Max
Well, Maxwell Edison, the eldest of our cats - who as a kitten, his eyes not get opened, came into our lives when some unknown ass threw him and his siblings out of the window of a car speeding down PA Route 13 one night in April of 1999 and my wife pulled over to try to save what she could - died today.
Close to death more than once in those early days, he grew into a scrappy little furry fireplug of a guy. A generally solid, alpha cat who took no guff from his adoptive brothers in the years since. He was finally taken down by a few more medical reversals on top of his age, including a very recent stroke that aged him terribly. Even before this he'd been having obvious joint problems over the past year and had become a heat junkie, be it moving around the house to follow the direct sunlight all day or wanting to climb up on and rest on one of us whenever possible.
Much sadness around the place. Max imprinted on us in the way such cats will when people are their first sight, and that tends to be a two-way street.
These things get to me, which is why I'd tended to shy away from taking on pets and other close associations.
I'll eventually select a picture or two to add to this, but it probably won't be right away. I just wanted to note the day.
(Despite what the template says, there's no more to this post than the above.)
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Comments
I don't want to take anything from anybody, but when I went through the same thing a year and a half ago (with cats I got under similar circumstances, except they came by pregnant mama cat) and one of them died, Tammy passed along the thought that your cats knew love, which is a lot better than if you hadn't helped them. That has helped me so many times, and I hope it provides some comfort in the times to come.
I gave my mama girl Selina extra kitty pettings after reading your post. Her son JoJo don't want anything to do with me until meal times.
I was stuck at work at the time -- we had a follow-up vet appointment set for the afternoon, so I was going to headed home a little after 1 anyway -- but as the morning wore on it became clear that was going to be pointless. Wife and kids made him comfortable, talked to him and combed his fur until well after he breathed his last.
In the end that was a much better way for him to go out than would have been the likely case, scared and on an examination table, as we fully expected the vet's advice would have been euthenasia.