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In reply to the discussion: What is your favorite memory of a pet long gone? [View all]Tommy_Carcetti
(43,085 posts)My grandmother had a gray striped tabby. When she fell and broke her hip, she came to live with us and took her cat with her. Up to that point, the cat was rather stand offish and didn't like being pet or held that much. But I remember one night clearly. It was the night of Game 6 of the 1993 World Series and I was staying up late watching the game. All of a sudden, my grandmother's cat came up to me, sat down on my lap, and started purring. I was totally taken aback by all of that because she had never been that affectionate before. But the two of us sat and watched the ballgame....well, actually, I watched the game and she slept on my lap. If you know about Game 6 of the 1993 World Series, you know it ended with a walk off home run by Joe Carter, which was only the second time a World Series had ever ended on a walk-off homerun. As Carter rounded the bases, I looked down at the cat and thought, "You know, baseball history is being made at this very moment and you couldn't care less." From that day on, she was a lot more affectionate towards me and would frequently sit on my lap.
I also had a black and white tuxedo cat. She was born feral, but after she had kittens in our garage, she became a lot more domesticated. But of everyone in my family, she seemed to enjoy me the best. I'd be walking outside, and she would just come running up to me just like you'd expect a dog would. One time I was sitting on the bed, watching TV and eating a bag of potato chips. She jumped up on the bed and ate a stray chip. Noticing it, I began to feed her more of the chips. I never knew a cat would enjoy potato chips of all things. But we just sat there and bonded, eating potato chips like two couch potatoes.
The last one is rather bittersweet. I had a golden retriever who was just the sweetest dog ever. She'd sleep at the foot of my bed and always keep me company. I would be the one to take her for walks, and since we lived only about a half mile from the Chesapeake Bay, I'd take her down to the bay, where I'd throw sticks of driftwood out into the water, and her being the retriever that she was, would run out full force into the bay and bring them back to shore. Dozens of time I would do that and every time she'd enjoy it just as much as the last. Of course, time being what it was, I got older and so did she. Sadly, her hips began giving her problem and her mobility just wasn't what it used to be, and I couldn't take her on the half-mile walks out to the bay any longer. Just after I got my driver's license, and knowing how much she enjoyed going to the beach, I loaded her up into my car and drove her to the beach. There, we had one last opportunity for me to play fetch on the beach. While she couldn't run like she used to, I knew she had to appreciate it. Sadly, she passed just a few weeks later, but I'll never forget our last beach trip.