John (Written October 16, 2010)

Animals are not people, but when you have them close they can become much like children to you. We have over the years rescued many cats who would have lived precarious lives as feral creatures otherwise.

Often these found friends were new born kittens. So it was a dozen years ago that we took in Amber, Ridge, Thorn and John. The first three were named after characters in a soap opera. John was named after John Lennon.

That is John sitting comfortably in the rocking chair.

John died last night at approximately 10:30 PM.

He had been in the hall earlier wanting to go in the bathroom, which was unusual behavior. (I believe he knew the end was near and wanted some private space.) I let him do so. We have been keeping the kitten there overnight and there was some of the kitten's food and water in there. John ate a bit of the food. The next time I looked in he was sleeping peacefully in the little basket-bed my wife had gotten for the kitten.

Later I was in the bedroom watching the playoff between the Rangers and Yankees. Around ten o'clock I heard some strange sounds from the bathroom and went to check on John. He was laying on a small rug and it was obvious he had thrown up a few times. He was kind of whimpering and didn't make any move to get up.

My wife came and took him into the living room and held him in her lap until he finally passed about a half hour later. (Yesterday was my wife's birthday, not a very pleasant ending.)

We were glad he didn't hang on any longer for something was paining him.

John was a very sweet and gentle cat. He was suffering from cancer and had developed a tumor on his right hind leg that rendered that leg somewhat useless. But he persisted to get around. He would often look for me to come into the living room in the evenings and then would lay in my lap as long as I stayed. He was getting very thin, but he ate well until the end.

This is always the hard part of caring for animals. They live much shorter lives than we and you constantly go through these departures. It is hard every time.

We loved you, John. Rest in peace.