Bon Voyage, Little Cat

I am very sad to say that my trusty, 19-year old cat, Martha (aka Little Cat or simply "Little"), has passed on.

We got her almost 19 years ago from some trailer park kind of duplex in South Minneapolis. We thought at the time that she would be a good companion to Big Cat, who came into our lives about one year earlier. It turns out Big and Little never really got along all that well, but they reached A Certain Understanding and were companions, if not buddies, for nearly 10 years.

Big Cat passed on when we were living in Connecticut, back in 2002 or so, and Little really came into her own after that. She became the queen of the castle and very much enjoyed being the only Cat. Big was a very large black and white tuxedo cat, and was very close to Molly, while Little was smaller, long haired grey and white with unusual markings, and she was more bonded to me.

Little (and Big) accompanied us from Minnesota to Connecticut. Neither of us will ever forget driving from Minneapolis to Guilford with two cats in the back of my Jeep. After the Northeast stint, Little came with us to Alaska, and from Alaska back to Minnesota once more. She was the most well-traveled cat I have known. She prospered in each location, and easily became a Connecticat, and then an Arctic Cat, and finally a Minnesota kitty once more.

One of her favorite things was to sit in my lap while I read the paper and push her head into my left hand, using it like a sling. She would zone out for along time while I read the paper and drank my morning coffee. Her second favorite thing was to sit on the desk next to the computer with me while I typed, surfed, blogged, etc.

She had a great life and we enjoyed having her in our life a lot. I wish she had seen one more summer, sitting on the deck in the sun, but it was not meant to be. We will miss her (a lot), but understand that things change. And I expect we'll meet up again at some point down the road.