The Bittersweet Moments Our Pets Show Us

The Bittersweet Moments Our Pets Show Us:

Just One Demonstration of Unconditional Love a Pet Gave Me

This originally appeared on my Yahoo.Voices page and was published as a "display only" article and on February 8, 2011

Link to the original article is here: Bittersweet Moments Our Pets Show Us

I think many of us who have pets realize the wonderful unconditional love they have for us. They don't judge us, they don't really ask for much yet are capable of showing their love and affection to us without asking for anything much in return. They know the true meaning of unconditional love, something we humans could learn from.

I was talking about one of my cats over at Facebook. As many of my friends may know, my cat Pyewacket passed on April 19th 2010, yet this isn't about him but about one of my cats that I had years and years ago. Her name was Tippy. You might say I rescued her. It was on a warm May day, many, many years ago in 1983. I was at home and at one point, I looked out the window and saw a circle of kids tossing around a very young tiger-striped kitten as if it were a football. Enraged doesn't quite explain how I felt. I zoomed out of my apt. and went straight over to those kids and demanded they hand over the kitten to me and they did (they no doubt thought I was a looney tune). I cuddled the very scared kitten close to me and took her home.

Despite her ordeal of being treated like a mere object she didn't seem to fear me or her new surroundings considering the fact that I also had about five other cats at the time, and she quickly made herself at home. I named her Tippy since even though she was a tiger-striped cat, at the very tip of her tail was the color of an orange tabby...thus the name "Tippy".

Tippy became one of my cuddle bugs and velcro cat. She would hop on my bed to keep me company while I slept, and even gave me her version of a back message. All this attention she gave me unfortunately seemed to spark the jealousy of another cat named Bobbie. He began to antagonize her, bully her, wanted to fight her all the time, it was like a world war going on day in and day out. She began turning into a scared and timid cat and she felt her only safe place where Bobbie wouldn't bother her was to hop up into a cabinet over the refrigerator. She was to remain there for years and years after never coming down. I would have to place her food on top of the fridge and hoist up the litter pan for her to do her business. She just plain wouldn't come down.

Then one day in 1996 I was sitting in the living room when a movement attracted me from my peripheral vision. Looking directly to the "movement" my jaw dropped as I saw Tippy walking around the living room like she was the Queen of Sheba and unafraid of being bullied. At any moment I expected Bobbie to resort to bullying her again but he didn't. This should have maybe raised alarms as to why she all of a sudden decided to be out and about again, but I was just so happy to see her out and about again. She even resumed hopping up on my bed, giving me her back rubs, just as if nothing happened those years she stuck herself in the cabinet and not coming down from her "sanctuary".

About two weeks passed by after her initial daring day of her escape from her sanctuary , and Tippy remained feeling secure about being out and not afraid of Bobbie, and continued to snuggle up on my bed while I slept . Then one morning, I woke up and saw Tippy lying on the floor near the foot of my bed. I got up and went over to her to pet her thinking she was merely asleep, but no, she was still, lifeless....she had passed on. It was as if though, in her last moments of her life she wanted to be near me and why she was where she was on the floor at the foot of my bed.

I'm sure those of us who are pet owners have our own stories to tell of a pet or pets, who demonstrated their unconditional and trusting love for us even in their final moments of life. The story of Tippy is just one of many for me and I will always remember until my own final day.

Snoopy~~"Grandma's Cat"

First of all, I must point out that I don't intend to write about each and every cat or other pet I've ever had in my life as that would take an eternity, and yes I not only have had cats, but birds and mice as well. I have loved all my pets that I've had, but some have been more memorable than others. Snoopy was just one of them...and yes, there were many more.

At the time Snoopy was to come into my life at age 15 back in 1970, my grandmother, mother and I had three cats. Babette, Biddy and Friskey. On November 7, 1970, I was on my way home from high school. Before I came home, I stopped by the "local hang-out" which at that time was a mom & pop type store, a combo soda fountain, magazine and cigarette shop. I would always stop by in that store on a nearly daily basis to see what new magazines were out. To this day I can even remember the coat I was wearing...it was a long length black velvet lined coat that I had bought at a Greenwich Village thrift shop.

