No, I haven't actually lost hope. What we did lose was our sweet gentle spirited cat, Hope. She left us yesterday morning after having been a part of our lives for 18 years.
We got her as a kitten from Minnie Osterholt who lived on a farm near Nelson, MN where I grew up. My girls and I went to pick out a kitten, and the one we wanted kept running away. So we picked a black and white one that stayed put. We brought her home in one of Minnie's egg baskets. One of the first things Hope did was get her head stuck in a small hole on the back of our stove. I figured out how to get her out by taking one ear out at a time.
She was a very quiet cat; she never meowed. The only time she made alot of noise is when she went "sock hunting" and then she let out a loud primal sound. If she was outside and wanted to get in, she wouldn't make a sound; just look in the window until you noticed.
She loved to be touched and always purred. In fact, she purred up until her last moments. When she was taken to the vet this past winter, the staff tried to get her to stop purring so they could listen to her lungs.
We noticed over the past couple months that she wasn't acting quite herself, and these past two weeks she rapidly went downhill. She lost weight, ate less, changed her station from the chair to the couch. Her breathing was very labored this past week, and we checked on her frequently. Yesterday I looked at her and then went outside to do some chores and upon coming back in a few minutes later, she was gone. I held her for awhile, and then we placed her in the basement until our daughter, Olivia, could get home. She sewed a beautiful burial bag for Hope, and we placed her in the ground with some photos and our thoughts of her (along with a can of tuna provided by Olivia).
The loss didn't quite hit me until early this morning when I awoke to feel the vacuum in the house which was the emptiness of no longer having this gentle quiet spirit in our midst. She didn't say much, but she was always there simply watching our lives.
There is no plan to replace her; it wouldn't be possible to do so. We will just live with our sweet memories of a black and white furball that loved to purr.
Thought for the day: The only beautiful thing in the world whose beauty lasts forever is a pure, fair soul. Bram Stoker
