Farewell Pixie

Farewell, Pixie

Farewell, little tuxedo friend, with your mad white whiskers that caught our attention on Facebook, and that brought you to your new home. We were kitty-less and there you were, you and Coco, in need of a new family. How could we resist?

Farewell to your willful streak that made you box your way out of the (locked) catflap, not two days later, and lose yourself in the Grove Avenue gardens (in the middle of a howling April monsoon). It took ten days and a bag of used cat litter, but you found your way back at last. You woke me with a start – one o’clock in the morning – and there you were, in the kitchen, skinny and wild-eyed, but happy to be back in the warm.

Perhaps these new people weren’t so bad, after all.

Farewell to your occasional grumps, moods that you made you grouch at Coco when he tried to wash your ears, or swipe at (a much younger) Isaac when he showed his affection by teasing you a little too much. Yes, I taught him not to, but you administered your own discipline.

Farewell to the happy, lap-curling creature with the quiet purr, the sun-worshipping fur-beast, and the wily predator that used to sit under the neighbour’s hedge and watch the world go by. And farewell (thankfully) to the occasional gift you brought us, mice and birds (that we would invariably rescue).

You loved us so much that one night, that you brought in the same mouse three times.

Saying these farewells is heart-breaking, leaving a vacuum where our friend is not. Is the mornings, demanding food. In the afternoons, sitting on our beds. In the evenings, sitting bucketed in the living room chair, or stretching sprawly in the heat of the fire.

There are never any words to frame the loss. Only to hope that we did the right thing, by your age, and pain, and fading heath. To hope that you didn’t suffer, and that you can rest now.

You can cross the Rainbow Bridge and find Coco, and bite his ears some more.