Cat of the Day

December 10, 2000

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Muffy, the Cat of the Day
Name: Muffy
Age: Deceased, twenty years old
Gender: Female
Kind: Domestic Short Hair
Home: Columbia County, New York, USA
 
   Muffy was adopted from the Columbia-Greene Humane Society shelter in Hudson NY on August 16, 1980 at the age of about seven weeks. She was my best friend and confidant throughout her life, until her death on March 20, 2000 at the age of almost twenty. I can't sing her praises enough. From the very start, she let me know that she was intelligent and very clever, and her capacity for devotion and unconditional love were limitless. She was dedicated to me throughout all the changes our lives went through together, and when I was upset she always seemed to know just what to do to help. I've never experienced such an intensity with any other animal I've known. Letting her go was the most difficult decision I've ever had to make, and broke my heart. I can best sum up my life with Muffy by offering the following missive, which was a tribute I wrote after her death:

    "Well, it's done. On March 20th, 2000, the first day of spring, a long life filled with love, friendship and devotion graduated to the next plane of existence. At approximately 5 pm, my sweet kittie, Muffy, passed on, in the arms of her mommy and surrounded by her aunts. It was a long hard struggle and she was surely a fighter, but her body was weak and she was tired. The strain of caring for her had also become a daily battle of getting her to eat, drink, and make the litter box. I surely did not have the right to hold her selfishly to me while she suffered the downward decline of her old age afflictions. I did what I had to do, finally, in the end. It's never an easy choice. The first night in the empty house was difficult for both Duane and I. All of the normal night lights we left on for Muffy had been extinguished, and a lone candle burned on in our bedroom until it too flickered out. As inconvenient as it had been, we missed the feel of the folded blanket between us on the bed that held a sleeping Muffy. After almost two years of being divided this way, we can finally cuddle up at night. Many thanks to those of you who were there that day providing your support and love, and later on your company, as we toasted glasses of wine and shed tears honoring the love we have received from our special animal friends over the years. I can think of no better tribute to Muffy, who came to me as an eight week old kitten in August 1980, having picked me from the other humans wandering about the animal shelter, and who left me almost twenty years later after giving me the most precious of gifts in this world. She was, truly, the Queen Of All Kitties."
 

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