A Lesson Learned The Hard Way
Once again my veterinarian was forced to take leave of me one of my feline companions. Mochachip, who at 15 years, was the oldest of our cats, and was suffering a slow and very painful death. We really didn't have a clue as to just how bad it was at the time.
Mochachip was a Bombay mix that John had picked up at a mall pet store (this was before we had been enlightened about the pet overpopulation problem in animal shelters worldwide), the first Mother's Day we were married. We saw her the day before, as she frolicked in the front window with another kitten. Her feet were big - tri-clawed on both back paws, double in the front. "Wow," I had exclaimed to John. "That cat is gonna be huge! Just look at the size of those paws!" By the next day, the kitten was in our living room being introduced to Koki and Chiquita and settling in quite comfortably. We decided upon the name "Mochachip" because she was not really black, but not really dark brown either. Sort of a dark chocolate brown, we agreed.
Mochachip's favorite spot was to rest on John's chest and literally "butt" her head up against his chin. Maybe it was his beard, maybe it was just that she liked to be kissed on the top of her head. This was a part of her personality that she often displayed later on to whomever happened to be holding her at the moment.
We often laughed because as she grew older, she did not grow much bigger. She was "all paws," weighing only 7 pounds at the most. I used to call her my "walking fur coat" because her fur was so incredibly soft, shiny and thick, features well-known to Bombay owners.
Eventually with the loss of Koki and the transfer of ownership of Chiquita to my parents, Mochachip became the matriach of the feline family. She accepted all new members following her without being too grumpy about it and they in turn, went about their business without causing trouble. The older she got, the more calm she became so that by the time the kids came around, she was quite at home sleeping with them on their beds or in their laps. She especially enjoyed sleeping on Devon's thick comforter, although she wasn't adverse to sleeping on ours either.
She would appear at suppertime almost like magic. She took her rightful place beside John's chair without so much as a sound. It seemed that one minute she wasn't there and the next minute she was. John, of course, always felt compelled to drop her a snack or two from the table and she would wait patiently for him to do so. When she had had enough, she simply walked off to groom herself, without John or I realizing it until we tried to drop another snack her way.
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