Molly Kat Hamilton

September 1, 1991 - May 24, 2009

Molly chose Meredith and Rosalie as her mother and grandmother on October 15, 1991 at the Humane Shelter in Dallas. As we were walking through the cats available for adoption, Meredith, without even glancing, said, “that one.” I looked behind us, and all I could see was a fuzzy little black thing with both front feet planted in the food dish.

Molly had apparently been taken from her mother prematurely, so Meredith had the task of teaching her catly procedures. The toughest one for me to watch was Meredith licking the kitten’s head, as her cat mother would have done, both to nurture and to teach grooming. She was, however, unsuccessful at teaching toilet procedures. To the end, Molly scratched the side panels of the toilet box, endlessly (!) because she was not achieving the desired result of sifted litter.

Before we got her, an injury or birth defect had damaged her hips and made her tail short, so she had only a black ball of fur tail. It added to her cuteness, and it became quite normal looking to us.

When we got Molly we had a 60-pound dog, a shar-pei/chow mix, who was a paragon of patience. Evidently the kitten decided his ankles were chicken bones and would turn her head sideways to gnaw on them. Asa the Dog would look at us pleadingly, as though asking, “What IS this little annoyance? Make it quit! When she advanced to his other appendages, he started reacting. Finally, one day when she was being particularly aggravating, after looking to us for permission and getting it, he lifted his hefty hind end and dropped it right on her. We let her squeal for a couple of minutes before rescuing her, and thereafter there was no more gnawing on the dog. In fact, until his death they were great buddies, and watched Dallas Cowboys games with us, beside each other on the floor.

When Meredith moved into college housing, the grandmother took the grandchild to rear, and Molly became my third child. She made several moves with me, including the 1000-mile drive in a Camaro moving from Texas to Clearwater, Florida in 2002. On that trip I put up with an hour of her incessant complaining in the cat carrier, despite its being propped up on pillows in the front seat where she could see out. Then I gave in to the more persistent of the two of us and freed her, and she rode in my lap the remaining time. It took 50 miles to convince her that she absolutely could not get down in the floorboard with the foot pedals, and thereafter she was fine. I can’t say the same for me -- a low-slung car, unable to move for two long days, with a cat in my lap to further hinder body motion. It almost took a chiropractor to pry me out of the car when we arrived in Florida.

In her prime Molly was quite the hunter, once even depositing a live snake at my feet in my living room in Dallas! Having presented me with such a magnificent gift, she was mightily disgusted by my jumping around and squealing. One indication that she was aging occurred a couple of years ago when I found her sneaking within inches of a large, long cottonmouth snake (out of her league) in the yard, because she was having difficulty seeing it clearly.

Throughout the years Molly snuggled next to me at sleep time, though she usually got down from the bed shortly after. It seemed as though in this act she felt like the other, helping the child (me) go to sleep before going to her own preferred bed.

Molly had such presence! Our friends called her The Queen and, believe me, they paid homage. If they came to my house and started visiting with me before acknowledging her, they got to hear about it! Ya gotta admire such positive self-esteem -- she knew her place -- always at the top.

In deference to her mature adult status, for several years we have called her Miss Molly, in the Southern style.

Miss Molly’s picture is on our company website,

http://www.expertcommunications.com/about.htm , with the respect paid due her as a long-time member of the firm.

In addition, I’ve attached a portrait our friend Joanne Forsythe, a talented photographer, took of her in 2006, with Miss Molly’s obvious permission and participation.

After having slowed down for a couple of years, Miss Molly’s precious black fluffy body wore out on May 24, 2009.

She is survived by her most loved ones--Rosalie, Meredith, Barry and Lisa, her counselor and friend Marlo, friend and counselor Sandra, friends Linda, Kathleen, Joanne, Nanda, Jo-Sandra, and Garth, and a host of admirers.

This precious being has moved to a new life, and we wish for her a wonderful existence. I will miss her presence profoundly.

Rosalie Hamilton

May 24, 2009