Missy Barker

Our traveling cat "Missy" died this past week. She was almost 20 years old. This picture was taken in our back yard of our new home in Texas about a week before she died. Jerry picked her our of a litter of several kittens right after she was born. She was a beautiful red cat. She never was real friendly, she hissed when anyone got near her and she didn't like to be held and barely petted. We called her, "Miss Queen Bee". Her favorite place while traveling was on our bed. She would let us know it was time for us to get out of bed and it was her turn. So, I would make the bed, and she would lay right in the center of the bed until it was time for us to go back to bed at night. When we bought our house in Texas in September, 2008, and moved her out of the motorhome, she said she had enough traveling. She explored the house and slept in every corner of the new house. She was only in our new home for a month, in that month we took her to the vet three times and each time they said she was just upset about the move and just being a cat. However, she quit eating and drinking, and in her last week she let me feed her and hold her and take care of her. We buried her in a beautiful garden area. I learned a valuable lesson about cats and myself. Everyone needs to be loved and taken care of even we really don't want to, or even think they want to be bothered. As mean as Missy was, even she wanted to be taken care of and loved in the end. The moral of the story is, "don't give up on people or in this case our cat, they will appreciate it even if we don't think they will. We will miss Missy and I am not even an animal person, but I found that I could even love a cat!!