Good-Bye, Lucy

Books by Patti liszkay
​available on amazon

​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​Available on Amazon.

​GOOD-BYE, LUCY

      Although Lucy  - also known as Lucita - lived most of her fifteen years as our family pet, 

...she was technically my daughter Claire's cat.
        Claire acquired Lucy in 2006 during the months she worked in Chacraseca, a jungle village on the outskirts of León, Nicaragua.
​        Here's Claire at the market in Masaya,

...and here's her sister Theresa playing with some of the village children when she came for a visit.

...and here's me riding on the city bus in León when I was there visiting Claire. (I eventually gave up my seat to a bent-over old lady who said, "Gracias, chela." ["Thank you, white woman."]).

      At that time Claire's living quarters were in a house in León which she shared with some elderly Maryknoll nuns and from which she commuted each day to "Chacra," as the village was called.

​     It so happened that the house had a mouse problem. The little critters would be heard scratching around in the walls and rafters. Claire learned that a neighbor's cat had had a litter of kittens, and so she asked the neighbor if she could have one of the kittens to be a mouser. The neighbor invited Claire to help herself, and Claire chose the little black one, for whom she paid the neighbor seventy-five cents.
       As it turned out, little Lucita had no appetite for chasing mice. What she loved, however, were the giant Central American cockroaches (blaberus giganteus  - and BTW, that's ​not me holding the roach in the picture),

​...that also shared residency in the house.
        Lucy ate the roaches and left the antennae and wings, which Claire would find gathered into neat little piles around the house. One time during my visit when I was taking a shower I spotted a blaberus giganteus - a good three-incher - crawling up the wall of the the stall. Aw, now where the heck is that kitty, I rhetorically wondered.    
        After spending the better part of a year working in the jungle, Claire decided to do a stint as a  volcano tour guide for Quetzaltrekkers.

    Quetzaltrekkers is a volunteer non-profit group that raises money for Las Tias, a shelter for street children in León,

...by leading tourists on hikes up the the volcanoes in the vicinity of León.

     Volcano guide Claire with two volcano visitors - her brother Tommy and sister Theresa - hiking Cerro Negro.

     After Claire started working for Quetzaltrekkers she and Lucy left behind Lucy's beloved cockroaches to move into a room that Claire rented from a family with a house in the center of León, close to the Quetzaltrekkers office. 
       When Claire returned home to Columbus, Ohio she brought Lucy with her. Claire would ever after swear that it took far more paperwork and administrative imbroglio for a cat to leave the country than for a person.  

       And so our little Nicaraguan immigrant kitty joined our family of animals at that time, our odd-eyed cat Tansy, 

​...and our house bunny Daisy.

 Tansy and Daisy hanging out.

      Claire eventually left Columbus for Chicago, where she works these days as the charge nurse on the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Hospital.

       But  Lucy stayed with us, and after a while we no longer thought of her as the cat from Nicaragua with the notable back story, but just our sweet  Lucy,

...who loved her catnip toy,

...and good music,

...and holidays,

...and snitching my ice cream,

...and my chair,

...and stalking the fat resident groundhog in our backyard,

...and sitting in the garden,

...and all her family, except maybe Dory, who joined the family a few years after Lucy.

    And we loved our Lucy.

     Last week Lucy left us to cross over the rainbow bridge.  Perhaps it was providence that her time came on a day when Claire and her husband Miguel happened to be visiting us from Chicago.

        Claire called Lap of Love, 

...and kind, soft-spoken Dr. Nellie came to our house,

... consoled and comforted us,

...let us say good-bye,

...then took Lucy to the other side.
     Now Lucy will always be out in the garden where she loved to be,

...while throughout the day I find myself reflexively glancing at the back door, wondering if Lucy wants to come in.