I don’t know what it is about long, white soft fur and big golden eyes.
My 12-year-old white and gold cat who had been fighting cancer for three months decided to stop fighting Monday morning. He died in an unassuming, quiet and dignified way. The way he lived. He died with my husband, Andy, sitting beside him, his large hand mingled with the white fur.
Greenfield was my “up-py” friend.
He was six months old the first time I saw him in a cage with a raggedly stuffed toy near his paws.
I didn’t want to look at him when I went to the animal shelter. I couldn’t help myself.
It was the first anniversary of my father’s death, and a few days past the two-month anniversary of my mother’s death. I decided it was a good day to save a life.
I wanted a small gray and peach female to match my Flanagan. Flanagan is a gray and peach short-hair male my sister, Janet, rescued from certain death when he was a few weeks old. I wanted a kitten that day — one that would fit in my hand like Flanagan had.
It was a few days before Christmas when my sister and I entered the animal shelter. There were only two cats there. There was a small gray and peach female kitten and a big fluffy white male cat. I went straight for the kitten. My sister stopped in front of the cage with the big fluffy white cat. She asked the staff to take him out so she could hold him.
I would have nothing to do with it. I stayed in front of the kitten’s cage and made chirping noises.
“Come on, Judy, just hold him,” she said.
“No,” I said, with my back to her and her big, fluffy bundle she was holding in her arms.
Janet can be very persuasive.
I slowly turned around.
He was staring at me with his golden eyes. He bend backwards in her arms and reached out his paws to me.
I walked over to them slowly and held out my arms. He crawled into them and he fit perfectly on my shoulder with his paws in my hair.
I sighed.
“He picked me,” I told the woman watching us.
““His name is Greenfield, the same as our Dad’s middle name,” I said.
She got quiet. “I have to tell you he has a heart condition,” she said.
I smiled. An absolutely wonderful person in my life had a heart condition. A kind and sweet soul.
“Now, I really want him,” I said.
Greenfield outgrew his heart murmur, but he gave me a heart condition.
Greenfield and I have had adventures over the years.
He rode in my steering wheel and on my shoulders over a summer of working and learning in Montana. He went to college with me and read my books through his stomach. He chased butterflies on our walks. He slept on my pillow, his body curled around my head many a night. He became a firm friend with Flanagan. He stayed a special friend with my sister. He was very vocal when I opened a tin of cat food. He drank water by dipping his paw in the water and them licking it.
He welcomed my soon-to-be husband with open paws the first time I brought Andy home to meet my furry friends. From that point on I had to share his affections.
Greenfield waited by the door when I came home from work to be petted before I could even put down my purse.
But my absolute favorite moment and somehow I believe it was his too was when he would stretch and place his paws on my hip almost every day — at least once — when he wanted “up-py” so he could settled on my shoulder and put his paws in my hair.