My Precious Ophelia...6/1999 - 11/01/11

I’m going to try to keep this shorter than War and Peace. For those who know me, you know that’s going to be difficult. There’s just so much I want to say!

Ophelia came into our lives through fate in October, 1999. We had talked about wanting a pet the night before but we couldn’t agree on what. Ironically Earl was the one who wanted a cat. The next night when I was getting ready for bed I heard the distinctive sound of a kitten in distress. I made Earl go outside & look all around but he couldn’t hear her outside. We finally figured out that the kitten was trapped in between the walls, between our apartment and the next one. In our minds there was only one choice – deposit be darned, we busted a hole in the wall. ~ 8 (very sleepless) hours later the smell of tuna – the closest thing we had to cat food – lured the baby kitty through the hole. She saw me and FREAKED. I saw her and an “Awwwww” involuntarily came from me and Earl said he knew right then that we had a cat. But anyone who wouldn’t have that reaction has a heart of stone, IMO!



She was ~6 weeks old, about the same size as a Beanie Baby, and had never seen a human in her life until she popped through the wall. Feral would be an understatement! Her momma-cat taught her well and she maintained many distinct feral characteristics throughout her life.

Except for one monumental mistake (I just HAD to hold her – she was SO CUTE!), I did the rest of her socialization pretty well by the book I didn’t know yet. She opened my eyes to feral cats, she and Trent brought me to TCS & got me involved here. I’ve been here for almost 10 years now.  And because of her I really got involved in feral cat education, including being one of the founders of the websites with Laurie (LDG) www.SaveSamoa.org and www.StrayPetAdvocacy.org.



She and Trent bonded almost immediately. They grew up together and had a very brother-sister relationship. From babies…



…to older kitties who snuggled all the time…





Ophelia was always the epitome of the Princess. So much so that we were not allowed to call her “Princess.” She didn’t like “Princess.” So she became “Precious” which pleased Her Highness, as seen here as The Princess & The Pea. (There are those who say that cats don’t understand words, but considering how similar Princess and Precious sound I have to disagree!



She was Daddy’s Girl through and through. He adored her too. It was completely mutual.



It took years for me to be able to pet her like he did. In actuality, my relationship with Ophelia only really blossomed in the past couple of years. I never was allowed to touch the tummy, no matter how tempting the pretty white fur was. Earl could occasionally. They had a very special relationship that I couldn’t get in on.



She was never a playful cat, though, and Trent drove her to distraction trying to play with her, which is why we expanded our feline family once I bought the house. This was about as playful as she usually got.

My Precious Ophelia...6/1999 - 11/01/11

Of the little girls, well, Ginger she could tolerate; Mojo, she wasn’t happy about especially since Mojo is such an alpha. Annie, though…Annie was the last straw. Annie is Daddy’s girl too. Ophelia moved up to “her apartment” after Annie came home to stay. Her apartment was the top of our large bookcase headboard. She had her food, water, litter and plenty of beds up there. She was happy up there as long as Daddy snuggled with her when she wanted to (insisted on) come down to the bed. It was up there that I was able to really foster our relationship, so for that I was thankful.







Every time I went into the bedroom I would give her an exuberant “Hello Beautiful!” I always thought she was the prettiest cat. Even though people responded more to Trent or Ginger when I showed off their pictures, here and in person, to me she was my model-cat. Such a gorgeous face, statuesque, pretty little “fairy ears”…the cat that the figurines and statues could be molded from.

She lost weight suddenly a few months ago. We were sure it was behavioral because Mojo trapped her under the bed. But once I figured out what The Precious wanted to eat (it wasn’t the same thing as the peasants below ate!), she started gaining weight again. Earl said a couple times that he thought she was breathing hard. I thought that it was just because she had lost weight that he/we could see her sides move more. (I was an idiot…)

Monday night when I went to change out her water she came up to the edge open-mouth breathing. She wanted to make sure I saw. I climbed up on top of the mattress and tried to calm her down after yelling for Earl to find an ER vet. It was probably 11:30. She had been fine an hour or so earlier when Earl went in there. The more I tried to calm her the more I realized how bad off she was. She was horribly uncomfortable (in pain); she was off balance; she was gasping for air. When we finally found a semi-comfortable position for her, we stared deeply into each other’s eyes. I knew before we put her in the carrier that she wasn’t coming home. She had asked me to make the hurting stop.

