Forever Gentle On My Mind

Horace Edgie Grant
March 1992 - July 23, 2007

A black domestic short-hair/Burmese
Emerald green eyes, soft black fur
Named after Horace Grant of the Chicago Bulls
Favorite food was turkey and bologna
Would stand up and beg for food like a dog
Liked to sit and vogue pose in the middle of crowd
Scratchy Meow, very chatty and would answer when you talked to her
BAD temper
Loyal
Matriarch of Lil Penny and L.V.
Nicknamed Peanut-Butter, Punkin'nut, Fuzzy Butt, Velvet Puff & TunaBreath
Her song was "Walking On The Moon"
She loved listening to classical music; would sit with her eyes closed and listen


Loved.

It's not clingin' to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me
Or something that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walkin'
It's just knowing that the world
Will not be cursing or forgiving
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're movin' on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you're just gentle on my mind

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see
You walkin' on the back roads
By the rivers flowin' gentle on my mind

In loving memory of Horace Edgie Grant, who passed away with me today at her side. We had a beautiful day together where she ate her beloved bologna and turkey and let me snuggle her for a little while. She gave me one last bite and hiss and then she laid with her tiny little head in my hand and retired into her long, peaceful nap.

About Horace..

In the Spring of 1992 I decided I wanted to have a pet to keep my company in my first apartment. I went to The Anti-Cruelty Society of Chicago with the intent to get a kitten. When I got there there was only one kitten - a grey and black tabby who was SO cute. Unfortunately this other woman cut in front of me in line and got to the kitten first. Well, I was so READY to get a cat that I decided to look at some of the older cats. I walked up and down the prison wall of steel cages and saw fat, skinny, fluffy, shorthaired cats of all breeds and sizes and ages. One cat looked kind of cute and was licking my finger through the cage but it just didn't move me. I was about to give up and then I saw down on a bottom cage to the left of my foot what appeared to be an empty cage. There was a little black thing curled up sleeping with its nose in the corner. I looked at the card on the cage - it said "My Name is 'Bebe' I'm Female and approximately 2 years old." The cat looked awfully small for 2 years - Bebe looked more like a kitten. I asked the volunteer if I could see Bebe. I sat down and they brought a limp and half asleep Bebe to me. They put her in my lap and she turned around and I saw her for the first time - big huge green eyes. She looked up at my eyes and gave a long "Miaow." But it wasn't like a "take me home, I hate it here" it was more like, "Finally, you're here."

The girl who cut in line was next to me playing with the grey tabby. She heard the volunteer say they didn't know how old Bebe was really, it was a guess. But they said she was a young adult female and would probably not get any bigger. I said, "So she'll always look like a kitten!" Bebe nudged me in the stomach and was purring. She cuddled into my lap and I knew we found each other. She was no longer the horribly named "Bebe" she was now my little Horace.

She came home with me that day, rode in a taxi while in a brown cardboard box with holes in it that said "I'm Going Home!" She hated that and our home-coming was NOT special. She went bezerk and the sweet loving cat I had at the shelter was a hellion. For about two or three months she and I tussled. One night I even caught her trying to punch me in the head from the window sill next to my bed. She'd sit in the window staring out at the city scape and watched over me and if she was mad about our Tussle of the Day, she'd choose her moment to whack me in the head. But thanks to the Anti-Cruelty Society they helped me learn how to manage her behavior and I found out more about her - that she had shown signs of physical abuse when she got to the shelter. The behavior I was seeing was indicative of that as well. Nothing scared her more back then than a broom. She lost her mind when she saw a broom so my conclusion was she had been beaten with one. Sometimes when she was naughty and biting I could see why someone would want to take a broom to her - but I suspect she wasn't a biter inherently, someone made her fight for herself that passionately.

Once we established a ranking order in my household, Horace and I became buds. She grew very attached to me and would follow me around everywhere I went. If she was tired, she would position herself where she could watch me. When I went to work, she'd sit at the door and cry when I left. She was always there waiting and running up to me when I'd come home.

I didn't get to spend as much time with Horace as I'd have liked over the years. My job took me out of home, city, state and country. She moved around a bit and lived with my sister for quite a while at times. No matter how long I'd been gone, as soon I came home she became my kitty again. I inherited another cat - Penny - in 1996. And he was too sweet to be true. Everyone loved Penny but when Penny moved back with my sister and later on Sarah he never really seemed to care or notice me. But Horace never forgot who her mommy was no matter where she was living.

A friend of mine said you can love many pets but there's always one that you have a special soul-connection with. She knew Horace and I had that special bond that is a little more quietly understood. I'm not the crazy cat lady - I find it absurd and pathetic I'm writing a blog eulogy for a cat. But I can't deny the loss and sadness I have felt every day, the tears that fall every few hours when I realize she's not here. I miss her so badly and I don't want to forget or diminish her life by saying she was "just a cat." She was my companion and witness to the happiest and saddest times of my life. And if you had the memory that I do of her sleeping in a cage and the knowledge that she had been beaten and abused and unwanted, it would be an understatement to say she deserves all the love and remembrance I can give her memory and legacy in my life.

This is an email I sent out to my friends that knew her - it's my remembrance and record of her passing and I probably can't write it any better than I did.

Horace is gone. She died at 5:45 this evening. She was really mad about being at the vet - she bit me and the tech so they had to sedate her. In a way, I was glad to see her get mad like that - that was the kitty I knew: strong willed and not having any of what she didn't want!

When they brought her back in she was half asleep and lethargic. I stayed with her the whole time and had her head in my hand and stroked her ears. I watched her the whole time, we kept eye contact. It was very peaceful but when the vet checked her heartbeat I broke down. They left me alone with her and I took out my hairbrush and groomed her - I meant to brush her before we left but I wanted to do this for her. She looked so pretty and peaceful. I kissed her on the head and ears like I always do. I cleaned her eyes and placed my hand on her heart before I left. She and I had a little talk last night and I told her how much I loved her and wished I was able to take better care of her - in the past and now. I told her I didn't know if this was the right thing to do but I couldn't manage her illnesses and I knew she could be happier.

It was time for her, the last four days she hadn't left my bedroom except for water and litter (or the floor..). I gave her her bologna and turkey today and she ate that and didn't throw up for the first time. We had a really good week together and I know there could have been no better way for me to choose the time for her "nap." The last few nights Penny slept with her and me.. Today he stayed away, it was like he knew that the end was coming close.

It feels like you're playing God when you do something like this. But that's the thing about free-will. And little Horace was entrusted to me and I know that it was better to let her go when she still had some shred of dignity and fire in her than to watch the paced decline she's been going through.

I'm doing OK, Penny is cuddled up on Horace's favorite blanket - a wool tartan from Scotland. He seems to be a bit confused but doing OK. It's good to have him here and I love him to pieces though he can never replace my Horace.

I took a lot of pictures and videos of her this week and today. I also clipped some of her fur and put it into a little Frango Mint box with the Chicago skyline on it. I will have her cremated and ashes returned to me. It's not cheap but as I reflected on her life and remembered the first time I saw her - in a gaggle of cages at the Chicago Humane Society with other unwanted cats and cowering in the back of a cold steel cage - I knew that I owed her something better than a mass-cremation with other cats. When I first picked her up that day in 1993, I held her and she looked up at me with her big green eyes and meowed. Her eyes were the first and last thing I saw in her.

She stood out from all the other cats at that shelter and I can't send her back from where she came; she has to stay with me because at the end of the day we chose each other.