Poor Old Clothilde

A sad note from my mother tonight:

"I came home from the Playhouse last evening to find Clothilde on the floor, very still. She wasn't dead but not able to meow, although she tried. At the moment, I am holding her and talking to her about chasing string. She doesn't seem to be in any pain so I'm hoping she'll die in comfort. When she dies, Henry will bury her in his 'back forty'."

Tod & I brought Clothilde home from the farm in 1993. Clot was tiny but she was fearsome. She got her name when she bit me through the cat carrier on the drive from Claysville to Pittsburgh. Fortunately, her temper only surfaced in transit.

She loved playing with string, getting crazy on catnip. Every morning she would sleep curled up on my chest until it was time to wake me up by headbutting me in the face. I can still feel the hair from her tufty ears poking up my nose.

She and our other cat, Eliot, were fast friends; she was the only other cat Eliot ever liked. They raced each other around the house and delighted in sleeping curled up together on sunny spots.

Clot-head was sweet, but not a beautiful cat. Her long grey fur was constantly in a state of felted lumps that peeled off seasonally leaving her with weird blank patches. Her stunted back legs prevented her from leaping gracefully and she was never fond of being held but somehow my mother, who took her and Eliot in when we left the US, was able to hold Clothilde and brush her at the same time. Mom's got a way with the cats.

For the last year Clot has been blind and living in my mother's kitchen - contentedly sleeping in a cat carrier and meowing for treats every afternoon. She's had a good long life, most of it spent far away from me, but I will miss her.