Remembering Popsy 19/10/2000 – 16/8/2006
by Barbara
(Shildon, UK)
My late husband John and I first met Popsy when she came to us in September 2001, an unwanted bundle of black fur with big yellow eyes, she’d been passed from pillar to post in the effort to be “got rid of”.
She came with a covered-in litter tray that she insisted on sitting in for the first few hours until I managed to coax her out with tinned tuna and a hairbrush. She soon settled in and, though we’d been told she didn’t like to go outside, within a week she’d driven us mad so we let her go into the garden and there she stayed enjoying her own little patch and that of the elderly neighbour who came to love her too, but not as much as we did.
While John was alive there was always friendly rivalry between Popsy and me, we two became three and I often thought it was me who was the extra one. John and Popsy worshipped each other but they only had eighteen months together before John died. So Popsy moved to Shildon and joined Ebony, Walter and Jozef and her Auntie Ruth who quickly became another mammy to her as she settled in and made her own unique place, and I was there too.
Popsy loved her Grandma Ebony and used to sit with her many an hour in the front doorway watching the world go by. She also loved Jozef and he loved her and used to give her head-butties and nape bites, they used to love to chase each other and play rough sometimes, and Popsy would spring out from behind the chair and ride Jozef like a jockey. She also loved Temuri who used to live next door but who had to move away. Walter and she never did bond but they rubbed along mostly and we always looked out for her safety when he was around.
She loved to sit on our knees or lie on our chests and if either of us laid on the settee she would be there like a flash, even if she was out at the time she always knew someone was lying down and would jump in the window and shout “Hello” in her own lovely little voice. She used to knead the tops of our arms and it hurt when her claws dug in but she was so happy doing it no-one would have the heart to stop her, she used to do it to John too, cuddled up in bed with him, so he used to put a bandage on his arm before he went to bed so it dulled the pain!
She was a little ray of sunshine, always around to help out with whatever we were doing and always talking to us, she loved fish from the fish shop or done in milk in the microwave but she didn’t like butter or cream. She used to run along the Grove to meet either Ruth or me when we came home from shopping or work, whoever was in the house would say “She’s coming” and Popsy would be off, running along the pavement with her tail held high and tipped over at the end, then she would walk back along the wall beside us, high enough for kisses and cuddles all the way home. She loved to catch moths and butterflies by the scruff of their necks and help the boys if they brought a mouse home.
But she became poorly with her chest, she battled for eight weeks and no matter what treatments the vet tried she was her usual sunny self, the nurses at the vet hospital loved her, it was impossible not to love her. She was brave, she always was, as we found out later that as a kitten she was put out at night and bathed weekly to prevent her “smelling of cat.” She had an anaesthetic to have a chest x-ray and stopped breathing but she was saved and came home and still loved us as long as she was able to. But in the end nothing could save her life. On her last night at home she brought home one last moth at quarter to midnight and she was well and happy but the next day her breathing was bad again and she went into the vet hospital poorly.
On the next day we were referred to another vet but it was too late and she died before we could see him. She was cremated on the 17th August 2006 and her ashes scattered in the garden of rest where those of another beloved cat, Bryan, lay, and now her grandma Ebony is there too.
It didn’t seem possible that at five years old her life was over and we would never see, hear or hold her again, she was a wonderful cat in every way and we loved her so much. It was, and still is, unbearable.
God Bless Popsy, little love, with Daddy now, one day we'll all be together again X X
Although all those years have gone by there is still a little long haired cat shaped gap in our lives and she is still so sadly missed and loved. RIP little love xx
Remembering Popsy who left us 7 years ago today, where do the years go.
R.I.P little girl xx