Ophelia, Part 3

Ophelia died of lung cancer last Saturday evening. She was seven and a half.

She loved our boys. She would let them crawl up to her as babies, grab her ears, bury their faces in her belly.

She sat on our lap for hours, purring. Her claws were perpetually out. Many of my pants have snags because of her, and all our towels, but I don't regret a single misplaced thread.

We have spots all over the basement carpet where she threw up or couldn't make the litter box. She wheezed the past few years, but we thought it was asthma because she is chubby. The vet didn't catch the tumor when we took her in for an ear infection six months ago. Cancer in cats is hard to catch. But if you think your cat is sick, if you think she's having trouble breathing, it might be worth getting an X-ray.

She moved from south Salt Lake to our Sandy apartment to our new house. She doted on all three of our boys. She scratched my husband's chest when she was resting there and our two-year-old sent an empty milk gallon down the stairs, she killed countless spiders and flies and ate them, and she was the sweetest, snuggliest cat I've ever met.

This is Ophelia, as of last week. She loved the boys even on her sick blanket. And now our baby keeps chasing Scout, who is far more skittish, just hoping that she'll let him snuzzle her fur like her sister used to. She won't, but that won't stop him from trying...

I miss my chubsy cat.