sophie

I stumbled on this old NY Time's article 'We Were Kittens Once, and Young' this morning and got all weepy. It reminded of my old cat Sophie.

I remembered I had written to someone about Sophie and went through my email and dug this up which I'm posting with edits.

We had a cat named Sophie- who was white with a few black spots and had a puckered jowly mouth like Sylvester and hind legs just like pantaloons. She was also sweet and pure like snow.

It was Renee's cat. We went to this woman's house who did rescues and she had rooms of cat's and Renee picked Sophie out because she was the most beautiful. I thought she was indifferent and didn't seem to like humans or being touched. She did have this wonderful grace and beauty and a pride that grave her a princess like quality.
I think that's why Renee gave her such a princess sounding name.

It wasn't long though before Sophie became my cat. Everywhere I've been where other people had cats, the cats eventually gravitate and come to depend on me. It's a Virgo thing. They know we are dependable.

We lived in a duplex and it wasn't until we started letting her out on the second floor screened porch that we discovered what a nature lover she was. The porch was literally in the tree tops and she would mimic the birds that flew around- stealth like. This cat talked!
She had this beautiful bird call she would do with this dead serious look on her face. It always cracked me up. I would be like, Sophie, you aren't fooling any birds with that fake bird call. She did it for hours though. Sophie had a PHD in Ornithology.

Eventually we moved to this ranch house we bought that had this amazing garden in the back and Sophie finally had some ground floor outdoor access. Sophie was never happier. We were initially kind of freaked to be letting this svelte feminine cat out in the big bad wild. We were very close to a river and woods and there was pretty much every kind of animal out there. She immediately took to the garden patio making the patio her new place and keeping it bird free and the garage clear of raccoons.

Then we got Zoe, our Wire Fox Terrier, so our son could have a dog. Zoe was too much for Sophie so, she just hung out in the basement or outside in the garden.
People that came by never knew we had a cat and thought we were making her up because they never saw Sophie. She never had much need for people and hated to be petted. Ironically- when we moved, we discovered her birth records and noticed she had the exact same birthday as me. Sophie was a Virgo.
Which explained a lot...

There was one time when I started a dryer- and like five minutes later I began wondering about the thumping sound the dryer was making. I was positive there were no gym shoes in there or anything else that could make that sound.
I ran downstairs and opened it and a totally freaked out that Sophie was in there. She was dazed and hot and maybe had minutes to live if I hadn't got there. I was devastated but Sophie was tough and a survivor, and after a few hours she came around.
She was sore and bruised for days but, she never blamed me and she never went near a dryer again.

I remember this one time I was sweeping the patio and near the basement window there when I look over and saw Sophie there with her eyes all big. This was one of her hiding places on top of a shelf with a view of the patio and when she saw me she just started yabbering really animated- like hey... how weird is this? She really was frustrated she couldn't talk cause she knew she had a lot to say sometimes.

When our rocky marriage was hitting the end I was working full-time at a shit job I hated and Renee was in her own world.
I would commute downtown and then come home and rehab the house at night so we could sell it on deadline so, my days were a blur of stress.
When Renee said Sophie was sick I really didn't pay any attention and thought she was handling it. Sophie could eat some weird things being outside and it wasn't that unusual for her to have some eating issues. It just happened really fast were she stopped eating and the next thing you know a day later I'm watching her die at 3AM.
I felt so guilty.

She used to wake me up every morning at 7AM by rubbing against my head and making her purring sounds. We had this unspeakable bond. She used to barge in the bathroom whenever you were in there and give you a big 'what's up' yap.
Whenever we sat on the garden- she would forget all her aversion to people and really chat up how happy she was and rub against anyone who was sitting out there. I mean she would really talk it up like she just couldn't express how great this was.
I loved how she talked to you when she was happy and I always respected her indifference at other times. She was sooo like me.

We had a funeral with candles and I buried her in her favorite garden wrapped with an old black silk shirt and some toys and catnip inside a cardboard box. We placed a Buddha statue on top to mark the spot.
Renee and Nick stayed around for the half hour ceremony and then went inside.
I stayed outside for hours and was devastated. It haunted me for weeks. This was my cat and I had let her down and I was crushed.