Jay and I acquired Miss Thunderfoot about a year before his diagnosis, probably late 1997.
She had been found by a friend outside the grocery store, starving, and begging people going in and out of the store to take her home. He said she was trying so hard, and people were just kicking her aside, so he took her home. Unfortunately, it didn't work out with his other cats, so Jay and I adopted her.
She had blue eyes and long soft gray and white fur, and she fell instantly and madly in love with Jay. I was just the food-disher-outer and litterbox cleaner. If I tried to touch her, she would duck out from under my hand. I suspect that she had been badly mistreated by a former female owner, because I'd never seen a cat before who was so obviously afraid to get on furniture. Jay put her on the bed one time, and she totally freaked. She asked for food by scratching on cardboard, like "See? I'm good. Can I eat now, please?". (It took us a short while to figure out that the only thing she would scratch was cardboard.)
When Jay was home, she was never more than two feet from his ankles. It took him some time to convince her that it was ok to sit on his lap while he was at the computer, and once she got comfortable with that, she was always on his lap - but only when he was wearing jeans. If he had anything else on, she wouldn't stay no matter how many times he lifted her up.
The friend had been calling her "Lady", but to us, that's a collie. Jay wanted a regal feminine name, so he tried "Princess" and "Duchess", but they didn't feel right. I told him that if we just waited a week or two, she'd name herself. Her food dish was in the back bathroom to protect it from the dogs, and at mealtimes she'd race me from the kitchen through the livingroom and down the hall. The floors were covered with a dense pile carpeting over thick padding, but when she was running for dinner, she sounded like a bowling ball on hardwood. So that's how she became Miss Thunderfoot. The name fit also because her gray fur was like a thundercloud, and both dogs were afraid of Thunder (both kinds).
The last eight months of Jay's illness, when he was in the hospital bed in our bedroom, I tried several times to persuade her that it was ok to get on the bed with him (I'd chance claws on the air mattress). I thought it would be good for Jay to have her there, but she wouldn't stay. I even tried spreading out a pair of Jay's jeans for her. ("Look! Jay's jeans-lap!") It may have been her early training, or it may have been that the tubes in the air mattress were constantly changing pressure (to prevent bed sores). Instead, she virtually lived under his bed. She slept right under his head. I'd tell him she was there, and he'd say yes, he could hear her breathing.
After Jay was gone, it was a good three months before she would allow me to touch her, a year before she would allow me to pick her up and hold her briefly. I had a pile of Jay's old jeans in a corner, saved to be made into a quilt, and she slept every night curled next to the jeans. The funeral director had told me that the newspapers wouldn't list pets as survivors in an obituary, so I had sneaked her in as "his ward, Miss Kit Thunderfoot". Let the world wonder. After such devotion, it was only fitting.
After two years and ten and a half months, she now sleeps on the foot of my bed. She follows me around, and if she loses me, she'll "Murrow?" until I answer. She allows me to pet her (at first just the top of her head, but we have gradually worked around to everywhere but her belly), and when I crawl into bed, she'll come up and ask for a good forehead scratch before going to sleep. She has stopped struggling when I pick her up, and last week she actually settled into my arms, tucked her head under my chin, and purred!
She still won't sit on my lap, jeans or no.
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