A tribute to "Babe"

Babe was our little kitty that was a "gift" from our son, Ty. The way Ty tells the story, Babe "appeared" on campus when he was attending Newberry College early in his freshman year. The little gray kitten was hanging around the campus in the area of Ty's dorm. The baseball players all tended to the kitten and everyone liked seeing her. Ty claims the little kitten got inside the bottom floor of his dorm building and made her way up 3 flights of stairs to his floor. (that's the baseball players floor) Ty decided to adopt the kitten keeping her in his dorm room. On a trip to the campus he was eager to show her to us. I warned him that he faced a stiff fine for keeping a pet in his dorm room and that he needed to get rid of her. He should put her back outside and she'd find her way back home. Well, he got rid of her alright, bringing her to our house! This was not a big shock. We quickly adopted her. Ty called her Babe after the legendary baseball player Babe Ruth. Babe was originally a wild cat so she stayed outside our house a lot. She would find all sorts of creatures and bring them to our front door to show us her great hunting skills. She would sleep with us at night, purring the whole time. Connie bought her a "diamond" collar and it seemed to fit her personality perfectly. She seemed to know that we thought she was special.

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One of her favorite things to do was to burrow under the hall rug and roll herself up in it. Then peek out to see if anyone was coming by. Then she's swipe at your foot!.

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Sleeping was always a fun pastime for her, like all cats. She had several places that she like to nap including a nice, soft chair.

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About 3 months ago she seemed to be losing some weight. We thought she had worms so we gave her treatment for them but she did not improve. When we finally took her to the vet he told us she was diabetic. That was shocking since she was never terribly overweight. In hindsight she was always jumping on the bathroom counter to drink water out of the sink and she could be seen perched on any given toilet to drink water there too! Perhaps this was foreshadowing her diabetes but we didn't give it a second thought at the time.

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We started Babe on a prescription pill therapy for her diabetes but it didn't seem to be fully working. After taking her to the vet earlier this week he told us that insulin shots may, or may not work. He gave her a 50/50 chance of recovering IF we could stabilize her blood sugar, but it would be a long road back. After talking to Connie we decided she had suffered enough. We had her put to sleep on Tuesday of this week. As I write this my eyes are full of tears as I think of the cute little cat that lived with us for 7 1/2 years. We'll miss her. We already notice how many times a day that we think we see her. Even though she was a stray cat that wound up in a college kids dorm room she became family. I'm sure Babe is in cat-heaven. She was truly a friend. Rest in peace little Babe.

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