Devoted to the Memory of a True Friend

On a beautiful September 1985 Fall day, I arrived at the Fairgrounds to fulfill my daily double dose of horse chores and noticed a one year old stray cat that someone had tossed aside as having no more value than a McDonalds wrapper. A couple of things about him caught my attention. First he had lion paws which were much larger and shaped differently than most cat paws and second, he was amazingly athletic and very personable for a stray cat. He followed me to the tack room and after I decided to give him a hand out of cat food, I started to do my chores. But as soon as he finished his treat, he laid down outside the stall I was cleaning and he only moved to follow me to the next stall and so on and so forth. As I was leaving, he even followed me to the truck and I glanced in the mirror to see him go to the tack room door and lay down again.

I arrived the next day and, to my surprise, he had recognized the truck and walked out to greet me. We did the same routine of him following me and waiting for me up to my leaving only to repeat the same thing for the evening chores and the chores for the next day. I had been adopted by him. So, on the third day, when he followed me to the truck after my evening chores, I figured such devotion couldn’t be all bad, picked him up in my arms and adopted him. After all, turn about was fair play, and whoever had discarded him might, just might, have made a big mistake. Even though his cat curiosity and personality was not angelic by any stretch, certainly his devotion to me was unmistakably that of an Angel, so Angel he was, for the rest of his life.

For the next 17 years, and seemingly knowing a good deal, he never left the house, except for a few one minute escapes, just to prove he could. Without fail, every day of his life with me, he would follow me room to room or to the door out and then meet me at the door when he heard the garage door announce my arrival. He slept at the head of our bed during the summer and at the foot of our bed during the cooler months, never leaving me. Masquerading as a dog, he continually and successfully mooched table scraps from me, much to my wife’s dismay. He even tolerated the occasional bath without holding a grudge, although his athleticism and lion’s paws certainly produced some very unfashionable and necessary apparel to get him washed. To all ends, he was my devoted friend.

But every day we spent together was also one less day that we would have together. Half way though our 17th year and his 18th year, Angel’s health began to fail. His muscular body was getting slender, his wonderful paws more normal and his athleticism also began to fail. I even had to start feeding him different food, because his bite, just wasn’t a bite anymore. But what did not fail, was his Angelic devotion. For even though it took him longer to follow, he was always in the same room, even though he could not jump onto the bed, he slept beside me on the floor all night, even though he was unable to jump to my lap, he laid his head on my feet while I watched TV or worked and every time the garage door announced me, he was there.

But on Sunday July 15, 2002, his legs gave out on him and he laid himself at my feet. So, just as I had picked him up 17 years ago, I picked him up and held him on my lap. A short hour passed and he laid his head back into my arms, looked at me and managed a meow that sounded much like “Good-bye”, sighed a long, deep sigh and left me. Angel, my devoted friend for 17 years, is now with the Angels and is probably listening for the Pearly Gates to announce my arrival so he can be by my side again. I do and will miss him.

But I write this blog for another reason, namely that of celebrating the devotion Angel or any other stray animal can give, if only given the chance, only a chance. There are many people at the Humane Society, that care and know this devotion is there, if only animals are given the chance. So with the mailing of this letter, I am also mailing, or will personally give, a donation to the Humane Society, in Angel’s name, to help these individuals give lost animals that chance of devotion. So if anyone who reads this letter, has suffered, or will suffer the loss of a devoted animal friend, simply will do the same and donate a “chance” to the Humane Society in that animal’s honor, then the only thing discarded on the streets will be McDonalds wrappers and not Angelic devotion.

To that end, I am, and shall always remain

Angel’s devoted friend,