Sparky The Cat

[storeynicholas]

She appeared in our front garden two summers ago, along with three larger siblings. Four weaned kittens; unwanted by someone; unsought by us. Their arrival was greeted with a mixture of surprise and confusion but, very soon, with unanimous welcome.
Three of them were quite easily captured and taken to safety behind the side gates. The fourth, which we soon called ‘Sparky’ was not so easily caught and I had to scramble over plants and around pots to catch her. She cried defiantly as I carried her back to the rest. Almost immediately she found refuge under the ‘fridge. From this bastion, she would timidly emerge for food and water with the rest of them. Otherwise, while they were diverting themselves with play, she continued to hold herself remote, beneath her rusty fortress.
Eventually, even she grew too big to get underneath there anymore. Then my wife took her in hand and, initial struggling over, Sparky showed us that she could purr. Chin-tickling was, clearly, the key to her heart.
Soon she was our morning’s first messenger; jumping onto the bed, for a ’nosey-nosey’ with my wife. She had become the tamest of them all and so different from them too. Smaller, as I say, and a distinctive tortoise-shell; instead of their tabby colours. Despite her small size, she exuded an air of ‘don’t mess with me’ and, if any of the others tried, she never gave way.
Eventually, she fell pregnant and, unlike so many cats that disappear to give birth, she came up to us on a sofa, mewing.
But Sparky was always a gad-about and, despite the fact that we live on a busy seafront road, she could not be restrained or deterred and kept going out and then rushing back in at dusk.
Having just weaned a litter comprising two sets of twins, she went out again on Friday and we missed her return that evening. The next evening we missed her again and, on Sunday, I went out to look for her.
I found a shadow on the road. It was Sparky; in a frozen frame of movement, as though about to spring away but, alas, too late. There wasn’t much left to bury but I gathered her up and did bury her above high tide mark, on the beach, in front of the house, under a stone from our garden.
Maybe we are selfish to love pets as we do but I feel a heaviness of heart to think that I shall never see her again: rushing past; paws up to box the ears of larger adversaries; evening emerald eyes flashing their sparkling fire; tamed but still proud and defiant too; never see again her black and white splashed face and the speckles of burnt orange down her back and flanks; never take into my hands again her great spirit in her little frame and feel her gathered trust ; never watch her stroll again with her frail grace.
But, every time that I go down into the sea, I shall pass her; something of her, left there in the sand, in a very specific place.
There is one thing though: her fur, maybe because she was always feeding kittens, was never very thick, but those kittens that she has just left have fine, full, soft, fur (as well as her lambent eyes); as though, with her last breath, she had just enough time to bless them with an extra gift.
Sparky The Cat Circa October 2007-April 10th 2010.

[shredder]

My condolences, Nicholas. I have had to deal with the deaths of several cats and dogs, and as silly as it may seem to some, it is always very difficult.

[uppercase]

Sorry about Sparky.

It's always tough to lose a pet.

[Costi]

You were both lucky to spend some time together. It may not bring her back, but such a touching fair-part honours the memory of that time. To me, animals are very special friends - their straightforward friendship and trust is sometimes more precious than the complications of humans. Simple souls that look up to us, when it should often be the other way round...

[storeynicholas]

I thank you all for the above thoughts. Sparky's eldest female kitten is shaping up to be very like her: walks like her; meows like her; slinks along the roof tops and walls like her and, of course, is a part of her. She also struggles when held; just like her!
NJS