The Story of Gracie

Since I profiled Gracie in Wordless Wednesday, I figured I should tell you her story. How she came to live in our house, if you will.

Before I tell Gracie's story, I must tell you Josh's story because they are related. Josh is now buried in our front yard, by the mailbox. Husband (then Fiance) found Josh one night by the mailbox. He was really skinny, so Fiance lured him into the house with my turkey sandwich meat and bacon fat. yes, Josh loved bacon fat. Fiance called me, so me about this 'cow cat' he found and asked if I wanted to keep it. I said yes and immediately drove an hour to come meet this unnamed cow cat.

There are so many great Joshy stories:

• There's the one where Josh loved to sit on the toilet or in the tub.
• the one where he managed to climb into the ceiling of the basement and was literally IN the house.
• the one where he decided one of my shirts was his and would carry it around in his mouth and run up and down the basement stairs with it
• or the ones where he's fetch his toy mouse and bring it back
• and I'll never forget how he'd sleep on the small of Husband's back every night and naps on weekend.

but to tell the story of Gracie, I have to tell you the saddest story of Josh, when we found out he had feline leukemia. We'd only had him about 3 months at the time, but he was definitely a member of the family. Our vet gave us a massive amount of medicine for our Joshy, but nothing worked and he just kept getting sicker. Next, he suggested blood transfusions.

yes, ok. we'll do that. out with the bad blood, in with the good. sure.

one problem. the vet's 'blood cat' had already given blood that day, so they couldn't take any more just yet. The vet called the Blount County Animal Shelter to see if they had a cat we could borrow for blood. Then (and this is a pretty bizarre part of the story) they sent Fiance and I on the thirty minute drive to pick up the borrowed cat. Anything for Josh. We get there and the man hands us a cat carrier and says, "her name is Princess and she's the healthiest cat we've got." great.

so we take Princess to the car and I play with her and tell her how much we appreciate her blood all the way back to the vet. The Vet encouraged us to adopt Princess, the blood cat, and we agreed. First she needed her feline leukemia vaccine, before we could bring her into our infected house. so she stayed at the vet for two weeks after that.

after two transfusions Josh still wasn't getting any better and the decision was made to just make him as happy and comfortable, keep giving him the medicine but to stop the transfusions.

The day Fiance went to pick up Princess, we learned that she had been adopted two other times but brought back and before Princess, her name was Cookie. After Princess Cookie came home with a pink collar on, we got to work on her new name and took the pink collar off. how unimaginative is it that we named our grey cat Gracie? lame.

it was Christmas time. Gracie was mean (she bit my nose the first day we had her). Josh was dying and Fiance was planning a secret wedding. (man, that's another post I need to make) We got married on December 29, 2006 and I didn't know about it until December 28 when we went to get the marriage license. We left on the 29th for our Alaskan honeymoon and Gracie stayed at the house with a clean litter box and lots of food and water. Josh was boarded at the vet so he could be monitored and fed properly while we were away.

We called the vet everyday to check on him. Josh died on New Year's Morning. Husband and I both cried when the Vet called to tell us.

We got home, picked him up at the vet and buried him with his favorite toys, including my shirt that he loved and the shirt that husband was wearing the night he found Josh.

It was quite the transition to get over Josh while helping Gracie adjust to her new home.

Gracie is still mean. After she'd been here a year, she seemed to realize that we weren't taking her back to the shelter and seemed to calm down quite a bit. She is definitely one of us. She loves to catch bugs. She sleeps in our bed every night. She tolerates all the love Daughter gives her quite well. She only drinks running water and refuses to drink out of a water bowl. She's the second best cat we've ever had. Her only toy is a ratty old busted stuffed animal called "Mr. Pumpkin." She loves when Daughter pushes her around in a laundry basket. And the only time I've ever heard her purr was the first day we had her right before she bit my nose. Daughter calls her, "EEEE EEEE"

Gracie, biting my finger after we'd had her about a month. She didn't like us yet.

after drinking out of the tub.

That cat. She's a monster and we all love her.