Celebrating Velvet, Feline Member of the Gilbert Family 1991-2006

I feel like I've just lost a dear friend.

Yesterday my parents had to put to sleep one of the kitties I grew up with. She has been part of our family since 1991 - a good 15 years. In our family, we get pretty attached to pets, so this has been hard. As I was flipping through my photo albums to find pictures of her, I was reminded how much a part of our family she was – I’d find pictures of her squeezed in between various events, and she would show up in Christmas pictures, birthday pictures, pictures of family gatherings, etc.

She was born when I was in 5th grade. It was my first time to experience being around a litter of kittens, and I loved it. Velvet was actually the runt of the litter, but we decided to keep her anyway.


(Spots on the pictures are glares from the old photo album)


Despite being the runt of the litter, she grew up strong and healthy, and turned out to be a pretty dominant cat, bossing the other cats around for a long time. (We always had at least 2 cats). However, there were moments when we caught her enjoying the company of other kitties.

She loved the outdoors and spent much of her time out there.

She amused us quite a bit:


In the linen closet...

Playing dead on the stairs...


In a duffel bag...

Going for a bike ride...


Up on the ladder...

Cuddling with my stuffed animals...

And her personal favorite - straddling the top of the recliner. The only problem was whenever we sat down in the chair, the top of the chair would rock back and forth and she'd have to hold on so she wouldn't fall!

But this was the best. This is her on my back (I was only 12 here…). She had this weird thing where if you picked her up, she would climb over your shoulder and if you didn’t bend over immediately, she would claw you trying to hang on. So, it kind of became a joke. I’d let her sit on my back from time to time while I bent over ;) Weird cat.

She lived a long, good life. I will miss her lots.

I know that no one really knows what happens to animals when they die, but I have to believe that if there is something worth loving in them, that something must be valuable enough to cross the barrier of death. I hope so.

In loving memory

Velvet, 1991 – 2006