RIP Calvin

5/20/00 – 12/29/11

AKA: Calydalyrymple, Caly-Dal, The Rympler, The Claw, The Great Calvino

Our darling little beamish boy waited until our kids came home today before he exited his beautiful little body.

Our first baby will always be remembered for his silly, playful ways.  The way he would fling his little cat arms over his head while chasing a cat toy.  Or how he would hunt anything – crane-flies, people, chickens and rats!  The way he would stop traffic with his lazy saunter across the road or how he would insert himself into our neighbor’s lives, our neighbor’s garages.

When we happened across this dear Little Bbuddy it was on our way into PetSmart as we were researching which fish would go best with our pond.  As were were walking by the adoption center, out from a crate came this little white paw, batting itself around, looking for anything fun to take a swing at.  Bradley and I stopped to play with him a little before we moved on, both of us had this little cat stuck in our head.  We had all the reasons not to get a cat all lined up – we wanted to travel, Bradley was allergic, but there was something about that little peach-fuzzed white cat…  We played with him on our way out again, and still charmed, we spoke with the adoption lady to start the process.  He made us a family.

He inspired songs, poems and piles of pictures of him.  Seriously, we have stacks of pictures of this boy.  We fawned over him, congratulated his first hunting expeditions (crane flies) and his more advanced – he got one mouse before moving onto rabbits, rats and squirrells.  He was insatibale, bringing his prey into the house to share through open summer windows.  It was horrifying to wake up and tread on a dead rat on the way to the bathroom, or to be greeted by the sight of a dead rat on the floor, tail chewed off as it was his MO,  if you did manage to avoid stepping on it, but I was grateful that he was catching the crazy things.

So today we woke up and turned on the fire.  He waddled over, his swollen, distended belly looking so uncomfortable, and spread out in front of it.  While we’ve known for quite some time he was sick, neither of us saw today as any more difficult or unusual than any other.  Bradley and I both spent time with him, massaging his tummy, scratching his ears and telling him we loved him.  He got his soft food, which he loved, his pills and all of the usual stuff.  And when our babies came home he said his goodbyes and left us.  There is a hole in my heart for each one of the pets I’ve been lucky enough to love, but my Calvino was the one who really etched himself onto it.  At the time when it was just the three of us, Bradley, Calvin and I, we both would comment often on his brilliance, his trainability, his smarts, his athleticism, and both of us would comment that never could we imagine a more clever or better pet.  He would curl himself between us, giving that knowing look that cats can give and drop off to sleep. It was a good time, a special time.

To our Calvin, who will always be loved by us, we will miss you and think of you often.  We love you, little boy.  XXOO

Caly’s Nursery Rhyme

For Calydalyrymple

Life is very simple,

sitting on the sofa when the fly caught the eye!

Out goes the paw

and

*POP*

Goes the fly

and Calydalyrymple just

Smiles, Smiles, Smiles.


Comments are closed.