Friskey: The Cat That Was To Be My First Heartbreak

Friskey...The First Heartbreak In My Life
May 19, 1968-July 5, 1975

I'm not really writing this in any particular order, but since I have already mentioned about Friskey, I thought I would relate what was to be my first heartbreak. Friskey came into my life on May 19, 1968, some six years after our very first cat Babette. He was a silver tabby cat who grew quite enormous. Uh, no, he wasn't fat...LOL. Just a gosh darn big cat. While large and maybe intimidating, he had the heart and love of a teddy bear, and one could never ask for a more gentle creature than he.

Since we didn't have that many cats at the time, when my grandmother, mother and myself would go away on vacations, usually to the Lancaster, Pa area, we took the cats with us. In fact the picture of him I have here, was taken on just such a trip and at the time we usually stayed at the Howard Johnson's that was there.

Sadly, Friskey was to only live about seven years and to this day I blame whatever happened while he was at the vet. The nearby vet we started taking our cats to, beginning with Babette, we had trusted completely, and never questioned his "professional" services. I would later, many years later find out that other people had had their own horror stories with this vet.

It was during the last week of June of 1975. At the time I was away for a few days visiting a friend, and when I came back home, Friskey wasn't there. My grandmother explained that one day, while I had been away, and my mother was working at the time, suddenly Friskey had some kind of health problem, but not knowing what was wrong, took him to our vet. The vet we trusted and had by now been going to for many years.

The vet kept Friskey there for nearly a week. When we asked if we could see him, the vet refused saying it would upset Friskey. At the time, we didn't realize how wrong this was. If you have a pet with a vet due to a health problem, one has the right to see their pet...we didn't know this, and like I said, since we trusted the vet, we thought he knew best. Finally, we had enough of it, and demanded to have our cat back as no one was telling us, what was wrong with Friskey. You have to remember, this was long before anyone thought of suing even a vet for any kind of malpractice.

He, the vet agreed to let us take Friskey home...No explanations what was wrong, no medications were given to us...nothing. Also since he was in his traveling case, we didn't notice anything suspicious until we got home. Once home and out of his carrier case, it was only then that we noticed his one leg was all bandaged up. Like what the hell was this?? Again, the vet offered no explanation when we called to find out what was what.

Friskey of course wasn't getting any better, only worse. His one leg that was bandaged up became weaker and we then took him to another veterinary place...one that was open 24/7, even holidays and had a noted good reputation. The news wasn't good. After the vet examined Friskey he told us that the leg had gangrene. Like how the hell did that happen? There had been nothing wrong with his leg when my grandmother took him to that first vet, and he certainly didn't give us any medications to combat any severe infections.

The vet gave us two options. The one was that Friskey's leg would be amputated, and he would then need physical therapy to get him used to walking on three legs...all at a cost I might add that was astronomical. The second option, as you can guess was the more difficult one...to have him put down. Neither my grandmother or mother could deal with the idea of putting him down, and left the decision solely up to me. Gee, thanks, like I really wanted to make such a lousy decision...but the two of them just couldn't give the word to have it done.

But what could we do? We just didn't have the money for the first option...it was way too expensive. I remember so vividly...being outside the exam room with my mother and grandmother...our tears were flowing uncontrollably...but it was me who had to give the final okay to put him down. That happened July 5, 1975, and Friskey is buried at the Wantaugh, Long Island Bide a Wee Cemetery. He was the first cat in my life to go to Rainbow Bridge...and one day, when it is time for me to pass from this world, I can meet him again, as I hope to meet all my "babies"

The Cat Family Begins To Grow

To this day I'm not really quite sure whom my mother really got our first cat for, me or herself. She grew up with pets all her life, and even when she married my father was around pets, as my father's father (my grandfather) breed hunting dogs. So she was used to having pets around her all the time. Before she got married there was Gypsy...a beautiful Beagle. The picture below shows a family photo of my great-grandfather, great-grandmother, and my younger, before married mother holding Gypsy in her lap



She probably no doubt claimed, since I was an only child, never to have brothers or sisters that she thought a pet would be ideal for me, thus the arrival of Babette, and the reason the idea of a cat, rather than a dog, was that technically speaking pets weren't allowed in our building, and she figured since cats were quiet, and one didn't have to walk them, no one would know about having a pet.

