Patriot Realm

It is three years ago today that I lost my beloved friend and companion Bridget. 

She was a cat most triumphant. Her life was supposed to end thirteen years ago, but through some miracle or the miracle of love, she shared my life for nearly a decade.

As the years pass, I still miss her. Her needs and wants, her rules and idiosyncrasies. How I would go to see  Redhead and say, as I left the house " Don't worry, I'll be back soon. " 

How I would bring my groceries in and she would explore every bag to see what treats I had brought her? 

So to all of you animal lovers out there, I am sure you know how I feel today. But let us always cherish the memories of those beautiful souls who enriched and elevated our lives so very much. 

Bridget gave me so much and I wonder what my life would have been without her constant demands upon me, my time and my purse?

I love and loved her. As do we all, our treasured and irreplaceable friends.   

When she first came to me, all those years ago, she was a frail little thing, a calico cat of great determination and true grit. She was about 3 or 4 years old and had been found with a broken pelvis, broken legs and a severely broken heart. A group of young thugs had put her in a sack and used her as a football, kicking her and eventually throwing her in front of a car. The driver took her to a vet and he ( the vet ) decided to use some experimental new drug and treatments on her. After all, she was going to die, so who better to test his new treatment on than a cat with no home, no chip and no hope?

She survived. He said to the local SPCA that she was brain damaged, would never walk again and needed somewhere to go to be loved, held and cherished for what little life she would have.

I stepped up to the mark and took her home to die.

As you know, I have never been good with death.  I do not know why. I just have a terrible fear and physical reaction to the finality of life departing. But when I saw her little face, her vacant eyes, her tortured body, I just KNEW I had to take her HOME and give her some peace in her final days. Perhaps I felt that I could be Nurse Nice Day and make her better with my soft words and kind love.

She could barely walk. She certainly could not jump and she cowered in fear and was timid and frightened. 

Over the coming days, weeks and months, I gently introduced myself to her and massaged her little body, her limbs and coaxed her to trust me. 

She started to put on weight and, miracle of miracles, one day, she jumped onto the sofa beside me and let me pat her while she tentatively purred and accepted my love.

She was never an outside cat - her timidity and still fragile health was not conducive to life in a world of sudden noises or a swooping crow or a naughty bush turkey.

Cats get a bad rap . But so often it is their  " Owner " who deserves the rap. A cat well fed, well loved and well brought up is not a hunter. Cats are too bloody lazy to hunt unless they have to. But that is just my opinion. 

not Bridget. Just a fat contented cat

Anyway, back to my girl.

She always hid when she heard fireworks or sirens and was quick to run away when a tradie came into her home. 

Over the years, she attacked me, leapt on me, kissed me, bit me and licked me. She broke my sleep with endless purring in my ears and caused my heart to soar with delight as she became part of my reason for living.

I live opposite a school and it was her habit to sit on the window sill and gaze out at the children as they laughed and greeted each other at the start of the day. At 2.30 pm she went back to the window and watched the show in reverse as the kids came out to greet their parents and share the joy of their day with friends and chums.

Bridget was my best friend.

We shared secrets and quiet moments together. She seemed to like all the same people I like. 

Bridget loved President Trump. We shared every single rally together leading up to the election in 2020.  It was almost as if she knew Trump loved cats. 

But sadly she started to fail. It is almost like the light had gone out and she simply lay quietly, did not eat and, for the first time ever, that  morning she did not come to the door to greet me when I came home from shopping with Redhead.

I knew it is inevitable. I knew that her time had come. As Redhead pointed out, she was about 14 years old and that was not a bad innings for a girl who had such a big trauma in her early years. 

We call our cats, dogs or birds our " pets" but they are not. They are our valued and trusted companions and soul mates who have shared of themselves so that we can be honoured with sharing our lives with them.  We exist to serve them and serve them with pleasure and gratitude for all they give us in return.

Quid pro quo.

What we give to them is minuscule in comparison with what they give back to us.

She survived because I needed her and she needed me. 

We lived sympatico for a decade and that clever, gorgeous calico lady is and will forever be one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

And it all came out of tragedy.

When she left me, I missed our quiet moments at night, long after I have stopped writing articles for patriotrealm or bitching and moaning with Redhead about the state of the world; it was Bridget who sat beside me, kissed my ears, purred and listened to me talking about Mr Beaconsfield, my Trump crush or the fact that the world has gone to shit.

Who else would do that? 

When I took Bridget down to Redhead's home, we wanted her to have her moment in the sun and feel the grass on her toes and breathe in the fresh air and feel the breeze on her little face. 

She could barely walk, was so thin and so frail, but she was sitting quietly in the garden and having a nice day at Granma's place.

I knew that it would only be a matter of hours but at least I knew that she has loved and been loved.  

She was sitting under the lemon tree, a place well regarded in our family as a place of quiet retreat. We did not place her there. She went there and lay down. She chose her place to leave us.  Cats always have to have the last word.

When I walked through my front door and she was not there to greet me, as she has for so many years, I felt such emptiness and grief that is hard to explain. My home has become simply somewhere I live.

Her toys, her bowls, her multiple beds, her brushes, her BEING is and still is missing. 

I have always liked quiet, but not that deafening silence. 

Devoid of her presence; that reassuring knowledge that she would pop up and ask for her lunch or a pat or an audience to watch her as she groomed her once beautiful tummy.

.

People who say they hate cats have no idea what it is to love and be loved by a cat. 

It is an honour.    

She was just old and her time had come. She was just ready to go to the Rainbow Bridge and she would wander over and do it in HER time. 

She was sleepy, tired, worn out and she was ready to go out with dignity, not a jab.

I much preferred waiting for a call from Redhead to tell me that Bridget passed under a lemon tree with grass under her toes rather than a cold bench in veterinary surgery with fear in her eyes. No, my darling girl passed in the open air, in the sunshine and under a lemon tree.

Bridget died at 1.30 pm Brisbane time 1st of October 2021. Under the lemon tree. Her Granma, Redhead, buried her in the garden beside a Bird of Paradise bush.