Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Lucy

Our cat Lucy died this morning. She was about 16 years old. She had a squamous cell cancer in her lower jaw that was untreatable. Diagnosed last August, she really did surprisingly well for longer than was expected. It was only in the last week that she was definitely not feeling good.

I adopted Lucy and her brother, Roy (who died on 9/12/2001), when I lived in Minneapolis. They were part of a litter of kittens that a stray cat had birthed in the outdoor window well of a house belonging to a couple of women my vet knew. The women were looking for homes for the kittens, the vet knew I’d just lost my cat Gus, and a match was made. The two women came to my house with Roy and Lucy. They were so sad they had to give them away! The were especially fond of Lucy who, even as a little kitten, had an adorable silly personality.

I think those women would have been glad to know that Lucy had a long life with people who loved her and took good care of her.

Lucy was a feisty little cat who loved climbing. When Mark and I were first married, my cats and I moved into his townhouse in Manassas, Virginia. Mark had a pair of expensive, custom-made curtains in the living room — the kind with a valence and swags and all that. (I hated those curtains — ugly!) One day, Mark came home from work to find that Lucy had climbed the curtains. She was up at the top, hanging off the valence, with this excited expression on her face like “Look what I’ve done! Isn’t this cool!?!!” Heh, heh… I have to admit, I didn’t discourage her from future climbing expeditions. It was a good way to get rid of the curtains.

Although Lucy was an “indoor cat”, she did get out of the house a couple of times when we were living in Iowa. One time when she got out, she climbed up a neighbor’s tree and wouldn’t come down. So there I was, standing in my neighbor’s yard, calling for this cat — trying to be all enticing, you know? — and my neighbor (who was a weird crazy lady) was giving me dirty looks out her window. I’ll bet it was at least a half an hour before she finally climbed down! Sigh…

Lucy was an unusually playful cat for her age — almost right to the end. She was very kitten-like in behavior and appearance. She used to make this great noise when she’d first see you: Brrrrrt!

We’ll miss her.