The cat soldier fell in love with one woman more than anyone else in the world – Sarah Whaley, 96. In 2014, Alexis Hackney and her family found Trooper while flipping a house, heard her meow from the basement and went to investigate.
Hackney recounted: ‘’She was in the wall, my mother and sister had to get a hammer to break the corrugated iron and get her out, she was about 2 weeks old. and her eyes could barely open.”
They couldn’t find Trooper’s mother, so they brought the little kitten back to their home where they shared with Whaley, Hackney’s grandmother.
“My grandmother actually lived with us for 18 years,” says Hackney. Mom moved down here to look after me and my sisters when we were young. She is definitely an important part of our family.”
Whaley loves not only her grandchildren but also the family cats. And she formed a particularly close relationship with Trooper. “My grandma would bottle feed her, and she would sit there talking to her, telling her how cute and sweet she is,” Hackney said.
While everyone can see how much Trooper loved Whaley and Whaley loved Trooper, the family didn’t really understand their connection until Whaley became seriously ill. “My grandmother started going downhill more around last year and we started noticing that she was always there,” says Hackney. Trooper mostly sleeps in bed with Whaley.
You can just look her in the eye and tell her that she knows what’s going on and that she’s upset about it. Sometimes, Whaley had a panic attack and Trooper would quickly come to her to comfort her.
“Trooper would run in there and jump on the bed, she would start petting her and she would calm down,” Hackney said. When my grandmother started to get to the point where she couldn’t communicate anymore, I think that having Trooper there was definitely calming for her.
And nothing seemed to scare Trooper out of Whaley’s bed.
Trooper is always by her side. She is always there and grandma will accidentally hit her or squeeze her too hard, and Trooper will never fight back. She would jump down, wait for my grandmother to calm down, and she would jump right into bed with her.
When Whaley died in March – days before her 97th birthday – Trooper was inconsolable. She ran away and got under my parents’ bed. And after they took my grandmother’s body, it stopped eating. She’s not a talkative cat, but she just walks around the house and cries all the time.
Trooper is much better now, though she still goes into Whaley’s room, leaving socks and other objects on the floor and she definitely misses her. “I think cats get a bad reputation when people don’t think they really love us,” says Hackney.
Trooper is so devoted and loyal to her, Hackney wanted to share that because people don’t understand that cats may not be like dogs, but they certainly have feelings, and they have feelings and they love us very much. lots of. They just aren’t as good at showing off as dogs. But they’re sure it loves us.