So here I am in the store, perusing through the latest magazines, when in comes walking this magnificently, gleaming, dazzling white cat and guess who he went right over to? Yes, of course...me. He was gorgeous and to my mind he couldn't have been exactly a stray cat, since wouldn't a pure white stray cat be rather dingy looking? He wasn't exactly a kitten either, perhaps at least a year or two old already. All I knew, by looking at him, I wanted to take him home with me. I asked the store owner if I could use his phone so I could call up my mother who was at work. I wanted to tell her about this white cat and if it'd be all right to take him home. Well, of course she said it was all right.

I went over to the white cat, picked him up, and I noticed he had absolutely no resistance to my picking him up and holding him. Since there was a chill in the air on that November day, I unbuttoned my velvet coat, held him against me and wrapped the coat around him to keep him warm. The whole time walking the rest of the way home, which thankfully wasn't too far away from that store, he didn't struggle to get loose, but snuggled against me, almost sensing he was destined for a better life and not being on the streets.

I have no idea why I decided to call him Snoopy, since that name is associated with the beagle dog in the Peanuts comics, but it seemed to fit him. Snoopy was to live a very long life, longer than any other cat I was to have, near twenty years, but as I said, since he wasn't exactly a kitten when I brought him home, he may have been twenty-one or twenty-two when he went to Rainbow Bridge on August 10, 1990.

Now I could end the story here, but there's a tad bit more that one may find a bit fascinating and could be labeled perhaps a bit mystical or paranormal. I was to find out sometime later from my grandmother and mother, that my great-grandmother had always wanted a white cat, but never did. My great-grandmother, died on August 31, 1970 at the ripe old age of 98. To this day I can't help wonder if somehow, a part of my great-grandmother's "spirit" was in that cat, Snoopy. No, while I DO believe in reincarnation, I don't necessarily believe that a human's spirit or soul goes into an animal's soul, and yes I believe animals have souls too. I just find it an "odd" coincidence that only a short time after my great-grandmother died, here comes into my life, a white cat...the very same type of cat my great-grandmother always wanted.

And as if that isn't enough, here's more.

All total, I was raised by my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. I felt and had a special bond with my great-grandmother, more than my grandmother or mother. That bond was to show itself in a "paranormal" way.

It was on the last two weeks of August of 1970, that my grandmother, mother and I were away on vacation in the Lancaster, PA area, hundreds of miles away from my great-grandmother who was still in her apartment. One night, late we were all in the hotel room watching Johnny Carson, when suddenly I became aware of the overpowering scent and of which, I recognized as the favorite cologne of my great-grandmother. I asked both my grandmother or mother if they could smell it, and of course, both looked at me as if I was daft. The next morning, we got a very early phone call. It was from a neighbor of my great-grandmother's who told us that my great-grandmother had to be hospitalized after a bad fall, she didn't make it and passed away. When did she die? August 31, 1990. When? The exact moment I smelled her scent hundreds of miles away in that hotel room. It doesn't end there.

Now my grandmother, mother and I are home. My great-grandmother's funeral had come and gone, some weeks had passed. Very late at night, or I should say in the early morning hours I was still awake reading. Both my grandmother and mother were sound asleep. I was engrossed with my reading when around 3:00 a.m. something compels me to look up from the book I was reading. Very clearly, at the entrance to the bedroom which I shared with my mother, was my great-grandmother's spirit. YES! I saw her! Then in a few moments her spirit vanished. I didn't freak out about this "appearance" to me, since while raised in a Christian upbringing, my great-grandmother, also Christian (Catholic to be exact) was "into" the metaphysical, mystical and paranormal herself, so I had been in a sense "weaned" from early childhood to acknowledge these "realms", therefore, for something like this to happen to me, that is her appearance to me just seemed rather "normal".

And then comes Snoopy, whom we later were to nickname "Grandma's cat", since as I have said earlier, my great-grandmother always wanted a white cat, but never had. And why did this white cat, a little more than a month since my great-grandmother's passing suddenly makes it's appearance out of the blue and then come directly to me that day on November 7, 1970? Coincidence? Who knows.