The Day Before Today

Pico

Yesterday,wednesday october 5th, this dear, 15 year old cat passed away. She did not go quietly, she put up quite a fight but her little body gave up.

Pico became an orphan when, at two weeks old, het mother was run over by a car. Our kids were so upset that I promised that I would try to feed the litter of kittens with a bottle. So I found myself after all these years back to night time feedings... But it worked, and all kittens survived.
She was different from the other kittens and we first thought that she was a male, so she got named after Picasso: Pico. Not very colourful while being just black and white.

Pico was pretty fierce, and ruled most of the the garden for years. Coco, her timid sister, was only allowed to sit in the  front of the house...
Pico could spin, we could feel it when we put our fingers on her throat, but she did not make a sound with it. Then, just a few years ago, she started to spin out loud. She wanted to be heard, I guess.

She did not like people very much, but she did liked to stay with me and annoyed me by trying to wrap herself around my neck instead of sitting in my lap. She loved being outside and we had to convince her pretty hard to come inside on cold winter nights. To be honest, I often had to go out and find her hiding place in the garden, the dyke being her favorite part, and try to catch her.

I named the last quilt I was working on, to her: the Pico quilt. (For a picture see: http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-was-i-thinking.html ) We shared the quilt together even long before it was finished: me underneath it, she on top of it, together with her sister Coco. We spent loads of evenings together this way.

Thank you for your companionship, your friendship and your own way of showing love, dear Pico. I will never forget you, you will be missed, sweetie.