The beginning of her turbulent life began after only 1 year of living with us. Unknown to us she had fell pregnant without us knowing and during one night wondered in to my mums bedroom. She hopped onto the bed and succeeded to have 3 babies. Without any fuss she cleaned them up within minuets. Completely unaware of what had happened we were shouted to come down stairs to see Sooty with 3 new children, 2 girls and 1 boy.
The next few weeks proved to be quite trying with the house full of noise. One of Sooty's girls had jumped on top of Jerry (the gerbil's) cage. Jerry may have proceeded to "pass on" if you will from shock. He was a quite boring old man anyway. However the house was becoming too crowded and some had to go. My Auntie agreed to take the boy, she made the grievous mistake of letting her 4 year old some name him though, from there on in he went by the name "Bang". A family friend took the girl, Jess, who much like her mother and brother were completely black haired. The remaining girl stayed with us, she was called Tess, unlike the rest she was half black and half white with a lightening like marking on her forehead (I wonder where JK Rowling got her idea for Harry Potter...). Although I now like the name I was adament that we should call her tiger, although this was to no avail.
Time passed on and Sooty and Tess both grew in size and personality. Sooty who was once the centre of attention took more of a back seat with Tess grabbing all the limelight as her mother once did. The pair sadly didn't always get on and at times could be heard fighting in the middle of the night. Sooty from there on preferred to spend a lot of her time alone sitting on the fence in the garden or sitting in the sunshine.
As much as Sooty liked being at home we found that she actually at times lived a double life and would spend many a meal time at our neighbours house without us knowing. In their time Sooty and Tess both had there own amount of drama, both went missing for over a week a piece. We did our best to try look for them, Tess when she disappeared managed to find her way back on her own. Her mother on the other hand was shown up by her daughter as she had to be rescued. Apparently she must have been walking along rooftops one night and jumped in a skylight that she thought was ours and got trapped in an old mans attic. This gentleman only happened to check his loft once every 5 years or so and it just happend that one day he went up only to find Sooty who had been trapped in there for over a week. She was nursed back to health after her return home.
The autumn of 2000 however brought sad news for the family when we found that Sooty had been hit by a car. She suffered bad injuries and sadly had to get one of her legs amputated. Her spirits never seemed to be dampened thought and continued to keep mobile, sitting on the fence and enjoying walking showing her routes from the farm.
Her and Tess both enjoyed 9 years together after that with us, but as all good things something had to give and in 2009 Tess passed on from suspected cancer at the age of 13 unfortunately being outlived by her mother. Sooty who was always reserved and enjoyed being alone took on Tess's roll and began to venture in and out of the house more often, entering the living room that once used to be Tess's domain.
Sooty once again reverted back to what she used to be like when she was the centre of attention and lived out the remainder of her life in the loving company of others. Sooty passed on one year after her daughter at the ripe old age of 15.
Never one to do anything by half it could say that she came to the end of her 9 lives.
Sooty McKay
1995-2010
No comments:
Post a Comment