Dear Pickle

One of the hardest things about having pets and really loving them is the realization that they, just like people, can get sick and not stay around forever. And so it goes with Pickle. She has been my very first cat.

Sure, I've always had cats growing up, so it does seem odd for me to say that. There was Ming, Tyler, Chuck, Caesar, and then even Miss Kitty. But when I really stop and think about it, these animals ended up being more of my "sibling figures" than my pets. I was the older sister who mostly loved them but occasionally pestered the tar out of them when the mood struck her. (One day I'll have to ask Mom for the photo of one Siamese Tyler adorned with an embarrassing amount of hair scrunchies on his ears and paws. This would've been what I've always imagined to be an annoying older sister moment.)

One day I grew up, got married, and inherited a black cat named Cookie. I loved her (and love her still) but she was, again, not really mine. A few winters later, Jim brought home a little, orange, and wild ball of nerves in a cardboard box. She was scared, starving, and frostbitten at that time and still very much in survival mode. Back in college I'd decided that one day I'd have a son named Jack and a cat named Pickle... so you can imagine, her name was easily bestowed. Welcome home, little cat. And again, I'll stick to that earlier statement: Pickle has been my first cat-- mine, and mine alone.

She can't be more than eight years old, and although it's been a rather short "cat life," I'm glad she's spent her time with me. Thank you, Pickle J, for loving me the most and letting me love you too. In the coming days, when you see a little white dog named Millie, bite her on the bottom. It'll be a fun game, I bet.