It’s amazing how there is no concept of time when you’re waiting like we were. Ophelia was much more comfortable in the oxygen tent, and after seeing the xrays it was clear why. Her chest was full of fluid. So full that both of her lungs were pushed into one side. They tapped her chest/lungs & pulled 100 cc of “yellowish fluid” from the right side, 70 cc from the left. That’s a LOT from such a tiny girl! The vet said that the “yellow fluid” is never good, and that it most likely pointed to cancer. Of course she couldn’t say definitively because she hadn’t run the tests, but it was pretty clear in talking to her over the course of the evening that she was almost certain it was advanced cancer. (Which I pretty much knew when she told us about the yellow fluid. My mother died from the same thing, when the breast cancer overtook everything…or the chemo did (not sure which). Regardless, I’ve seen the yellowish fluid when I was there when they tapped her lungs. That’s what killed Mom. She essentially drown in it from the inside.) There was a complication when the needle-hole in Ophelia’s lung didn’t close up correctly & she had air in her chest cavity. Which told me (after the fact, when I stopped to think) that her poor little lung was so weak that it couldn’t do it.

The vet brought Ophelia to us so we could see her (after the tap). She had bright eyes and was SO happy to see us, especially Daddy! But within a couple minutes she climbed into his arms and laid her head down. Within 10-15 minutes she was open-mouth breathing again and they had to take her back to the oxygen tent. There wasn’t much of a choice. Earl cuddled her on the fluffy blanket they brought her back with while I stroked her head and talked softly to her. I know she fought it on her own for as long as she could. I wish she would have – could have – told us so we could help her before it was too late. It was 4:50 a.m. Ophelia was 12 years old.

Earl said that when she passed he felt her sitting on his shoulder, and just before he finally fell asleep that morning he saw her running. Hopefully running to a wonderful sunbeam...

Ophelia, my precious baby kitty, I hope that you know how much you are loved. I wish you could know how much you touched and changed my life by coming through that hole in the wall. I wish you could know how many people and cats you have affected. I hope you were as happy as you made me and Daddy. I love you forever and always, Beautiful.

Thank you all so much for sharing Ophelia's life with me on the site, with this short(ish) tribute to her life (well, it is short for 12 years!), and sharing a bit of our grief with us.

Pam, you asked about how Trent is doing... He has been a bright spot to me. When I told him about Ophelia I was crying, of course. He looked up at her apartment then put his head down. But when he lifted his head up again he had his little tongue sticking out. :tongue: I cannot help but laugh when he does that - it is the cutest thing! ...And he knows I love it. The message from him was very clear. He understood but he didn't want me to cry anymore. Is it any wonder we love these cats this much that it also hurts this much when they move on without us. On the other hand...he has also been throwing up a lot since she passed, so we need to deal with that.

The little girls had a very interesting reaction as well. I told them when all three of them were in the bedroom. All three of them lowered their heads, like people do when praying or having a moment of silence. Now that it's been a couple days, the calicos are pretty much back to normal but Mojo does appear to be mourning. I will say the dynamic of the household has really changed.

And Ophelia has made an appearance too. Earl lost a set of earphones during our trip to Illinois the 1st week of October. He tore apart every bag we brought with us, looked in the car, everywhere. Nothing. Last night when I went in to the bedroom to lay down there they were on the middle of the bed, all wrapped up like he had put them there. I didn't think much of it until he came in and said, "You found them???" So neither of us had actually "found" these earbuds that he had lost sometime around the 13th of October, but there they were! I told him, "Looks like Ophelia found them for you. Be sure to say thank you."