Sweetie Pie

RIP Sweetie Pie. Sweetie Pie was my parent's 18.5 year old cat who they brought back from Uzbekistan. Sweetie Pie was the result of a stray cat breaking into my parent's bedroom in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and having a litter of kittens on their bed. I watched her grow through kittenhood via letters (this was before the internet and email ... we actually wrote letters back then). My parents had all the kittens spayed with the one vet in Tashkent (he was actually the zoo vet ... but that's all there was) and had me bring all the vaccines the kittens needed when I came to visit because that wasn't available either. Initially, my parents had found another home which they had done with all the other kittens except the one they were going to keep (Sally Forth). My mother didn't give her a name wanting to leave that for the future family and so started calling her "Sweetie Pie". However, when it came time to give her to the family, my folks just could not let her go ... and both Sally Forth and Sweetie Pie came back to the States with them when their tour was over.

Sweetie Pie became my mother's cat. Sally chose my dad. Sweetie was always a very gentle, shy, scardy cat opting to spend most of her time in my parent's bedroom. As she grew older, she developed kidney disease and my parents nursed her for over a year. Yesterday, we finally had to say goodbye and let her pass on to the Rainbow Bridge where she is surly frolicking with her sister, Sally who has been waiting for her for the past couple of years.

I decided to try do make a painting of her for my parents. This was the result.

 RIP Sweetie Pie. You will be missed.