Living Large ~ The Early Years

It's been one week since Little crossed the "rainbow bridge" and although I've stopped expecting to see him in his normal Galveston sleeping spots, there are times each day that I miss him terribly. As all pet owners know, their lives are entwined with ours in special ways. Its not just the daily care and feeding, which is significant in itself - especially over 22 years, but their presence and participation in the milestones of our lives is what makes the parting so sad.

Over the past six days, I've looked through my collection of pictures and put together a wonderful photo book of Little's life. Although it's hard to accept that his journey is complete, it has also been uplifting to remember things that Jerry, Big, Little and I have shared. With this in mind, I wanted to post his story and some of the best photos over the next few days.


My Life as a Little Cat

I was born in January of 1988 and I came to live with Jerry, Nan and Big in March of that same year. We never knew who my parents were or how I ended up at Special Pals, but I hit the lotto on adoption day. I was a dynamic little ball of jet black fur with a daring personality and beautiful green eyes.

I should start by explaining my name, which was Zorro on my "official records". When I arrived on the scene, my family had just moved from their condo into a townhouse and my cat roommate was a 2.5 year old buff colored cat called Tigra. Actually, they rarely called him Tigra ... Jerry called him Smokey, Mule & a variety of other names, but never Tigra.

So as the days went by they often asked each other if it was "the big cat or the little cat" that had done this or that. Those descriptive names fit us better than our official names, so we quickly became Big Cat and Little Cat. Soon we shortened our names to Big and Little, even though I weighed more than Big for most of my life. The funny thing ~ YEARS later ~ was that people thought Big was named after the Chris Noth character on Sex in the City, but Big had his name WAY before "Mr. Big" ever met Carrie Bradshaw!

My early years were a blur and there aren't many pictures of me because the digital camera hadn't been invented yet. We were lucky to have a few Polaroid instant photos, but at the time REAL photos had to be sent for development and were mainly reserved for important events.

Here I am as a youngster ... just a furry spot on the floor!



Without question, my favorite person at this stage of my life was Jerry. Look how young we both look!


The most exciting adventure Big and I shared was our Rockport vacation. Now I know that vacations are an activity usually reserved for dogs, but me and Big were game for almost anything. In 1994, we loaded up the car and headed south ... for THREE and one half hours!

It's possible that we inspired the term "the howling". When we arrived in Rockport our condo wasn't ready for check in so we ate lunch on the beach. I will say that after being on the beach, Big and I were happy to get back in the car.

It took a few hours for our appetites to return and the first day all we wanted to eat was potato chips ... Pringles to be exact. On day two, they offered up some lump crab meat and that was the beginning of our "road cat" legacy. In 1996 we bought the beach house and although we never liked the drive, we enjoyed spending time in Galveston and eating fresh fish at every opportunity.

Here's Big ... oh, how he loved the sun streaming into the extra bedroom.



This is me with my "short summer do", looking bright eyed.


Big and I had a regular schedule. We were up before dawn and out the door when Jerry and Nan went to run ... then back inside for breakfast and sleeping until they returned from work. Back out until dinner, when we would sit JUST out of reach of the front door and make them leave the door open until we were ready to come in on our own. We had this great window on the front of the townhouse and I loved to lay in the sun on the window sill and watch the world go by.

I'm not sure when this was taken, but Big and I also liked to laze around in the extra bedroom at the townhouse.


Here we are in the TV room a few years before we moved.


Another big event was the fire. One evening, Jerry & Nan were dressing for an event, we had been fed and Jerry was straightening his bow tie when he heard a noise in the attic. He looked in the hall "electrical closet" and could see flames sparking from a couple of wires. He yelled for the fire extinguisher and Nan grabbed me, Big and the phone and headed outside.

I wish I had a picture of that ... Nan standing in the drive way in a formal dress with a cat in each arm calling the fire department ... Jerry's normally impeccable tux and shoes covered in fire extinguisher dust. As it turned out, the fire department did more damage than the fire, but we were honored to be the first and only "things" she wanted to save.

We all worried about what would have happened if they had left 5 minutes earlier. It wasn't long before we bought the new townhouse and Big and I made another adjustment.

~ Little
(January 1988 ~ March 18, 2010)