by Victoria Montgomery

Created on: January 28, 2009

I cried for weeks. It seems kind of silly now. I mean, who cries over a cat dying. Well, that was me when my kitty Sugar kicked the bucket. I figured I would cry, at least a little bit. After all, she'd been with us for 12 years. And she was such a sweet cat, which was why we named her Sugar in the first place. But to cry for weeks? It just seems weird.

Now that I think about it, it wasn't so weird. She was our baby, our newlywed cat. We got her the same year we were married. I have so many happy memories of her.

When we first got her, she was sick. It was the usual things you find in kittens who get turned into shelters. All she wanted to do was cuddle with us. We unfortunately had to leave her closed up in a small room till she got better, but we visited her often. Her need to cuddle and be close to us only endeared her to us further. And when she finally was able to escape her little prison, we learned to adore her even more.

Sugar became out lap kitty. She just loved to sit in our laps and be petted, incessantly. She would purr and snuggle and would have stayed in our lap for hours if we'd have let her. Not that she didn't run around and play, she just preferred a lap. My favorite part of her lap-love was when she'd decide that my shoulder was better than a lap. She would let me carry her around on my shoulder, wherever I had to go in the house, and was content.

Eventually she earned a few nicknames such as Sweet Pea, Goo kitty, and Pill kitty. She became a rather large cat, a little overweight, although not too bad but quite heavy if we held her for any length of time, which of course we did. She was a wonderful lap warmer and we quite enjoyed our Goo kitty in the winter. She was always our Sweet Pea except for when we were in the middle of trying to do something and she wanted attention. Then she graduated to Pill kitty because she was so insistent that we stop whatever we were doing and hold her. Okay, so we usually did just that. Nope, we didn't spoil her a bit.

We couldn't help spoiling her as she was just the sweetest cat alive. She'd meet us at the door when we came home and reach up with her paws to be picked up, and meow in her Scottish brogue way. Our Sugar was just so hard to resist and who would have wanted to anyway? Certaintly not us.

Then came our second cat, Bobby.We really were quite happy with our Sugar kitty and weren't in the market for another cat. But Sugar had other ideas. We'd had her about a year and then the hollering started. Now, normally we would have thought she was in heat but since we'd already fixed that issue, we knew that wasn't the problem. After a few days and nights of constant yowling, we'd had enough. Off we went to the shelter again and collected a little friend for her. She became our Bobby cat and it wasn't very long before they were best buddies and Sugar was much quieter.

We enjoyed a long and wonderful run with Sugar and her pal Bobby, but unfortunately our sweet Sugar passed away. We mourned her a long time and still do. I still cry when I think about her even though it's been almost two years. Our Bobby cat still seems to mourn her as well although we've gained other kitty friends over the years. Sugar will always hold a special place in our hearts, though we love our other babies. She just seemed to have an extra-special something about her that we all miss so much. So I'll continue to be weird and cry when I remember her. I think I'm okay with that.

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