There are some things you are never prepared for. The picture you see above is of my boy, Colonel. I know some of you are probably thinking that’s an odd name for a cat. Honestly, I’d have to agree with you! But he was my cat, my baby boy, and I called that name out loud for seventeen years of my life. I called for him when I was upset, I called for him when I was happy, I called for him to come inside. I called for him when I thought he was lost. I called for him to kiss the top of his head. To love him, to pamper him, to feed him. He was mine, and mine alone. There was no greater possession in my world that I valued greater than him. For seventeen years, my buddy kept me company. He was there to love me unconditionally. To lay against me in bed and purr, to dry my tears with his soft fur. He loved me like I loved him, enough to lick me if I scratched his back. For more times than I can count he tried to groom me awake with his rough tongue. Not always a comfortable feeling, mind you! The picture you see above is a cat. My cat. This was taken when he was just a baby in my grandparent’s house. That chair he’s sitting in was my grandfather’s, who was a Lieutenant Colonel in World War II, and where my boy fetched his namesake. My aunt rescues animals to rehabilitate them, her primary focus being cats. Seventeen years ago, that’s where he came into my life. She found him being shoved outside by a broom, a shopkeeper having had no interest in a stray kitten looking for food. He was abandoned by his mother and his litter of brothers and sisters. She took him in. I was so young. I remember begging my parents for one of the several she found and brought home. I spent an entire day with them as I visited my grandparents. I watched them play, bouncing all over the tiled floor. My boy was always off to the side, watching the others. He was a frightened little lump of fur. And I distinctly remember the time he approached two other tabby cats, only to be hissed and scratched at. Now, I was just a boy at the time… and this angered me, so I scared them away and picked him up and hugged him and later that night, driving home in the dark my mother and father finally agreed to take one. “I want the orange one,” I said. “The orange one,” my father repeated, reaffirming the idea of bringing him home. I remember the day we picked him up. We didn’t have a cat carrier, so he had free roam of the car. He clawed his way up my Dad’s arm, sat on his shoulder, roamed the backseats, daftly tried to jump out the windows thinking they were open. He was already proving to be a handful. By the end of the drive, I had him nestled in my coat fast asleep. I remember looking down and seeing his eyes closed, breathing softly within the crook of my arm. I remember how sick he got the first few weeks we had him. I remember the veterinarian telling us how close he had been to death, and had we waited another day, it would’ve been likely he would’ve passed on. But he didn’t, and he didn’t for seventeen years. I remember when we had him neutered and he was stubborn enough to try jumping. I remember him trying to clean himself and rolling straight into a trash bin. I fished him out laughing. I remember how he would lay beside me as I played video games on my Playstation. I remember how playful he was. I remember him catching countless mice, I remember how proud I was of him. I remember, despite being a house cat, the amount of times he would hatch an escape… only to be found crying outside our door to be let in after a downpour. I remember how he hated being picked up, but we loved to give him hugs and kisses, so we did it anyway. I remember how he would play with my dog’s tails before they passed on. My best friend and him had a love hate relationship, but he couldn’t help but admit how much of a character Colonel was. He was my buddy, my boy, and I loved him. He was there for me during the most trying times of my life. When my father committed suicide after killing my dog, he left Colonel for me. It was always a strange thought to think that the last living thing to have ever seen my father was this cat. My father, in his last moments, before going out with my pup to end their lives. When I moved from the house, we took him with us. My mother insisted we bring him to the veterinarians office to de-flea him. With all my emotions running high, I was frenzied. Angry. I didn’t want anyone touching him but me. I wanted him home, with me, nowhere else. I was so protective of him I paced nervously outside the door. The apartment I live in now became his home. He lived peacefully here, without any upset. He did have one last run with a mouse, though! As everything grows old, he did. He grew frail and skinny and once I came home to find him barely able to walk with his hind legs. I brought him upstairs into my room with everything he needed, I set up a place for him to sleep, where his food and water wasn’t far off. I even bought him a giant wood-stump just so he could climb his way up onto my bed, which had become far too tall for him to jump on. That was just last year. We brought him to the vet and they prescribed him some small medication and he recovered quickly! I had begun to worry that his life was coming to an end, and I wasn’t ready. For seventeen years, he was my boy. No matter how frail he got, he would always greet me at the door when I got home. He was always there, always happy to see me. He’d walk in circles and look up at me and meow. It was around this time he adopted the nickname ‘Furbones.’ I’d call him that jokingly whenever he did something silly. Just as I expected, though, things grew worse. His fur became matted in the back and he couldn’t groom himself. His tail grew oily and full of dirt. A tumor had begun to grow on his stomach, and his back legs were weak again. I began expecting the worst whenever I walked in to the apartment, that one day I’d find him in a corner, dead. It was two days ago he stopped eating. Two days ago he started panting, and his entire body heaved whenever he tried to breathe. I knew it was time, but I wasn’t ready. I was never ready. The past two nights I sat with him and I talked to him, I patted him, I told him one day when I was old and grey that I’d come and see him again. I told him how great his life had been, how I’d miss him, how I cherished him more than most people. I told him the story of how I found him, why I wanted him, who he was to me. And as I lay upon the floor and he sat over me, he looked into my eyes and listened to everything I said. The next night I sat with him again and yes, I cried. He came up to me and looked at me. And even though his back legs were weak, he reached out with his front paw to pat my arm. And then I balled. I broke down. I couldn’t handle it. I promised him everything was going to be alright and that he wouldn’t be suffering anymore. Today my boy was put to sleep due to possible heart failure. When we took him to the veterinarians office, he was extremely distressed. I had looked and looked for a mobile clinic to come see to him here, but none wanted to drive out this far. And none were close enough. I held myself together despite it all. I kissed him on top of his head, like I had always done, like I had done for seventeen years… and turning my head to walk away from him felt so leaden and heavy that I had to force myself to do it. I love you buddy, and I will never forget you. You weren’t just my cat, you were my best friend.
