{"id":999,"date":"2012-08-27T20:43:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T00:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/?p=999"},"modified":"2012-08-27T20:43:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T00:43:18","slug":"lizzie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/2012\/08\/27\/lizzie\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizzie"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“My wife wanted a cat and I didn’t, so we got a cat.” – Jason Windsor<\/p>\n

We thought it would be funny to name our cats after royalty, so naturally our first cat would be Queen Elizabeth. So wore the moniker well. She roamed around the house like she owned it. We took her maybe a little bit too soon from her mother and because of that, we were mom and dad. When I was a child, my parents had a cat and that one was standoffish, but not Lizzie. Lizzie was always in the same room as you, sometimes on top of you. When she wanted attention, she was going to get it one way or another. As a kitten, she was wild, running around our apartment jumping from couch to couch, feet never touching the floor. She calmed down a little bit in her mature age and started taking to the top of the couch, surveying her kingdom from up on high.<\/p>\n

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I was a little concerned when the girls were born how the cat would take having children in the house. How would she deal with getting less attention and then as the children grew, getting pulled, punched, and swatted by toddlers? It turns out she was a champ. That cat wanted to be right in the action, cuddling with mom when she cuddled with the girls. She occasionally nipped at the girls if they stuck a hand in the wrong place, but she was patient with them. Grace grew to pet the cat often while Erin was a little bit more indifferent, but every now and then she would sneak into the girls bedroom at night and take residence on or under one of their beds.<\/p>\n

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During the last month, her health began to decline and by last week she stopped eating. We had feared the end was near and now it’s upon us. I thought we might get a couple more years, but we have been blessed with a good cat. It’s not losing a family member, (goodness knows we’ve experienced that recently enough, I’d be fine with not going through that again for a little while.<\/a>) but there’s still a profound sense of loss and defeat weighing on me know. Upon losing his dog, Over the Rhine songwriter Linford Detwieler wrote “There are some who would argue that a dog’s life is insignificant. But God so often chooses to use insignificant things in significant ways. In the grand scheme, we’re all insignificant until love shows up. She was a spark for us, and life is a bit dim right now without her.”<\/p>\n

Thank you for all the love, Queen Elisabeth. You were a beloved part of our family we will miss dearly.<\/p>\n

Between Bare Trees- The Choir
\nI’m gonna bring a smile to your face
\nTen thousand ways
\nYes and I will embrace
\nNew seasons
\nAnd if tomorrow the sky is gray
\nWell that’s okay
\nEven the flowers fade
\nFor good reason
\nThis planet turns so fast
\nEverything burns
\nAshes to ash
\nBut for now you are mine
\nAnd I feel so alive<\/p>\n

Rivers of love and peace
\nFlowing over you and me
\nSlivers of silver-blue between bare trees<\/p>\n

That old kitty is a source of stress
\nI must confess
\nI’m gonna cry nonetheless
\nYes I will
\nIf the veterinarian says
\nIt’s for the best
\nI’ll find her a place to rest
\nOn the hill
\nThis planet turns so fast
\nEverything burns
\nAshes to ash
\nBut for now you are mine
\nAnd I feel so alive<\/p>\n

Rivers of love and peace
\nFlowing over you and me
\nSlivers of silver-blue between bare trees
\nRivers of light and truth
\nFlowing over me and you
\nSlivers of silver-blue between bare trees… <\/p>\n

A couple articles for me to read and grieve…
\nLinford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist (of Over the Rhine) and their last days with their dog, Willow<\/a><\/p>\n

Bill Simmons’ wonderful article about the last days with his dog, Dooze<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“My wife wanted a cat and I didn’t, so we got a cat.” – Jason Windsor We thought it would be funny to name our cats after royalty, so naturally our first cat would be Queen Elizabeth. So wore the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housekeeping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1005,"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedirtroad.net\/jeff\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}