Neecko

Nov. 1993 to April 2007

We Miss You

At the time I didn’t even think about it but a little over a week later I can say that Friday April 13, 2007 didn’t have an ending I would have imagined when I woke up that day. Late that afternoon we had to have our cat of about 15 years, Neecko, put to sleep. It’s strange not having a cat in the house, for the past 20 years we have had them and I miss them all, Rascal, Neecko and Tinkerbell. Neecko came to us when she was about 4 weeks old, Our daughter thought she saw a mouse run across the garage entrance, she was tiny and no one claimed her so we did, she was a very independent kitty from the start, but always close by, she picked her moments to be affectionate, she liked to talk, she made terrible noises if you picked her up and she didn’t want to be, but in her 15 years with us she never once tried to bite, she was a very gentle soul. Unlike Rascal and Tinkerbell, when we went on trips and left them in the care of friends and neighbors, she never held a grudge or stressed about it, she meant me when I would come in and announce to them that we were home, Rascal would stay hidden for a few hours till I went to find him, Tink would come right away but would seem to scold. Neecko would act as if we hadn’t been away. She won over Rascal when we took her in, he tried to resist her but shortly they were best friends, Tink came a few months, maybe a year before we lost Rascal, both Rascal and Neecko tried to be friendly to her, but she never would get close, even when Neecko tried to curl up with her Tink would move away. At night before going to bed I would spend some time with Neecko, brushing and talking with her, I miss that part of the day, she was always close by or coming to check up on me from one her spots during the day. As mentioned she wasn’t one to cuddle, but in the evenings she would curl up next to me on the couch or lay on the back of it behind me.

Unlike Rascal Neecko never tried to escape the house, quite the opposite, if we were holding her and would start to go out the door, she would panic and flee over our shoulder back inside, she did learn to love to spend a little time in a cage we set up on the deck for them, but for her it was straight into the cage and when she was through it was always right back into the house, never trying to run the other way like Rascal or Tink who had no interest in the cage. Ted was the one she chose to cuddle on, not a lot, but when she felt the need for human cuddles he was her choice. Friday I tried to convince myself we were doing the right thing, I know we did, but the quilt I felt kept me from staying with her, the vet told me that they found that if the person stayed a lot of the times they had to give the cat a sedative to relax them especially if they sensed their person was stressed, so I went out to the car, Ted stayed with her and held her head till she was gone, that made me feel better and I am sure it did comfort her that he chose to do that for her.