So long old pal
Categories: life
Tags: pets
Date: 11 October 2007 20:07:45
Some people aren't cat people, and its difficult to explain the special place a pet, and a cat can have in your heart. I've always had cats at home, and they become part of the family. Today, our old family cat had to be put down.
We've known it was coming for a long time, he was old. Very old. 18 and a half years, which was apparently in his 90's. He'd been going senile (I kid you not- the vet told us so) for a few years, forgetting when he'd eaten, where he was, where we were, and would howl untill he knew where you were again. He had tumours on his ears from sitting in the sun too much, and had lost several teeth. But he was still my cat, and I grew up with him.
We got Tim and his sister as soon as they were weaned, when I was 7. I have photos of me holding them as kittens. He was large and white, my big polar bear. Many a night he'd lie on my bed, and I'd wake up squashed next to the wall cos he'd stretched out so much! He was so laid back he was horizontal, but when we got our dog, he still made sure she knew he was the boss! He would sleep in the strangest of places, leaving a nicely made comfortable cat bed in favour of sleeping in my dads briefcase, my schoolbag, or on a pair of shoes. And being white, he'd gravitate towards any dark item of clothing, school uniform and my dads suit jacket being a favourite! Timmy was a cat who had his fair share of lives, from lying in the middle of the road playing with twigs to falling asleep inside the wheel arch of a visitors car in the sun, where we only just noticed him in time!
I'm going home tomorrow, and it will be odd that he's not in the house where he was such a part of the furniture. And yet, I know its for the best. In the end, it was the tumours on his ears that were bleeding so much, and the only option would have been to take the ear off. But he might not have survived the operation, and blood tests showed kidney failure which would have made recovery almost impossible. So he went, quietly and calmly, in my mums arms at the vets, purring and contented to the last. I miss him terribly, and will always remember him as a huge part of my childhood.
So long Timmy. Goodnight and God bless.
