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The Lurie/Peabody Fund

From the desk of Ruth Perlmutter, President of Jersey Animal Coalition

This is the story of my mother and her beloved cat. It begins well before Jersey Animal Coalition was dreamed of. When my father first became ill, more than 20 years ago, and had to go to the hospital, my daughters and I thought it would be a great idea to bring my mother a kitten so she wouldn't be alone in a lifeless house.

My mother really didn't care for animals, so it was no surprise that when we brought her this scrawny creature she said it would have to go, and NOW! But my father persuaded her to keep him just one more day, and before we knew it, he got a name: Peabody. And he stayed.

Throughout my father's long illness and after his death, Peabody was the one constant in an otherwise empty house. My mother's world revolved around him: his likes and dislikes, his culinary tastes, the hours he set for his breakfast and dinner, and the times he desired the door to be opened for his strolls close to the house (he was afraid of the birds). My mother slept like a parenthesis around his body. Her relationship with this cat became almost mystical. She would say that he was her high school sweetheart reincarnated.

When my father died, Peabody was the only other life in the house. My mother would complain that if it weren't for that cat, she would go to a nursing home--but she couldn't do that to him, she couldn't desert him...After all, he needed her.

As the years went by, my mother developed congestive heart failure. And so did Peabody! She spent more on his medical care than she did on herself! Even as she became quite weak she always found the strength to climb the stairs to make sure he was alright, to make sure her 20-year-old companion was eating. Believe me, the doctor blessed that cat!

My mother once told me that if Peabody died before she did, she wanted me to send her to a nursing home. But if she died before Peabody, I must promise to put him to sleep. As it happened, my mother died first, and I did not keep my promise to her. I took him home with me and my two dogs, where I kept him to his regular schedule and gourmet diet. He even went out each day, flanked by his new canine friends, for his daily constitutional (as long as there were no birds!). He lived out his life with me, and died at 22 years of age.

Our relationship with animals is an ancient one, and science is now proving that the companionship of animals is good for our physical and emotional health, that this ancient bond still exists. Our technology brings with it increasing isolation. For each step we take to increase our comfort, we take many steps away from our natural relationships with other living creatures with whom we have shared our existence since the beginning of time. To live with a pet is to be in touch with our basic good nature. Those whose lives have never been enriched by the love of an animal companion are the poorer for it. Although animals' needs for us are great, our need for them is perhaps even greater.

Realizing this mutual need, Jersey Animal Coalition created the Lurie-Peabody Fund in memory of my mother, for those seniors who love their pets as dearly as she did but are not as fortunate as she in being able to provide medical care, food, or any of the basic needs.

For more information about the Lurie/Peabody fund or JAC, please contact us.