by Tara Bouvy
When I was 8 years old my mother bribed me into behaving at Day Care. She said if I could be good for three months she would get me my very own cat. I was so excited! I can remember refusing an offer from my friend to do something fun but I said "No, my mom said if I'm good she'll get me a cat." Well those three months seemed to take forever, but it paid off. On October 6, 1993 my Grandmother took me to the one and only pet store in town to get a cat. I remember there were five kittens, two calico, two orange tabbies and my Spooky. He was completely white with one blue eye and one green eye. He had his mouth open crying for food and attention. The store keeper let the kittens out to roam around so I could watch them. The other four cats went to a watering can, filled with water and started to drink from it. My kitty went around and harassed the dogs, still in their cages, teased a parrot that was about five times his size and then started eating from a bucket filled with dog food. Right then and there I fell in love with that white cat whom I later named Spooky. I told the clerk I which one I wanted and she told me I was very lucky to be able to get him. She said that a woman came to the store to buy my kitty for her nephew as a birthday present, and the boy named him Snowball. In a few days the boys parents realized he was allergic to Snowball and had to return him. They had done that just an hour or two before I came to the store.
When I got a little older, I was concerned about what would happen with Spooky when I went to college. My mom wouldn't want him (he peed on the floor once in a while and because of that she didn't like him too much) and my dad couldn't take him because his landlord wouldn't let him. My mom brought up the possibility of giving him away. That idea alone had me crying for days. It ended up that I didn't have to worry about that. Almost six years me and Spooky had together. we were always together, he would follow me and some times I would follow him. Whenever I was sad Spooky would show up and look me right in the eye and put his paw on my face. He was such a good kitty, he didn't even mind me giving him a bath! When I got home from school he would be in the window watching me walk up the driveway and then right by the door on his back to greet me. And he was so big! He loved to eat and he was long and tall. He couldn't have been more friendly, he liked everyone, even the pizza delivery guy.
Then Spooky got sick and his liver almost stopped working, and he wouldn't eat, which besides a good pet is what he lived for. He stayed at the vets for a couple days, then we took him in about every other day. He stopped coming to greet me when I got home, he just stayed in the basement. I felt so bad, in my heart I knew he was going to die but I didn't want to admit it to myself and so I did all I could to save him. I fed him with a syringe, massaged his stomach, and gave him enemas and bath after bath. As I got off the bus on June 16, 1999 my heart sank. Something felt wrong, I ran to the house and down the basement stairs and to my old baby carriage where Spooky had been for the past few days. I pet him and tried to wake him up. I stumbled back and almost collapsed, thinking, God no. My Spooky was dead. I stayed there petting him, telling him how sorry I was that I wasn't there when he died. Then I made my way upstairs and called my mom at work. She rushed home and was crying when she came to the door. She told me to call and ask my father to help bury him. When my dad came over we walked around the backyard, deciding where to bury Spooky, and he was talking about him and what a good friend he was to me and that Spooky had made a lot of people happy. My father hadn't even cried when his father died about a month before, but here he was very nearly blubbering over his daughters little kitty named Spooky.
It hasn't even been three weeks since Spooky died but it feels like I've been separated from him for years. My mother wants to plant a white tulip tree at Spookys grave in the backyard, so every year when it blooms we'll be reminded of Spooky. I love Spooky so much. I remember saying to my mom, just a few days before, that I didn't think I could take it if he died. As of now I'm better, but I keep thinking about him and how Ill never be able to hold him again or get annoyed at him for crying to much. From what I've been told time will help, but the pain will always be there and I know I will always love and miss my baby Spooky.