Missing My Kitty

Miss Tiffany passed away 12 years ago (can’t believe it’s been that long!), but I still miss her. She was the prettiest cat in the world, and one of the crabbiest.

I got Tiffany from a no-kill shelter, where she was being bullied by the bigger cats. She learned all her bad habits from them. She hated all other cats and most people. She had already been named, or I would have called her something else — Killer or Slash or Bonnie N. Clyde.

My pet name for her was Meanness, so you can just imagine. She was a one-person cat (I was the person) until the baby was born. #4 daughter could do anything to that cat and get away with it.

I don’t know why I’m missing Miss Tiff so much today, but I am. Here’s a poem I wrote about her. It’s one of the offerings in the Southern Indiana Writers’ anthology BEASTLY TALES.

The Styrofoam Kitty
by Marian Allen

After sixteen human years of life

Miss Tiffany

— cat of the silent meow —

had no heft, no weight, no mass

except on stairs.

There, by force of will,

she mimicked elephants.

Or, when I napped on the couch,

she stepped

down

from her higher perch,

passing a cosmic pressure

through one small foot

into the space between two ribs.

WRITING PROMPT: Write about a one-person animal who accepts a second person into its world.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Missing My Kitty

  1. Jane

    December 27, 2011 at 12:14pm

    What a beautiful picture of the lovely Miss Tiff!

    I’ve been missing various kitties lately, as well as Mom. It shouldn’t seem the same, but in a lot of ways it is. Our connections to all our babies are as intimate as to our human companions. And they love you back so sincerely. That’s a lot to miss when they’re gone.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      December 27, 2011 at 1:55pm

      “Companions” is the operative word, I think. Companionship is a wordless communion that can exist along with any number of other relationships. That goes so deep and is so much a part of you, losing that connection is a serious bereavement. After a while, you might feel that connection to a missing human again, when you realize that you look like your Mom or you make her recipe for something or you see something that reminds you of her. That’s been my experience with loved humans who have passed. The animals don’t leave anything but missing them, unless you write about them.

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