HappyApril 1994-October 27, 2006
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When Evae and I got married in July of 1994, I asked him for a wedding gift-I really, really wanted a kitten. So off we went to the animal shelter to pick my kitty. We looked at all the cats there, big and small, and this little gray kitten certainly wasn't the cutest of them all. He was about three months old at the time, shaggy looking, covered in flees, with huge ears, big teeth, and crooked little legs. We passed him by in his cage to pick a cute little kitten two doors down but Happy had other ideas. As Evae walked by, he reached through the bottom of the cage, hooked his sharp little claws into his sweater and just wouldn't let go anymore. HE picked US and that was that! So we took him home.
Happy quickly became the kitty love of my life; I often felt over the 12 and a half years that he was with us that he could read my thoughts and I could read his. He was a very special cat that quite naturally took over the cat and dog household as it began to grow. Each new family member learned very quickly who was boss around here.
As a baby, Happy would play and play and play until his little pink tongue stuck out and he was panting like a dog. When he was still our only cat, he would always bring home new kitty friends, boys and girls, to share his dinner with. We had so many names for him, there must have been a dozen...Happy, Happycat, Furball, Vampie (because of his big teeth), Fluffy Cat, Bonehead (he could be quite stubborn), Mufasa,...
Later on in his life, when Happy knew (and I refused to see) that the time to say good-bye was near he made a conscious decision not to swallow his heart medication anymore. We battled every day for two weeks, and one day, when we let him out into the yard, he simply disappeared. We searched for weeks but couldn't find him anywhere. And then, as we remodeled our bathroom months later and tore out the bathtub we found a perfect kitty skeleton right underneath it. Happy had chosen to crawl underneath the house and into a little hole he found where he could be close to us but die in peace without having to take one more of those hated pills. I knew it was him because of the two missing teeth he had knocked out as a youngster and because of the size of his bones. Happy was a very big cat.
He is now in kitty heaven but still visits me often in my dreams. I will always miss the way my Happycat smelled; I would often stick my whole face into his fur and deeply inhale his wonderful scent. Happy always smelled fresh-like sunshine and summer fun and absolute Happy-ness. I miss the way he used to look at me with that complete trust and understanding. And, oh, how I miss the way he purred. That deep, beautiful belly purr of his that was like no other. My Happycat will always be the kitty of my heart.
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