From 1962 until 1968, Babette remained my only cat. Then one day, on May 19, 1968, which was my grandmother's birthday, the two of us were on our way home from visiting at my great-grandmother's home. We were walking by an old mom & pop owned TV repair store, and the store owner who knew us, said, "Oh, look how that cat is following you. Sure enough we turned around and this tabby colored cat had been following us along. Uh, needless to say, I asked my grandmother if we could take him home, and she said yes, thus we now would have two cats. It was during these early years, that whenever we went away on vacation, we, that is my grandmother, mother and I, would take the two cats with us. For years and years, my mother's favorite place to go, kind of ad naseum, was the Lancaster, PA area, and would either stay at the Colonial Inn (which no longer exists) or the Howard Johnsons which amazingly from a search I did, does still exist. Memories came flooding back of that old Howard Johnsons we went to as I happen to find, probably my one and only existing photo of Friskey


Our cat population would grow once again a few months later, during the month of January of the following year. My grandmother was on her way out the apartment to throw trash out into the incinerator, when prancing up as grand as could be was a black and white cat who had a ribbon around her neck. She must have been someone's Christmas present, but not anyone in the building, as no other tenants had cats. She quite majestically followed my grandmother into our apartment, and on January 14, 1969, Biddy was to become our third cat. This is a picture of her when she was quite a bit older, and I purposely had tied a ribbon around her neck, reminiscent of the day she arrived into our apartment.


To be perfectly honest, if we had judged the personality of a cat by using Babette as a model, we might not ever had gotten another cat. Not that Babette was "bad" but just wasn't much of an affectionate feline. This opinion changed however, with both the arrival of Friskey and Biddy, the two most loving and affectionate kitties going. Friskey would turn out to be a rather large cat, yet with the heart of a teddy bear, while Biddy was almost comical in that she considered herself the "grand~dame" of the dwelling, milking attention whenever she could get it.

My Love For Animals

©M. Neer. All rights reserved. No photo may be used without permission


HOW IT ALL BEGAN WITH MY LIFE WITH PETS


Hi, there. My name is Melanie, and I've had pets ever since I can remember, and now that I'm 52, I could never imagine life or be without some little furbaby companion, just as I'm sure many of you couldn't imagine being without an animal companion of some kind.

To be honest, I think it was my mother's idea to think in terms of having a pet, rather than me being a pesky child begging her to have a pet. She herself grew up with pets. My mother and father were married on December 4, 1954, I was born November 19, 1955, and my parents were divorced on December 7, 1957. Since my father's side of the family were in California, where I was born, my mother came back home to home base, which was Jackson Heights, NY. So my mother and I (my only being a year and a half old) moved into and with her mother and grandmother. So it was my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and I all living at the same large apartment.

During the years of 1957 to 1961, in which we remained living there, we never had pets that I can remember, maybe just goldfish. But sorry, one can't, or at least I couldn't really relate to fish as a pet. When my grandmother, mother and I moved out of my great-grandmother's apartment (oh, yes she was still alive, by the way) in October of 1961, I guess it didn't take long for my mother to realize that maybe there was something missing in our lives....a pet. So on December 8, 1962, a little over a year that we had moved into our new apartment, my mother went to the then Greenwich Village Humane League and picked out our first pet, a black and white kitten.

It probably could be viewed that my mother got the kitten as sort of a Christmas present to me, but as I hinted before, I think it was she who wanted a pet more, and named the kitten Babette, which is the French for Barbara...uh, which just happened to be my mother's name...strange coincidence when I think of it now.

Well I hope I don't get pet lovers up in arms against me, but if I had judged how cats were in general by this first cat, I probably would never have had another cat again. To put it mildly she wasn't the most affectionate of cats...very aloof, and very much a loner, despite the love we all gave her. Yet I have to admit one of the great distinctions about Babette was that she literally saw me grow up. Here I was about six years old, and in elementary school when I she came into my life, and she went to "Rainbow Bridge" on December 3, 1977 the same year (in June) when I had graduated college.

I actually managed to dig up a photo of both me and Babette taken September 1965 when I was 9-1/2 years old