Saturday, December 17, 2011

Memories of Bella


Bella was such a good friend to me. I got her in the winter of 2004, after I graduated from college and I was interviewing for jobs. Jeff was still working at Coke in Rapid City and was super busy. I was so lonely, and I really wanted something to love.

A few months later, we packed up and moved to Minnesota. She sat with me in her kennel for the whole road trip, and meowed until Pierre, I think. Those first few nights it was just us, an air mattress, our fish, and Bella. We had nothing else in our tiny apartment (our stuff had not arrived yet) and woke in the middle of the night to what we thought was the fish tank water gushing out. No - it was just Bella, who had gotten curious about a Target sack and somehow got the handle of it stuck around her belly. She hated crinkly sacks after that.

We have moved three more times since then. In our 2nd apartment in Minnesota, she loved to go outside on the patio in the spring and summer, while we sat with her and enjoyed the fresh air. This was the beginning of taking her out on supervised outside time. She LOVED to chew on any kind of spiky grass.


Bella loved to play with a few particular toys - especially jingly (when he was in his glory) and the throw-the-mousie game and her boomerang, LOVED her kitty bed, curled around my head in the morning and slept on the corner of my side at night, aircraft-carrier launched onto the bed when she was hungry, and would beg and beg for canned tuna and chicken. Oh, and she would try to drink out of your water glass when you weren't looking. She sat on my lap pretty much every night...she particularly liked to sit on a brown pillow that's on my lap. (She is a princess and wanted to perch perfectly.) She would roll around and 'kitty-whore' when she was really happy (included above).

She was a really vocal kitty. She always seemed to know when jumping up with a "BRRRREOW" would cheer me up, make me laugh, or be totally unhelpful (it didn't matter, she would do it anyway). She liked to respond in little meows when I would talk to her - which I hate to admit, I did pretty often.

She was a great kitty. I am sad our move to Georgia seemed to mess with her spirit - she was just never the same after we got here. We saw glimpses of our old girl all the time, but she just wasn't the same kitty, and deserves better - to go to her nice, new home...with an older single lady and her other 2 kitties. I hope she is happy. I will always wonder. And to cope, I will continue to tell myself she is doing great and we made the right choice.

Goodbye Bella.