Goodbye, Sweet Chelsea

Chelsea, one of our Katrina cats, died today. It's been a rough year for the pets of this family. We lost Gon-Gon's Molly, then our big boy scout, Choclit, and now Chelsea. She joined our family after the hurricane; when we bought the house on Belmont, the owner couldn't take her, so we let her stay with the house. Poor sweet thing, she never really recovered from the loss of her first mom and then the excitement of our family. When we moved in, we brought our other Katrina cat, Shadow, who was just a kitten. He batted Chelsea and chased her and made her play. She often seemed annoyed with him, but I think he kept her young. When we moved to this house on Green Street, Chelsea retreated upstairs and only came down for occasional visits, food and water. Once Maddie was born, I think she had enough. After sixteen years, I think she was done with us - and did not want to move yet again. We will take her back home and give her a funeral at Belmont tomorrow. We'll miss her - Maddie saw her rarely, and her reaction was usually shrieks of exitement, which Chelsea did not love. I know Shadow will miss his pal and playmate, and Kevin will miss her almost-human crying.

Yesterday, Chelsea hung out with us in the kitchen and let Maddie pet her. (That is Shadow in the background.) I think it was her way of saying goodbye. Goodbye to you, sweet Chelsea.