Remembering Kitty Chloe

She weighed one pound when we brought her home, exactly enough to be adopted. She had a large head, large meow, and an even bigger personality for such a tiny girl. She was my first best friend in a new neighborhood, my first baby. She liked to be bundled ('swaddled,' as I now recognize it), and my Great Uncle was fooled by one such bundling into thinking that I was holding my child (twelve years old here, mind you!). She climbed up curtains, and once found herself perched on the shoulder of my Great Grandma during Thanksgiving prayer - Grandma didn't even miss a word in the blessing! She stole bits of homemade chicken salad, or whatever she could get. She liked to crunch chip bags, play with scraps of fabric, and get grey fur on your clothes. We snuggled. She greeted me after school and upon waking (usually her choice of time). Her favorite methods of playing alarm clock: messing with the blinds, knocking things off of dressers, and sitting next to my head while breathing on my face. She held grudges. When I went to college, I missed her as much as I missed my family and my home. If I came home for just a few hours, it wasn't enough time for her to get over being mad at me to come out and say hello. After I got married, I lived in a place where she could live, too, and my mom gracefully relinquished custody. Sometimes at the new house I would hear her meowing, and find her just listening to her own voice in the bathroom. She spent the later years of her life doing laps around the house and bellowing for food. She always purred, and accepted new members of the family, whether canine, feline, or human, with tolerant amusement.

Today I remember kitty Chloe, my Russian Blue Creme beauty. I know animals don't have souls, and really we won't even need our pets in heaven, but it's nice to think that there's a pet heaven, or that maybe Jesus will let Chloe into my mansion for me.