Eileen was my baby for six years. I was living with a partner when we got her. My partner was driving out in the country and stopped at a produce stand, and they were giving away kittens. They had given them all away except one, and the one that was left had an injured foot. It was all infected and swollen and she couldn't put any weight on it. So I guess no one had wanted her. Well, K felt sorry for her so she brought her home. We really didn't need another pet. We had a couple of cats and two ferrets already. K said she was just going to take the kitten to the vet and get her foot treated, and then we would find a home for her.

Treating the foot turned out to be a bigger deal than we had imagined. It was seriously infected. They had to put her on steroids as well as antibiotics. She was pretty sick for a while. They weren't even sure she would live at first. But she did. And she recovered.

We did look for a home for her, at first. But it's hard to find homes for cats. It seems like everyone who wants a cat already has a couple.

Eileen became my baby. She liked me better than K. She slept with me at night. She hung out with me during the day. Eventually, I decided we couldn't find a new home for her. She was mine.

She was so snuggly. She would snuggle under the covers with me at night. She would purr so loud. She would get so happy she would drool all over my pillow. I never knew a cat to slobber before, but she did. It was kinda gross, but kinda cute, too.

I have major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. There were times the depression was so bad, I could not get out of bed. When that happened, Eileen would just curl up in bed with me. She loved to take naps. She didn't care that I was too depressed to go to work sometimes. She didn't care that I was withdrawn. She loved me just the way I was.

I used to have a lot of nightmares because of the PTSD. I would wake up screaming and kicking. The cats would frequently get kicked off the bed before I realized what I was doing. The other cats didn't like to sleep with me much for that reason, but Eileen always forgave me. She would just hop right back up in bed and snuggle up.

K and I broke up when Eileen was a couple years old. I moved to a new apartment. I took Eileen and one of the other cats, Cayenne, with me. Eileen had to come because she was my baby, and Cayenne was her buddy so I didn't want to separate them. K kept the other cat and the ferrets. Eileen was terrified the first night in the new apartment. She hid under the couch and wouldn't come out. I figured I would just give her time and she would adjust. Well, 24 hours later, she had not budged from under the couch. No food, no water, no litter box, in 24 hours. I got down on the floor and coaxed her out a little. Scooted back a little and coaxed her a little more. I did this all over the apartment. It took a couple hours. She sniffed the place over and was OK then.

Eileen ended up liking the new apartment just fine. It was downtown, and there were all kinds of interesting smells. Both cats loved it when I opened the windows. The bedroom was kind of at an angle to the kitchen, so one cat could sit in the kitchen window and one could sit in the bedroom window and they could look at each other. When I opened the windows, they would sit there like that and talk to each other. It was so cute.

About a year after I moved, I got really, really sick. I had to be in the hospital. The cats were left home alone. I had a friend come in three times a week to feed them and clean the litter box. She would pet Cayenne and play with her a little, but Eileen was always really scared of people she didn't know. So my friend never even saw her. Eileen always hid under the bed when she came in. I ended up being in the hospital for almost three weeks. I didn't know it would be so long. I felt really, really bad about leaving the cats alone for that long. If I had known I would be gone for so long, I might have asked K to keep them for me. I think they were really traumatized by the experience. When I got home, they both followed me everywhere around the house for days. It was like they were afraid to let me out of their sight. I feel so guilty about it, still. Eileen got over it quicker than Cayenne did, though. And she seemed so, so glad to see me.

I wasn't able to go back to work for quite a while after that, so I was home most of the time. So the cats got a LOT of attention. And Eileen and I took naps together every day. She was really my best friend during that time. I don't know how to explain it. I loved Cayenne a lot, too, but Eileen was like my soulmate.

A while after that I met M and we started seeing each other. The first time he came to my house, I told him not to expect to see Eileen. She always, always hid from people she didn't know. I had recently had a friend from out of town stay with me for a whole week, and toward the end of that time, Eileen would come into the living room when S and I were in there, but if S talked to her, she would run away. Well, M was in the house for about half an hour and he needed to use the restroom. The restroom was off the bedroom. He went back there, and didn't come back. I finally went to see what he was doing. He was sitting on my bed, petting Eileen! She loved him. I couldn't believe it. I figured he had to be the right guy, if she liked him so much.

The next summer, the cats and I moved in with M. He lived in the country. He had two cats of his own, and let them go outside when they wanted to. So I decided to let Eileen and Cayenne go out, too. He lived on a little deadend road with about seven houses on it. There was not much traffic, so I thought it would be safe. There was a huge field with tall weeds and some woods across the street, and the cats loved it.

Eileen started to hunt. That really surprised me. She had always been sort of lazy. But she caught mice and birds. I can't imagine how she ever moved fast enough to catch a bird, but she did, several times. I never saw her actually catch one, but she brought them home. Sometimes she brought them home still alive, and then I would take them away from her and set them free. She always looked so surprised about that! Eileen was kind of a fat cat. The vet had said we might have to put her on a diet. But she lost a little weight once she started going outside.

M had a water bed, and Eileen loved it. Maybe because it was heated. But she also liked how it moved, I think. Sometimes I would walk in the bedroom and find her just rolling around on it.

We put a wide sill on one of the living room windows so the cats could sit in it or lie in it. Eileen loved that window. Every day from about 3:00 - 5:00 she would lie there and sun her belly. If it wasn't sunny, she would lie there anyway. Like she couldn't figure out that it was raining and she wasn't going to get any sun.

Eileen was truly my best friend. She loved me more than any person ever had. I trusted her more than I have ever trusted any person.

Eileen was mostly black, but she had one tan toe. I loved that toe so much. One day I realized I couldn't remember anymore which foot the tan toe was on, the right or the left. I just panicked. I had to look through my pictures until I could tell which foot it was.

Eileen loved food. Sometimes I used to make pudding for dessert. I would put it in these little dessert glasses. When M and I were done eating, we would let the cats lick the glasses. Well, they couldn't quite reach the bottoms of the glasses, just the sides. Cayenne licked the sides and then gave up. But not Eileen. She thought about it for a moment, then dipped her foot into the glass. Got some of the pudding off the bottom on her toes, and licked it off. I thought that was so smart!

Sometimes I have a hard time remembering the good things about Eileen. For a long time after she died, all I could picture was her lying there, dead. I would close my eyes, and that's what I saw. I can remember the good things now, but it's still hard to shut out that image.

It feels like hole in my heart. It's been three years, but that hole is still there. It's always going to be there. I don't cry every day anymore, but I still cry a lot. I think it's a lot.

I saw a gravestone once in a cemetery that said "I'd give all the world tonight to be with you." And I would give all the world today to be with Eileen.

Magdalene

a very heart felt tribute, beautiful!!!

Thank you for sharing a little of Eileen's life with us. She sounds like a wonderful furkid.

Ken Albin