This is a memorial for my beloved Bengal girl "coot", Tweety.  When I first picked her out, she was in contrast to her brothers and sisters (who were rolling and romping in a most undignified fashion) sitting on a coffee table and closely analyzing the ceiling fan.  I knew right away she was the feline companion for me.  Tweety was a gorgeous seal lynx point Bengal with the classic spotted pattern.



She was a loving, wonderful and idiosyncratic cat at home, but she was sure hell on vets.  The best one I ever saw was in Indiana, before I moved to Virginia.  I happened to see the medical record for Tweety lying there after I was paying for the visit, and she had a “will bite” sticker appended to her record.  She was a loving animal at home, but she never forgave the vets.  One time I had retrieved the cat carrier from the garage (a sure sign that *somebody* was going to the vet), she saw it, and bolted.  She dove into a pile of laundry on the floor with her tail sticking out, thinking she was safe.  When I walked into the room, she must have realized her tail was sticking out (oops!), and quickly pulled it in to apparent safety within the pile of laundry.  She was unconditionally there for me for all nine years, no matter how awful she (or I) felt.



She was the best retriever I ever saw, bar none (dog or cat) – she lived for that until her health began to decline.  Her specialty trick was retrieving a tin foil ball.  I worked remotely from home for a few years, and she was never more than a couple of feet away, foil ball an inch from her nose, inseparable, patiently awaiting the moment when I could throw the ball for her.  This would go on literally all day, and she would retrieve it even if I continually threw it.  We have a old milk can (the big ones the farmers used to use) that we keep in the living room.  We’d throw the foil ball into the can, and she’d immediately dive into it head first into the can after the ball.  Her striped tail would be the last thing to disappear into the can, and a moment later, her face (enormous blue eyes, huge whiskers and all) would appear, foil ball safely and proudly retrieved.  She was also happiest when squeezed in between my back and the back of whatever chair I happened to be occupying at the time.  In the morning, the first thing she would do is hop up on the bed, about a foot from my face, stare at me with those huge exotic eyes, purr, and knead the covers.  When I had a bird feeder outside our window, she would eagerly watch the birds, and make a most unusual chirping noise (thus her name).



I took Tweety in to the vet on Wednesday, September 19, 2007.  She weighed around 5-6 pounds (down from an already thin 9-10), and was a walking skeleton.  Her coat was ungroomed, and she was so sick with small cell sarcoma/malabsorption that she that she could hardly sit for a couple of minutes without crying and moaning while trying to move her bowels.  We had exhausted everything we could think of - nearly every specialized food on the market, a warehouse of different drugs, etc.  But in the end, none of it worked, and I had to make the unbelievably agonizing decision to end her suffering and continued deterioration.



I just got done burying Tweety in the back of my house on the side of Tobacco Row Mountain in Amherst County, Virginia, in a beautiful spot on a hillside under a huge chestnut oak (where she can chirp at the birds and squirrels).  Before laying her to rest forever I put her beloved foil ball between her paws.  My deepest wish is that wherever she is that she has somebody to throw it for her, until I can get there and we can resume the game.....