Epilogue: Part Deux: Fred

Celebrating Fred's 5th birthday with a cat food cake at home. We also had a sleepover with my friends to celebrate. I was 14.

On January 7, 1992, my Tia Sharon's cat, Dolly, had kittens. Among these kittens were two that would come to live with me. Fredrick Kelly and Jessica DeSoto. Fred and Dee took the place of Kelly when she ran away and our other cat, Snoopy, who died of leukemia. They moved back to Olney with us in September of 1992.

Dee was ran over in the summer of 1993 on the highway by our house. Fred, despite a broken leg, free reign of the neighborhood, and eventually daily insulin shots, managed to survive and thrive for years. Fred passed away on January 4, 2006.

While Kelly was my first cat, Fred was my companion. There was never a cat as loved, or as photographed, as Fred.

The page above is from one of my high school scrapbooks.

All of my friends knew Fred and I was slightly obsessive about him. :) Grandpa even brought him to the middle school one day for a show-n-tell that we had in Art Class (I have no idea what the purpose of that was...??).

When we moved back in with my Grandpa in the fall of 1994, Grandpa said we could only keep one cat. At the time, I had three, so this was a huge decision. We gave away Mandy and Brian and it still makes me sad. Grandpa always pretended to hate Fred, but deep down, he loved him. Grandpa was always looking for him, chasing him off his bed, and pretending to kick him to get me riled up.

After Fred died, Grandpa continued to talk about him. And when I eventually convinced Mom to adopt her current cat, Princess (who was not named by me -- I wanted to name her Hazel), Grandpa called Princess, Fred. I don't know how many times I said, "Grandpa, Fred is dead. Her name is Princess."

Mom still jokes that Fred receives mail. I signed him up for all kinds of mailings when I went through a streak of loving junk mail in middle school. (Aunt Sally even gave me a box of junk mail for Christmas that she collected from the trash cans at the post office. That's probably illegal...)

My hope is that I'll be back tomorrow with a full update on our move, my pregnancy, and Bo for all of you. :)