A Final Tribute to Daisy

She was a rescue cat that my first husband and I picked out when we first became engaged.
She wasn't a looker by any means, and we thought that no one else would want her. And despite engaging her in cat play from early on, with lots of human interaction, she never developed much of a personality, although she did blossom into a gorgeous cat, with a noted underbite.

She didn't like to sit in laps. Would bitch-slap my kids when they tried to get too friendly. Ran into the house only to run right back out again. Her brightly colored Calico coat was the most exuberant quality about her.

But the old girl was consistent. Every day for almost eighteen years, Daisy Mae Culpepper (kinda named after my great great grandmother) met me at the carport door at 6 am for breakfast. My other three felines, even Frio the bad-ass, would back up and allow her to eat first. She would follow me out on my morning runs, careful to remain in eye-shot of our home, and would wait patiently under the street light for my return.

She didn't like staying in the house for very long and would protest in her own little Daisy way when I would insist she stay in the boys' bathroom on those rare winter nights when the temperatures would dip in the teens.

A couple of weeks ago, Daisy wasn't around for her morning feeding. It had been about 25 degrees outside the night before and of course, the thought crossed my mind that she hadn't made it, but I was still optimistic. By night fall, still no Daisy. When she didn't show the next morning, I just knew that she wouldn't be coming home and began looking under steps, in our shed, and other nooks and crannies of our yard. I came up empty.

Until yesterday afternoon.

I was sitting in our living room counseling my love-tormented friend (of whom I've written in another blog) on the phone, I noticed a bit of orange high in a cedar tree across our side yard. It took me a few horrifying seconds to realize it was my Daisy. It appears that she was trying to escape danger and either had a heart attack or got caught in the many tiny twigs that cradled her.

I told her how sorry I was. How painfully sorry.

My husband and I buried her in our backyard and the boys and I are going place our favorite rocks over her burial spot later today.

God bless Daisy.
The contender.

Amen.