She would spend her time sleeping, waiting and looking forward to the end of the day when her masters were home and she would get those pets and treats. She was with us wherever we were, but mostly you could find Homer lazing in the afternoon sunshine. I used to sing her that song, We’ll Sing In The Sunshine, by Gale Garnett from 1963. Homer didn’t care that I could not remember all the words or whether I sang it off key, she loved us unconditionally. The words in it were so true, and I knew it and she knew it. She was just happy to be our cat, and she made sure we knew it too.

Spoiling her as we could often do, we taught her to dance for her treats, we taught her to enjoy having her whiskers stroked. We taught her to run around and race to grab the soft foam toy, “The Roomerang”. Her favorite toys were ordinary things, such as: the round plastic rings from the tops of milk containers, the little plastic clear hair spray caps. One of her favorites was a toy I could only find one of, and then some manufacturer stopped making it. It was a weighted plastic sack with feathers inside it. She used to carry that around everywhere. She played with it until there was nothing left of it anymore. When it came time to change the sheets (especially fresh out of the warm clothes dryer), there she would come running up to the top of the bed, only to play a game with me and scrunch herself under the new, stretchy, jersey knit sheets. Then I would call out, “Where’s Homer?” I would tickle her toes and she would tease me back.

We are going to miss seeing her meet us in the living room every night when she heard the kitchen door open. We are going to miss seeing her sleeping in the afternoon sunshine. We are going to miss the times when she only wanted to be on our lap, or sleep beside us in bed. We are going to miss the times when we would hunt all over the house to find that special birdie toy, or the little puffy sparkle pom-pom balls she would play with. We know that there will never be a cat as special as Homer.