{"id":176,"date":"2009-04-13T13:13:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T17:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2009-04-26T16:42:46","modified_gmt":"2009-04-26T20:42:46","slug":"goodbye-to-zelda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/goodbye-to-zelda\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye to Zelda"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zelda
Zelda the cat in the grass<\/figcaption><\/figure>I have never really been a cat person. In fact when I was younger I was allergic to cat and would break out in red whelps whenever I was exposed to cat hair.<\/p>\n

I am much more of a dog guy. I love my big lovable mutt Smash.<\/a> We love to romp in the woods together and enjoy the outdoors.<\/p>\n

This cat however, won me over with her unconditional love. She would always rub against me every time I was in range. She would walk a figure eight between my legs. I was always tripping over her in the mornings as she refused to get out from under my feet.<\/p>\n

At night her favorite place to sleep was on top of me. If I lay on my side she would be on my hip. If I had an itch under the covers, she would pounce on my hand. She had a very loud and soothing purr that would always boost my mood as she lay beside or on top of me in the bed.<\/p>\n

She was a little gray cat that my son rescued from the animal shelter. She had been with us less than a year. I did not realize how much I had grown attached to her until this weekend when my son found her dead in the yard. Apparently she had been killed by a dog bite.<\/p>\n

I try to think of the happy times when I would pick her up and cuddle her and tell her that she does not even notice that I don\u2019t like cats. She never did notice. She just cuddled and purred to me.<\/p>\n

I had never known a cat to purr so loudly or so often. Her purr would vibrate the whole bed when she lay beside me. She was such a sweet and loving animal. <\/p>\n

I am trying to make sense of her death by looking at things metaphysically. I do remember one day recently thinking that if she never purred like that to me again I would feel really sad. That was an accurate prediction. I am very sad that I will never feel her purr for me again.<\/p>\n

I know that her death means there is some part of me that has died or that I think needs to die. I am looking for that part.<\/p>\n

For now I am going to try to think about what she taught me about love. She loved me and showed me affection even thought I did not like cats. She won me over with her love and purring. I never even minded that she would nip at my legs in the morning after I got out of the shower. She was a very loving little spirit. I guess her job here was done. But I miss her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have never really been a cat person. In fact when I was younger I was allergic to cat and would break out in red whelps whenever I was exposed to cat hair. I am much more of a dog guy. I love my big lovable mutt Smash. We love to romp in the woods … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Goodbye to Zelda”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71,26],"tags":[73,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}