I’m so sad to say that my beloved cat Random died last night, sometime before I got home from work. I found him near my desk chair, where (in one house or another) we’d spent countless hours together over the last 14 years.
He’d been sick for some time, with thyroid, kidney and heart problems. We’d been medicating him and giving him IV fluids but in the last short while he had been losing yet more weight and getting steadily worse.
Random and me
The night before he died, when I went to bed, just like always he barely waited for me to settle before he climbed a bit unsteadily onto my pillow, purring and kneading, turned a few times and curled up. That night he ended up lying with his fur up my nose and his tiny, bony elbow on my face. I let him. I’m glad I did.
When he died he weighed only about six pounds, but the hole he’ll leave in my life will be so much greater. A huge percentage of my last decade and a half, both waking and sleeping, has been spent with Random either sitting somewhere upon my body or somewhere underfoot and I have no words to describe how much I’ll miss him; his Siamese opera singing; his paw patting my cheek; his terrible breath when he insisted on licking my nose. I know Vanessa’s going to miss him too.
Random was the best cat I ever met, and the most chock-full of love. As cats and humans go, we loved each other well.
G’bye, my best furry buddy. I wish you could have lived forever.
