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Marbles
Today we have Marbles as our Star Kit. She is a 19 year old Dilute Tortiseshell Domestic Shorthair and lives in Columbia, South Carolina.
Marbles was the older sister to Scrappy (DK 3 March 2014) and Max (DK 4 March 2014). Marbles was dumped on us 11 years ago by an Air Force family that was getting stationed overseas and leaving the next day. I assume she passed our base housing and had seen our other cats in the windows and figured we would take her. She knocked on the door, told me she was 8 years old and if I didn’t take her, she was going to the kill shelter in town. One look at those huge, terrified blue eyes and she was swept inside. Marbles was absolutely terrified of just about everything, but especially men, which broke my cat loving husband’s heart. We are positive that she was badly abused and she had several healed broken bones in X-rays we had done later, looking for arthritis. My husband and I spent the next month on our stomachs in the room we had set up for her, feeding her and slowly getting to where we could pet her under the futon she had chosen for her “safe” place. She slowly realized that she wasn’t going to be hurt and gave her trust to us. The day she crawled into my lap to be petted for the first time I cried like a baby.
It took moving into a new house that our other cats hadn’t already scent marked for her to finish coming out of her shell, but she bloomed into to a tiny little, spoiled rotten princess. We spent the last 11 years of her life trying to make up for the first 8 years of hell and she pretty much got everything she wanted :). Marbles had several health issues, most the vet feels stemming from the years of stress and abuse, and was on a handful of pills and liquid medications for the last 6 years. Getting her up to 6 lbs was always an occasion of celebration, but keeping her there was difficult. She still loved life and would sneak into your lap at every opportunity. She was so good, you’d have been petting her for 10 minutes before you realized she was there! Her kidney failure finally got to the point I couldn’t justify keeping her just so I wouldn’t have the pain of losing her. We sent her to the bridge to keep Max company just 20 days after we sent Max to his dad Snowball. I keep looking for her and her lovely blue eyes. She could break your heart with just a look and I’d give anything just to look over and see them again.
Author: Tom “The Kittenmaster” Cooper
Tom is the owner of 4 amazing cats, and using the Daily Kitten he provides a place for cat and kitten lovers to share the love for their own cats and kittens.
pounce!
Thanks for taking Marbles in and giving her the life she deserved. You were the best thing that ever happened to her.
Marbles was such a beautiful kitty. Thank you for showing her the love and affection she should have had for her whole life. Surely she went to the bridge remembering only love.
I loved reading about Miss Marbles. Your efforts to give her a loving, happy home are tremendous. This blue eyed beautiful Tortie found the best purr parents. It’s tough to let our babies go and my thoughts are with you.
I am very glad Marbels came to you and your husband. I am sorry that she had a bad life previously, but it sounds like you were a true blessing to her. I am also sorry that you lost two of your furkids so closely together. I know that must have been doubly hard. I definitely think you will see them again one day. All the best to you and your current furbabes.
RIP Marbles. Surely your love and devotion made up for the years of neglect and abuse that she suffered. She did live to be stunningly beautiful lady senior kitizen, but this cannot make up for the grief that letting one’s furbabies go to the bridge brings. Love and peace to you, your husband and other furries.
Marbles was a beauty. I’m so glad she was so loved by you.
Thanks for the sweet remembrance for special kit Marbles! ‘Til we meet again for she’s with our
forever family in the Meadow by the Bridge as our heavenly Star-kit today at TDK!
It was Marbles lucky day when she was “dumped” at your door. Her story made me cry. She was absolutely beautiful. Thank you for giving Marbles eleven years of love. ^ ^
Yours was one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful stories I have ever read and my heart is cracked in yet another place. I give thanks for people like you who take in the strays, the unloved and the abused. I would save them all if I could. So sorry for your loss of your darlings. And I thank you for reminding me that there is love in the world.
Tears in my eyes at your story. Bless you for giving that sweet girl 11 years of love.
Thanks everyone. It’s really hard. You get in the habit of constantly glancing over to check on them when you have chronically ill cats. Max’s favorite spot for the last year has been a really soft and fuzzy white blanket on one of the big, overstuffed dog pillow beds that I put near my computer for the furkids with arthritis. I had to get rid of it yesterday, I kept seeing Max on it out of the corner of my eyes, he was almost the same color and texture of the blanket. When I would turn to look, of course he wasn’t there and it just reaches up and smacks you in the face all over again. Sometimes I think I hear Marbles, she had a totally unique cry that she used when she wanted something, right when I’m starting to wake up and that jerks me wide awake. I didn’t realize how much of my life they had taken over, but they both had been sick for so long it was just “normal”. Miss them so much. Wish it was this time next year, I know the pain won’t be so bad then. I’m not a big crier, so all these crying jags are getting old. I get headaches and stuffed up noses when I cry, so it’s a pain in the butt. Still, I wouldn’t have given up a second of their time with me to avoid them or the pain. And I know, once the other four are gone, we will open our house and hearts to more furkids.
I am so sorry for your loss. Try to remember that you were a blessing to your kitties and made their lives full of love and care. Marble had truly unique eyes for a calico. (God probably gave those to her so Marble could make you weak in the knees when you looked at her.)
Bless you for giving Marbles a most deserved loving and patient forever home. How people can abuse such a petite cat (or any other cat for that matter) is beyond my comprehension. I am so glad her previous owner knocked on your door to give her away to. I am sorry for your loss of this beautiful petite feline lady. She’ll be waiting for you at the Rainbow Bridge playing with all the other kitties. God bless!
so sad but so sweet! what a blessing!
What a beautiful cat she was. She did live for many years. I think she was part Siamese, with those bright blue eyes and the tortie mask and points she had.
This is such a bittersweet story. The pain of losing one of our kids is so very intense. Yet at the same time, we have the joy of the memories we made when with them. I am so happy that she found your family, and could spend those years with a warm, loving and nurturing home.
Tears here as well! I will never understand how someone can abuse an innocent animal. Marbles was a beautiful girl and I would have cried too the first time she crawled in my lap. Thank you for giving her so much love for the second part of her life.