This community consoled me when I lost my Dewhickey.
This past Saturday I lost another best friend. My wanderer. My Gypsy Soul......
I lost Iggy Figadoo in a sudden and tragic way.
Join me under the fold for my remembrance.
I got him 13 years ago when he was only 1 year old. He had been de-clawed and had no home.
I took him in a heartbeat.
We called him Iggy. I don't know why. His name then morphed, as kitty names tend to do, and he became Iggy Figadoo.
As I mentioned, he was a wanderer. He loved being outdoors. Try as I may, he would not relent. So we allowed him his roaming.
He became the neighborhood's local luminary. Everyone knew his full name. Everyone loved him. He would go from house to house and was welcomed by all.
Then he would come home, or I would find him waiting for me when I got home from work at night waiting on the front step...... waiting for me. Every night.
He stayed away for days sometimes. Worried me to death. Then he would show up, hang around, love me and leave again. I was resigned to this relationship. I loved him too.
Deeply.
This past year, he was injured. Blunt force trauma to what I understood to be a nerve cluster located near his shoulder..... he was a mess.... dragging his front left paw and back left foot....
We got him straightened out with steroid therapy and he got back to about 90%...... and he was staying in. No more wandering for my Gypsy Soul.
He was heartbroken and would yowl in the darkness. A yowl that only comes from a yearning undefined.
Still I would not relent and he resigned himself to being indoors, though occasionally he would yearn aloud before I would calm him and he would settle in again.
He had a habit of demanding to be held...... crawl up wherever I was sitting at the time and lay on my chest while I held his back feet with one hand and he would dangle his front paws over my forearm..... and about every 30 seconds he would let out a plaintive "prrrth"...... almost like he was reminding me that he was in my grasp and I in his.
Well, this past Saturday our neighborhood had a big trash pickup day...... everyone piles their unwanted crap out on the curb on Friday night and the local trash service would pick it the next morning...... in the interim, people would cruise the neighborhoods with pickup trucks, trailers etc. etc. and salvage what to them were treasures.... so, lots of traffic.
On Saturday, as the trash pickup was winding down, the door leading from the house to the garage was left open. Iggy slipped out. No one knew.
While he was out, a man driving by in a pickup truck looking at all the junk on the street allowed his dog to escape his vehicle. The dog made a beeline for Iggy and in a second, snapped his back. Killing him instantly.
I had to go to work in 2 hours. And had to work Sunday and a double on Monday, so this is the first chance I've had to really grieve for my lost friend.
Here's the only song that has been running thru my head for 3 days now.
Iggy was absent alot, hence the lack of photos.
He was a beautiful animal and, like I said, he was my Gypsy Soul.
Say goodbye with me. You were so much help the last time I lost a buddy. I'm hoping for the same kind of catharsis.
Thank you, Kossacks. You, above all people, understand how to comfort the afflicted.
Goodby, Iggy Figadoo...... you were a trip, brother.