Cookie was helped to the Rainbow Bridge Friday evening.  She was
suffering from complications from surgery last month.
 
Cookie was a beautiful champagne mitt, and we have the trophy to prove
it.  She won first place in a kit ring at the '98 Tristate Ferret
Extravaganza in Cincinatti.  Her trophy was a beautiful wall clock with a
ferret face that hangs in our dining room.  Cookie loved chicken gravy
and sleeping in my dresser drawer.  But my favorite story of her is this:
 
Cookie was still a youth, and Belle was getting old, but still liked to
play.  We were eating dinner on the sofa while we watched the news.  Joy
and I sat on the sofa with our plates in our laps; Richard was sitting on
the floor with his plate on the coffee table.  We were eating pasta with
a fresh tomato/basil sauce made from our garden.
 
Cookie and Belle wrestled between us and the TV.  "Look how good Cookie
is!" I exclaimed.  "She is playing so nicely with Belle!"  And indeed she
was, playing gently and letting the tiny frail Belle get the upper hand,
er paw, in the wrestling match.
 
No sooner did I praise her, then Cookie jumped up between me and Joy, up
on the back of the sofa, across to Richard, down to his shoulder, and
then leapt right onto his plate of food.  Her momentum slid about a third
of the pasta and sauce off the front of the plate.  Cookie leapt off the
plate, shoving another third back onto Richard's lap, and raced from the
room.
 
Joy and I broke into peals of laughter.  "It's not funny!" Richard said
sternly.  We laughed more.  "It's not funny!" he kept repeating.  But Joy
and I could not stifle our laughter as we helped Richard clean up mess
and tracked Cookie down to clean off her paws.  It was a year before
Richard would admit it was indeed funny, and to this day will only do so
reluctantly.
 
Cookie is joining Belle, Caruso and Buttons, and is survived by Cassie
and Andi.
 
"Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end
 
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore
 
Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping"
 
["Into the West" words by Fran Walsh, Howard Shore and Annie Lennox]
 
Linda Iroff
Oberlin OH
[Posted in FML issue 4424]