Stairway to Heaven, Part One

(turn your head to see pic properly)

Shelby, my beloved feline, my darling precious baby, likes to sleep in my loft bed. I was the one to introduce her to it. She never tried to climb the ladder herself, so one day when I was about to take a nap, I hoisted her 11 1/2 pound furry frame up there. She loved it. We established a routine; she'd meow, I'd put her up, she'd nap. I'd take her down. If she stayed sitting and bit my hand, that meant she wasn't ready to come down. If she stood up, she wanted to come down, so I carried her down the ladder like a firefighter.

This went on for months, until one day...I came home and Shelby didn't greet me at the door like she usually did. Lo and behold, she was up in the loft! And very happy to see me, as she had probably been up there for awhile and wanted to get down. I took her down, and later witnessed how she got up. Step by step, very slowly, and with some degree of difficulty. Imagine a slow-witted raccoon trying to climb a tree.

Going up was no problem. It was the getting down part that she didn't quite understand. There would be days when I'd come home and she'd be up there, purring and meowing for me to take her down. Friends would ask, "What if she has to go to the bathroom?" She held it till I came home.

I saw her come down once. It was not a pretty sight. She went down, head and paws first, but it was difficult, as the rungs of the ladder were too far apart for her to reach down comfortably. Also, the ladder is at a very steep angle, so she couldn't balance very well. She made it down one step, then took a deep breath, and ran/slid down the rest of the way. You could tell it took a lot of guts to do and that she wasn't anxious to do it again. She stopped coming down and waited for me.

Then I got sick, and that's the beginning of the next part of the story.