Goodby Cloudy

Cloudy's favorite way to snooze, cat yoga style

With BigEyes

As a kitten, chowing down with best bud, Tiger

With his mentor, and look alike, Sneezer (Cloudy on R)

Playful baby

We had a tragedy at our house last night. During story time there was a commotion of falling objects in the bathroom, and when I sent Lela to see what the cats were doing, and she screamed, “Cloudy is hurt.” Cloudy was lying on his side in the tub struggling to breathe and as I frantically tried to help him, he gasped his last breath. We don’t know what happened; maybe he slipped while jumping up to the top of the window in the tub stall and hit something, broke his neck, maybe he had a seizure or stroke. We’ll never know and the outcome is the same, our beloved Cloudy is gone.

Cloudy entered our lives just over a year ago. I saw a feral kitten clinging to a tree in the backyard and decided that I was fast enough to grab bare handed. He sank is tiny fangs right through my thumb, but I didn’t let go, just screamed all the way into the house. Two days latter he was chasing a feather cat toy and snuggling up with his loud motor boat purr.

He was the most playful, curious and mischievous of the five kittens we’d add to the menagerie that summer. Probably the smartest too. He watched our old boys, BigEyes and Sneezer and mastered the art of pulling a door open with the flip of a paw. He invented Steal the Stopper from the Bathroom Sink, and was an incurable thief of small trinkets. Hair elastics and scrungies were not safe from his paws. He had corralled all the little plastic dinosaurs in the house for his personal use, and played Cat Hockey like a pro. Scale the screen door was another of his favorite stunts, except when his claws would get stuck and he’d have to yell for me to lift him down.


He was on the earth for a short time, but managed to secure a family, home and good buddies - tiny Tiger was his best bud and they would wrestle and chase for hours. He was fearless and that may have used up his nine lives in a hurry. He marched to his own drummer – he was the only cat who didn’t appear for the nightly ration of canned cat food, he liked dry better. He loved to snooze lying on his back with his all white tummy and paws taking the breeze, especially on a windowsill. He was on the small side, but had an enormous yodeling call, MUROWP, and extra loud purr. He was part of the morning patrol that would escort me to the bathroom at 5am. He loved to hang out in the tub where he met his end, sliding around on the cool porcelain, trying unsuccessfully to steal the drain stopper (attached to a chain).

Today that brave, mischievous spirit is gone and we’ll bury his body next to our old dog, Sally, in the back yard. We love and miss you Cloudy.

Coda. A week later, I woke up at 4am, early even for me, so by 8:30 I was ready to go back to bed. The girls were sleeping in so it was quiet. I lay in bed drifting in and out, half asleep, half awake. I felt one of the cats lie down by my head. I opened my eyes and saw Cloudy next to me. I wasn’t surprised or startled. I said, “I love you, Cloudy”, closed my eyes again and was filled with an immense peaceful happiness. While I still miss him, it no longer hurts. Or at least it didn't. It's very hard to recapture that feeling now, but I know he is happy somewhere in cat heaven. I'm just grateful that I got a chance to say goodbye.