Say Goodnight, Gracie

Gracie started her life in Utah. She showed up on my neighbor Gwen's porch in a snow storm, peering in the window, looking pathetic and starving. Gwen finally gave in and began feeding her. Eventually Gwen and her family moved next door to me and brought Gracie along, being the compassionate and responsible people that they are. Gracie took up residence in their barn, preferring as always to keep to herself rather than becoming a house cat. One day she came over here and discovered that I had cat food available to my cats in the laundry room. Since Gwen had gotten another cat, Gracie decided she would rather take her chances living here amongst my Pit Bulls and Rottweiler rather than get beat up by the new cat, a vicious black cat named Choo Choo Man. Can't help but be vicious with a name like that now can you? Gracie discovered that she could live in relative safety in the crawl space under my house. At this point, she had never been named, but was called the barn cat when she lived at Gwen's, and now became the basement cat. I considered calling her BC but that didn't seem any better than basement cat. Finally, after she had already been here for 6 or 7 years, I decided to call her Gracie. She mostly stayed hidden, but came out every day for me when I would feed her. She loved for me to pet her and brush her and hold her but even though I tried to get her to come into the house, she never let me carry her indoors. No one else ever saw her, she preferred to stay hidden away. Occasionally she would come out and sun herself just outside her escape hole. That is where she was when I took this photo. She never stopped purring when she was with me. I felt she was showing her appreciation that I allowed her to live her life as she wanted, in her solitary space. Gracie shared her life with me for 11 or more years, living there in the crawlspace. She stopped purring last night. I buried her right where she is in the photo. She was a sweetie.

Say Goodnight, Gracie.