Remembering Lindy

Eighteen years ago Mario and I adopted our first cat, Lindy. She changed our lives for the better in so many ways, making our house a home, adding a lot of love, happiness and laughter, and turning us into cat lovers forever. Less than a week ago we lost her, and it broke our hearts. I know we are lucky to have had her be in our lives for so many years, and I am so incredibly sad she is no longer with us. We truly hit the jackpot with her: Lindy was affectionate, engaging, fun, (mostly) tolerant, and a little demanding.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw her, on the screened-in back porch of Mario’s grandmother’s house (my in-laws found her trying to cross a busy street in Leesburg and brought her there; luckily for us, no one ever claimed her). Lindy saw me looking out at her through the window, looked right at me and meowed. I went out to see her and she walked up to me immediately, rubbed against my legs and lay on her side so that I could scratch her stomach. I turned around to look at Mario and said, “Honey, can we have a cat?” And that’s all it took—we brought her home three days later. She explored the entire house, purring, showing not only her contentment but claiming it all as hers. Two days after that I was sick and stayed home from work, sleeping most of the day. She spent the entire day sleeping with me, and I was completely hooked on her.

Lindy was affectionate and friendly, coming to greet us when we got home, head butting and rubbing against us. She loved to be held, loved to be scratched (especially under her chin, on the back of her neck and on her stomach) and loved sitting on one of our laps or curling up in the crook of our knees while we slept. She knew we often watched TV after dinner and sat on the coffee table, impatiently waiting for us to come in so that she could curl up with someone on the couch. She liked hanging out with us when we had friends or family over, often wanting to sniff a visitor’s breath, her way of checking them out [which I guess is more polite than what many dogs sniff :)]. She always sat with us at Thanksgiving, usually at the head of the table (see the photograph of Lindy with Tommy below).

She loved the typical cat things, chasing a toy on a string or a ball, and also loved being pulled around on a towel or rug, swatting at things, or being carried around in a shopping bag or laundry basket. She was less than thrilled when we brought home Chaya, our black cat who we adopted a year after Lindy, or Alfie and Griffin, the twins we brought home two years ago. She mostly tolerated them, swatting at them when they aggravated her too much, or sometimes just for breathing. We always said it was because she thought them beneath her and she wanted to make sure they knew it. But in every other respect, she was so tolerant. She let Tommy carry her around in all kinds of crazy positions. During the past year, she got fluids on a weekly basis, which she hated, but as soon as it was over, she hopped up on the counter for food, forgetting all about it until the following week.

Even though she always was the littlest one in our house, never weighing more than 7 lbs., she was always in charge—we called her “Queen Lindy.” When she wanted attention, or food, she always let you know. If you were reading something, she sat on it—she always knew exactly which article in the paper you were reading as that clearly was the perfect spot on which to sit. And when it was time for dinner, she sat on the counter, staring at you if you were in view and coming to find you and yell at you if you were not. If no one was home at her normal dinner time, she would be waiting on the counter when you walked in the door, clearly irritated that you’d made her wait. She was always interested in whatever we were eating, usually wanting to try it. Her favorites were milk (especially if it had sugar in it leftover from cereal), Smart Balance, all types of seafood (she once ate an entire crab that Mario picked for her), cheese, meat, and for a while, black beans. Of all those, clams probably were her favorite. If she could have spoken, she would have said, “My name is Lindy and I’m a clamaholic.”

When she decided that she was hungry at 4 am, I always was the one she woke up. She had a range of techniques for this: sometimes she sat on my pillow or nightstand and stared at me. Poking me in the nose with a paw was an option, as was biting an elbow or cheek. If I ignored that, she went over to my dresser and batted at the dried flowers until I got up. As she got older, she added pulling my hair and licking my face to her repertoire. As much as I disliked getting woken up at all hours, I’d take it again in a heartbeat to have her back. I miss it all and I miss her desperately.

Ellen