Hoppy Fitzpatrick

Our Hoppy We said goodbye to our oldest furry child on July 24, 2018. After almost 17 years of living with us, it continues to be hard to deal with her parting, but we know that she’s no longer suffering. Most of our friends are at least partially familiar with her because she was with us for so long, but I’d like to tell the story of how she came to be a part of our family. She came to us one day not long after we had moved into our first home. We had just lost our cat to Hwy 231 in Pell City. I was sitting in my recliner when I heard a meowing at our back door. It took me by surprise, but I went to the door and opened it. Hoppy came right in like she owned the place. After that day, she would come by more and more often so we needed something to call her. We called her Home Hopper (“Hoppy” for short) because we just thought she was the neighbor cat. In fact, “neighbor cat” became a nickname for her in the beginning. We found out quickly that she really liked to sleep in the bed with us. She would sit at the door and do her typical “meow-meow” cry until we opened the door and let her in. We later started believing that she had lived in the house before us and had gotten left by the previous renters of our house. We lived in that house for about 5 years until we found out we were expecting our first baby and decided we needed a bigger house. By this time, she spent more time with us than she did wandering the little neighborhood we lived in so we took her with us when we moved. That first move was a hard one because 2 of our other cats got out and got lost right after the move, but Hoppy was there always. She moved with us 4 times in all, and every time Hoppy was always there with us. If we went for a walk, Hoppy would follow and watch after us, keeping to the bushes along the side of the road to avoid being seen by any neighborhood dogs. She was always a great cat. She didn’t get on counters, she didn’t get into food left out. She even covered up the other cat’s mess in the litter box. She lived happily with us for all these years. Her last couple years were hard for her. She started getting kidney infections and not feeling her best. Finally, she had stopped eating for about 3 days so I took her to the vet where we got the news that it was bad. Her kidneys were failing, and nothing that we could do could change that. When the vet informed me of this, I broke down in the exam room. I had suspected that her time was almost up, but hearing the confirmation was more than I could bare. We called in the rest of the family to visit with her one last time and tell her how much we all loved her. After the kids left, we continued to love her until the vet came in to put her to sleep. I talked to her the whole time telling her how much I loved her and how important that she was and how sorry I was that her time was over. We stayed with her until she was gone. Our bedroom has become so lonely without her. She was always the first to greet me in the afternoons when I would get home from work. She would go with me any time I went to the bathroom so now even trips to the bathroom are reminders that she is gone. It’s impossible to get through a day without thinking about her and missing her. My only hope is that she knows how much she is missed, and I hope to see her again one day and make up for all the time apart. We love you, Hoppy, and we’ll miss you for the rest of our days.