Day TwentyThree - Pets

I haven't had many pets. I had one cat, myself. Her name was PD. She was already named when she came to me, just over one year old.

She was a wonderful companion.

I write. And computers were not around like this when she came to me, in high school. I wrote on Hilroy paper with a crystal blue Bic pen. I still prefer the Bic pen to the clicking of the keys on my laptop. Back then, though, it wasn't for fun or passion. It was mostly homework. And I am a perfectionist. I hated whiteout. It made the page look sloppy. So if I ever made an error, I would start again. From the top of the page. And rewrite. I would crumple that sloppy, ruined, mistake page. And PD would come running. From anywhere she was in the whole entire house. Some cats here cans open. She heard paper crumple.

And she'd play fetch. For hours and hours. Until she had bitten so many holes in the crumpled ball of paper that it just kept coming undone. Then she would stick her nose under the blanket on my bed, weasel her way underneath, curl up and sleep. You could always tell PD was sleeping under something, she would turn on her defense mechanism if she heard anyone come close. Suddenly, where ever she was, there would be a rumble. A loud ... purr. Her homing device.

PD was with me for 18 years or so. Through high school. University. Bad roommates and worse romances. Through the pregnancies and births of both my children. Through the hard times that was Hunter's first year. PD was always there.

I knew she was getting old and I knew she was going soon. She never got sick, she just got more tired. I Remember taking her to the vet and him telling me what it would cost to put her down and all that. And then he said, or you can just take her home. It's what we all want, he said. If you want it to be fast, put her somewhere away from people, like the basement.

I took her home, and set her up a spot in the corner of the kitchen.

I knew it was the end when she tried to get up the stairs. And to my room. She was so old, she couldn't do stairs so much anymore. So I carried her.

To my room. To my bed. To underneath the cover. And I laid down with her. And she took a strange breath. And she died.

I won't ever have a cat again. My daughter has one now. But I will never have another. And I will always be grateful for the PDcat. With her big puppy paws. And her love of playing fetch. And her sleeping under covers. She was a lynx point siamese. With beautiful blue eyes. She lost her voice in my first year of university, because she stayed home when I went away. She stayed home and stood at the front door meowing her deep, low, meow. Until her voice was gone forever. She lived another nearly 15 years without a voice, you know. I have never been so loved.

In May it's three years since she left. I still miss her.