The situation is sad, I admit that, because we had to say goodbye to one of our kitties. Yet Stitches was a nut of a cat that has been the subject of poetry and art work and we can’t help but celebrate her crazy, mixed up world.

She was not extremely old, being only 13, but she had a stack of health issues that were, to put it simply, odd. This cat was on Prozac. No joke! She had so many anxieties she could barely live with herself, so it was a wonderful thing when the vet prescribed kitty Prozac for her. It fixed a lot of problems we had struggled with for years and, while still skittish, Stitches was a more mellow cat and seemed quite happy with her life.

Hyperthyroidism (and more kitty meds!) kept her at 5 lbs, yet with all the hair she looked like a 20 lb cat. It is my opinion that 1 lb was fur, and each foot, which sported 6 toes, was 1/2 a lb each. That left 2 lbs for her body.

Stitches was like a pile of leftovers God threw together. Nothing fit, with a character to match, yet she was amazingly photogenic.

Poems have been written about her as well as stories of her antics in a monthly newsletter. Stitches has also been featured in a book of children’s poetry which I illustrated.

The cat had an unbelievable sense of bad timing, which inspired a poem about a Christmas morning trek to the emergency vet clinic. It starts out as so…

Stitches my cat

Was found with a mat

In a place on her coat where the kitty cat sat.

And ends…

That’s the end of my tale,

It all ended well.

Do you want a nice kitty, I have one for sale.

So while we are saddened, we also can not help remembering and laughing over the crazy contributions she made to our lives these past 13 years. We will miss her and the stories she has inspired will be retold for years to come.