He wasn't just a pet...he was a part of my life and a member of my family. He was about 7 years old and I've never lost a pet who was closer. He chose me and I will always have the story of how he came into my life as one of my fondest memories.
My Piper:
I've always thought of this as a very funny animal picture. This was taken in 1998 or 1999 just after I bought my first camera (a Pentax K1000). He was yawning, but I always imagined that a writer for greeting cards could come up with tons of witty copy for this image.
His Story: He (Piper) was only about 6 or 8 weeks old here. I hadn't planned on getting a pet, but I had been thinking about it. One winter weekend on a visit to home (Shawnee) from college (in Stillwater) I saw the tinyest little orange ball of fur in the street where he could be hit and he was too small to climb the curb himself. So I stopped and put him up on the curb. I had seen his mother and siblings nearby so I went back to my car and waited to make sure the mom came back for him.
It was winter and cold and the kitten crawled under my car and starting crying for his mom. After about 20 minutes I spotted the mom run around a building and I no longer heard any cries. So I assumed he was back with his family and I drove the rest of the way to my parents (which was about 7 blocks away) and went in and right to bed since it was about 2 a.m. and everyone was already asleep.
The next morning, my sister woke me to tell me my kitten was in the shop with dad. I said, "What are you talking about?" She said "Your little orange kitten is in the shop in a box."
I was dumbfuzzled. None of them had known anything about me stopping to rescue the kitten from traffic and, furthermore, how on earth could he be at my house???
As it happens, the cold and frightened, little kitten had climbed up under my car and onto my tail pipe and then hung on for dear life for a very bumpy 7 blocks. The next morning as my step-mom was leaving for work she heard a faint and tiny little cry. She followed it to find the orange ball of fur still clinging to the tail pipe.
So...I appropriately named him Piper. He's been the best cat in the world and most definetly the best snuggler.
Last week: I suddenly noticed that he was skin and bones, having lost a TON of weight, which had been disquised by all that fur. A vet trip and a lung x-ray revealed that he was not well at all.
The diagnosis was that he either had feline leukemia and less than 6 months to live (if that) ...
Or he had a fungus (caught from birds somehow) that damaged his lungs so badly that I was told he would have problems for the rest of his life IF he does made it. Basically, he had the equivilent of advanced-stage emphazima...and couldn't breath well at all.
This little guy had been so special to me for so long.
Today (Saturday, June 25, 2006): My dear friend suffers no more. Forever in my heart he will remain. For many years he was an angel in my life, an angel who found me and now has gone back to heaven until we meet again. "Piper's my boy," - a phrase that came from my ex-fiance and my boy he always will be. Never forgotten and forever missed you will be.
(Today...while burying him it dawned on me that my first ever photography award was won with the above photo of him that I submitted in the first photo contest I ever entered, which was in the town's fair where I lived and attended college. He won a first place blue ribbon)
GOODBYE PIPER - I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
