Lillian Fluff-n-Stuff Finley: 3/2002-10/2010

Lillian Fluff-n-Stuff Finley was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a psychotic, ill-adjusted stray named Ruby under the bed of Jennifer Davis.  Ruby ran off, but Jennifer Davis soon married Jed Finley, and the Finleys became Lily's lifelong family.  Despite her Vermont roots, her attitudes seemed to hail from just a touch further north.  For this reason, Jed and Jennifer always told her she was French Canadian.

Known to everyone as Lily, her most immediately defining characteristic was her striking beauty.  She was an explosion of fluff, and her feathery tail, when lifted upwards, was glorious plumage on full display.  Black and white with spots of brown, the black created the image of a mask over her striking green eyes and a cape going down her back.  Perfectly symmetrical, she was approached often in life by scouts to, please, please, do modeling.  Disgusted at the thought, she chose to pursue her passions in music and performance, and to become fat.

Her first forays into the performance world  were with the traveling circus.  She longed to be a trapeze performer, and while her skills there were nothing to scoff at, she excelled at the high dive, jumping from a small platform hundreds of feet above a tiny pool below.  Though she abhorred being wet, she loved the thrill of each jump, and her graceful movements whilst seemingly, momentarily, in flight left spectators star-struck and begging for more.  Crowds came in droves, but Lily realized that she could either make this her career or take the riskier leap of leaving behind this success and moving on to her greatest call of composing music.  She took the metaphorical leap.

Music flowed through Lily's veins.  This is one reason, perhaps the only reason, that she loved the Finleys who are themselves musical.  She was finicky, being a cat and all.  Her soft, muted meows proved that she would not be a vocalist, but that did not matter to her as her forte was the keys, which she played through dance.  She loved a piano or harpsichord, but her preference, by far, was an 80's-vibe synthesizer.  She worked with some top musicians, composers, and producers in her life and found tremendous success.  She was a key collaborator with Toto on their hit song "Africa," and she also composed the chimey, synth-y music every traveler hears who uses the terminal trams at the Denver airport.  She collaborated on hundreds of other projects.  A generous soul, she had a hard time refusing people's requests for her artistic direction, refusing only Prince with a flat "no."  He was devastated.

Lily had been retired for some time, but she did amass great wealth.  While the Finleys have no idea where it is, the circulating legend is that she sent it all to her favorite charity, "Kittens Born to Psychotic Strays."  Lily also left behind a library full of poetry and inspired musical compositions.  The Finleys don't know where that is, either.  

According to the Finleys, Lily was a sweet cat with a precious nature and great patience.  She loved chocolate ice cream and batting at the TV when she thought she saw suspicious movement on the screen.  She was trusting of those she knew understood her, and she hid from those she did not trust, which was most men.  Lily was, like many artists, a tad fragile, skittish, and misunderstood.  She never married and devoted her affections to her favorite people, her parents, especially Jennifer.  She loved to be pet when it was her idea and loved to end a good petting session with no notice whatsoever, but always with a flourish.  She especially loved to lie on freshly dried laundry, particularly if it was black, which always was most messed up by her shedding.  Lily also enjoyed sitting at the back patio door, staring through the glass at the busy chipmunks.  The chipmunks, who quickly realized she could do nothing, would run right up to the glass and chatter away, mocking her.  Lily would spend this time batting at the glass and making her whiskers twitch.  If she ever had come face to face with a chipmunk, sans any barrier, she probably would have run away.

Lily would want you to know that she loved Yahweh, her creator.  She always said that, to animals, this was a no-brainer.  We figure this makes sense since Lily's brain was actually very, very small.

Thanks for all the wonderful memories, good laughs, inspired imaginations, affectionate purrs, and sweet leg nudges.  You were enough personality to fill a hundred more such eulogies, sweet girl.

We love you, Lou Lou.

(More pictures to be posted.)