more mouthy as the days went by. Except these weren't her normal "here I am, worship me" type of communications, my mom said it sounded more like "ow! ow! ow!"

So today was the day, they could either spend lots of money to extend a life that was already approaching its end or let her go peacefully. I'd say 18 years of living a cushy life isn't a bad run for a cat that started out on the streets when she was a kitten.

On the up side of things, at least my parents have these two bozos' to keep them company..



Calvin is on the left, and my kitty, Elle, is on the right serving as his personal pillow. Both are 4 years old and believe that the world revolves around them, which it does, obviously.