Farewell, darling Sophie.
It’s serendipity that I woke this morning remembering a dream of loss and love. It turns out that Sophie, our calico rescue diva, died a year ago today. Just like Sophie to haunt my dreams, laughing.
Tonight our hearts are breaking as we have said goodbye to Sophie, our darling diva, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon while Teijo stroked her mangy fur. She was a feisty kitten-cat for easily 16 years of her 17-plus year life, ruling our feline/canine household with an iron paw. Her memorium should read that she actually liked to watch tennis on television (Roger Federer at Wimbledon was her favorite -- seriously -- and I can't find that photo just now!). When Teijo had a strange virus for months on end some years back, and spent a lot of time in bed, she was the watchdog who never left his side. She has never been the most maternal of creatures to our three other rescue furkids but she did, occasionally, allow Connor Cooper, Sara Juliet and Mister-Mister to cuddle, sort of.
We adopted Sophie, and her sister Jinxie, way back in 2004, some six weeks after our wedding. I met them both via animal rescue, which had plucked them from a Rock Hall, Md. farm, at the Saturday morning Farmers' Market in Chestertown (Jinxie passed away at age six from a tragic stroke and we're not sure that Sophie's heart ever fully recovered). At that time, Teijo was in the middle of the Atlantic on Queen Mary 2, and the adoption was sort of spontaneous (Teijo forgave me as quickly as he fell in love with them both). We always celebrated their birthdays, then just Sophie's birthday, on our wedding day because we liked to think they were born at just about that time as we embarked on our own family journey.
It has been tough to see her decline so fast (and yet so torturously slowly). It is perhaps fitting that Sophie went to sleep at the Rock Hall Vet, coming back home in the weirdest way. Bye-bye, darling Sophie-Mophie-Monster-Baby-Girl. We like to imagine that she's back in her diva wildness, alternately terrorizing and loving her family of felines, canine, and humans. Be well, darling.