OREO
On the morning of September 26th,
2006, Brooklyn lost one of her longest standing grimalkin citizens
when Oreo Felinia Cummings ascended the great catwalk to the great
beyond. She was 20 years old. According to CatFanciers.com, Oreo's
longevity was equivalent to a 97-100 year human
lifespan.
Severely visually impaired
since a kitten, the result of an unfortunate accident with a
household chemical, Oreo was adopted by the Cummings family and she
happily took to her new home and spacious back yard. Oreo's earlier
years were distinguished by her remarkable ability to adapt to her
limited sight, with behaviors which, at first, were construed by
friends and family to be bizarre. Where other cats would bolt through
the center of a room, with a final leap onto a chair or couch, Oreo
would crouch and slink along the walls, occasionally bumping into a
piece of furniture. Still, she very occasionally was able to catch a
mouse and torment it, as cats do, until it staggered out of her
periphery and clambered beneath a couch or an appliance to escape or
expire. Oreo was totally blind for the final three years of her life,
but still astutely and lovingly responded to her new nicknames,
Pooreo and Blindy.
Oreo's passion was singing.
She had a voice unlike any other cat and actually practiced her
varied tones and alto growls at the most ungodly hours of the night.
She was discovered by an ImaraMusic Studio producer, who recorded her
voice in a classic Christmas rendition.
Oreo maintained a good amount
of verve even up to a year before her passing, when, at first, she
began to lose her vigor and show signs of failing health and
approaching dementia. Still, to the end, she held on with dignity and
died upon her own pillow-bed.
Oreo is survived by her
younger, lifelong feline friend and caternal-brother, Ziggy,
who himself, valiantly is battling feline
hepatitis.
Oreo was interred in a stone
weighted litterbox at the bottom of Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn,
NY.,
a pet cemetery for the Cummings family since the 1960s.
In a private ceremony, on Dead Pet's Hill Bridge, the Rev. Gary
Cummings was the box-thrower.
The family of Oreo Felinia Cummings
requests that in lieu of flowers and gifts,
friends might adopt a healthy, orphaned or neglected
animal.
OREO
1986 - 2006
