Our first feline fur-baby was a planned blessing to our family. Daddy grew up with nine cats, and I swear his personality is more cat than human half the time. We are both allergic to domestic-short-hair cats but have always loved all cats and loved having them around. We felt a void in our lives and in our family that we felt only a feline could fill.
We knew that with our allergies and small living space we should limit ourselves to only considering cats that are naturally hypoallergenic. We also both have a soft spot for all black cats, so we were hoping to find a long-hair black cat we felt a connection with.
We got exactly what we were hoping for and then some when we found Luci. We adopted her from the humane society in our area in October of 2018 during a Halloween adoption event for black pets. She was in a big cat room with at least twenty other cats, and Daddy caught her out of the corner of his eye slinking down low to hide under a cot in the corner. He went over and lifted the cot, and she just looked up at him, wide-eyed and terrified, and opened her mouth, like a meow, but instead, just a thin, raspy whisper came out. He reached down for her and picked her up, and she just melted into his arms. Within seconds she was purring and nuzzling against us. We found the one.
She is a stunningly beautiful cat, tall with piercing green eyes that frequently change to a vibrant orange in certain light, elegant demeanor, and the softest fur I've ever felt.
She is part Maine Coon or Forest Cat and her undercoat of soft fuzzy fur was matted against her. No one had ever brushed her, but it was apparent she took excellent care of herself because her outer long coat was flawless. She has big paws with thick claws and long fang-like teeth that peak out of her mouth sometimes.
She was perfect. She is perfect.
As you can see in the picture above, and below, we did have Luci professionally groomed once after we adopted her, and we had her shaved into a lion cut, because she had been able to take excellent care of the main, tail, and legs already. We only did this so that her fur would have a chance to grow back and be cared for properly. The alternative of trying to brush out the deep mattes, that had been there for who knows how much of her life, would have been traumatic and painful for her, to say the least. Doing the light anesthesia and shave seemed like the lesser of the two evils, so to speak.
She was embarrassed and cold while her fur was growing back out, and did not allow us to take many pictures of her. But we gave her sweaters to wear to keep warm, that she took off whenever she wanted to groom herself, and would roll on to ask for it back on. But gradually, as she realized she could groom all of her fur and didn’t have to struggle biting at her mattes, and her fur grew, she didn’t want the sweaters anymore and her shyness left. The camera shyness still peaks out once in a while, but for the most part, as long as daddy is involved, she’s happy to pose.
We wanted to name her something a little spooky, wanting to go with her adoption theme and her wicked vibe. After going through a few lists of ideas and talking about them and saying them to each other and her, we chose "Lucifer," and call her Luci for short.
It wasn't until later on that we decided to make it punny and spell it Lucifur. We liked the sound of the name Luci a lot, especially with Joey and Berli, and Lucifer is pretty complicated, but the name itself means bearer of light. Our Luci has definitely been a bearer of light in our life and had a somewhat complicated journey since being in it.
We always just call her Luci, or Lulu. A little while after we added Eloise to our family we reevaluated Luci’s full name because people didn’t usually understand the positive meaning behind Lucifer, and we rarely called her by her full name, so we decided that her name should actually be short for Lucille, so, now it is. ☺️ and she actually really likes being called Lucille, she usually happy trills and smiles lightly with her fangs, (something MaPa taught her).
