Goodbye, Bandit
We lost a little friend on Friday. He will be badly missed.
Bandit was never meant to be ... he was the result of hasty, unplanned sex that took place when our un-spayed female cat, Penny, somehow got outside and had a bit of a wild night. We don't know who his father is.
When the kittens were born, we knew we couldn't keep them. We weren't going to keep any of them at all, in fact, until my wife fell in love with one of them. He was a skinny little kitten but he had a cute face ... he almost looked as if he were wearing a mask, earning him the name, "Bandit". After my wife named him, all of my pleas about our overabundance of cats fell on deaf ears, so the other kittens went on to good, loving homes, and Bandit stayed.
Kittens have boundless energy. Older cats like my big, tiger-striped old tomcat, Tony, generally don't. With the other kittens gone, Tony became bandit's favorite unwilling play partner. He would stalk Tony, jump on him, bat at his tail, catapult over him, smack him in the face with a paw ... anything to get attention. Tony reacted as W. C. Fields generally did ... you could almost hear him saying, "Go away, kid, ya bother me!" There were times when he'd clearly had enough, and he'd get genuinely angry, hissing and growling. This was great fun for Bandit, who could not take a hint. We had several big cat brawls where all one could see were feet and tails and heads flying in and out of a big ball of flying fur, just like in the cartoons.
Bandit ate, and grew, and eventually it became clear that his father must have been a very large cat. His face was unlike any cat I've ever seen, he had these big, puffy cheeks that we called "jowls", and it made him look really cute, like a kitten even after he'd grown quite huge. He eventually got bigger than Tony, so it's a good thing that they eventually developed a calmer, more friendly relationship. When his kitten energy subsided, Bandit had become a lot like Tony. He was mellow, friendly, and above all, supremely lazy.
Late last week, he seemed lazier than usual. My wife told me he'd gotten out and stayed out for a while earlier in the week. Thursday night he was throwing up, not feeling well, and we thought maybe he'd eaten something that didn't agree with him, or maybe got a hairball. Friday morning he seemed a bit better, walking around and not throwing up. I decided that if he wasn't significantly better Saturday morning, I'd take him to the vet. I stroked his fur, rubbed his tummy, and went off to work thinking he'd be fine.
Friday night, on my way home, I got the call. Yvette had come home and found him, and at first thought he was asleep, he looked so peaceful stretched out on Alexis' bedroom floor. Then she touched him, and he was cold and lifeless. I had a lot of trouble seeing the road as I drove the rest of the way home. We wrapped him in a blanket that had been his favorite one to lie on, said goodbye. I then anaesthetized myself with a large quantity of Kentucky bourbon.
The bourbon didn't keep me unconscious for very long, certainly not long enough to make the grief go away, so I didn't continue, though I've got that bottle nearby should its contents be needed. Saturday morning we delivered poor Bandit to the vet's office where he will be cremated. We brought him to the same room and laid him on the same table where my beloved siamese, dB, was euthanized a couple of years ago, and it was not a place I wanted to be. Worse, the incompetent, deaf, or merely stupid veternary assistant told the vet to come prepared for a euthanasia, and she entered the room with a syringe of poison in her hands. It was the wrong kind of deja vu for me and I didn't recover from that one for quite a while. I went off and spent a few hours just sitting in a park, and at one point I even managed to fall asleep on a park bench. This is something fair-skinned people should not do on sunny days. Ouch.
The pain's begun to dull now, as evidenced by my having an appetite this morning for the first time since Friday. Losing pets is hard, and I've lost far too many lately. Losing dB, who'd been my friend and roommate for over 12 years when I was single, was the hardest, but it's never easy. Bandit was only a year old. He should have had a lot more years ahead of him. We all blame ourselves, playing the what-if game. What if we'd taken him to the vet sooner? What if he hadn't gotten outside? The vet even wanted to do a necropsy to find out why he died, but he looked so beautiful and peaceful that it didn't seem right to let them cut him up.
Bandit, my friend, I'm sorry, and I'll miss you.
Bandit was never meant to be ... he was the result of hasty, unplanned sex that took place when our un-spayed female cat, Penny, somehow got outside and had a bit of a wild night. We don't know who his father is.
When the kittens were born, we knew we couldn't keep them. We weren't going to keep any of them at all, in fact, until my wife fell in love with one of them. He was a skinny little kitten but he had a cute face ... he almost looked as if he were wearing a mask, earning him the name, "Bandit". After my wife named him, all of my pleas about our overabundance of cats fell on deaf ears, so the other kittens went on to good, loving homes, and Bandit stayed.
Kittens have boundless energy. Older cats like my big, tiger-striped old tomcat, Tony, generally don't. With the other kittens gone, Tony became bandit's favorite unwilling play partner. He would stalk Tony, jump on him, bat at his tail, catapult over him, smack him in the face with a paw ... anything to get attention. Tony reacted as W. C. Fields generally did ... you could almost hear him saying, "Go away, kid, ya bother me!" There were times when he'd clearly had enough, and he'd get genuinely angry, hissing and growling. This was great fun for Bandit, who could not take a hint. We had several big cat brawls where all one could see were feet and tails and heads flying in and out of a big ball of flying fur, just like in the cartoons.
Bandit ate, and grew, and eventually it became clear that his father must have been a very large cat. His face was unlike any cat I've ever seen, he had these big, puffy cheeks that we called "jowls", and it made him look really cute, like a kitten even after he'd grown quite huge. He eventually got bigger than Tony, so it's a good thing that they eventually developed a calmer, more friendly relationship. When his kitten energy subsided, Bandit had become a lot like Tony. He was mellow, friendly, and above all, supremely lazy.
Late last week, he seemed lazier than usual. My wife told me he'd gotten out and stayed out for a while earlier in the week. Thursday night he was throwing up, not feeling well, and we thought maybe he'd eaten something that didn't agree with him, or maybe got a hairball. Friday morning he seemed a bit better, walking around and not throwing up. I decided that if he wasn't significantly better Saturday morning, I'd take him to the vet. I stroked his fur, rubbed his tummy, and went off to work thinking he'd be fine.
Friday night, on my way home, I got the call. Yvette had come home and found him, and at first thought he was asleep, he looked so peaceful stretched out on Alexis' bedroom floor. Then she touched him, and he was cold and lifeless. I had a lot of trouble seeing the road as I drove the rest of the way home. We wrapped him in a blanket that had been his favorite one to lie on, said goodbye. I then anaesthetized myself with a large quantity of Kentucky bourbon.
The bourbon didn't keep me unconscious for very long, certainly not long enough to make the grief go away, so I didn't continue, though I've got that bottle nearby should its contents be needed. Saturday morning we delivered poor Bandit to the vet's office where he will be cremated. We brought him to the same room and laid him on the same table where my beloved siamese, dB, was euthanized a couple of years ago, and it was not a place I wanted to be. Worse, the incompetent, deaf, or merely stupid veternary assistant told the vet to come prepared for a euthanasia, and she entered the room with a syringe of poison in her hands. It was the wrong kind of deja vu for me and I didn't recover from that one for quite a while. I went off and spent a few hours just sitting in a park, and at one point I even managed to fall asleep on a park bench. This is something fair-skinned people should not do on sunny days. Ouch.
The pain's begun to dull now, as evidenced by my having an appetite this morning for the first time since Friday. Losing pets is hard, and I've lost far too many lately. Losing dB, who'd been my friend and roommate for over 12 years when I was single, was the hardest, but it's never easy. Bandit was only a year old. He should have had a lot more years ahead of him. We all blame ourselves, playing the what-if game. What if we'd taken him to the vet sooner? What if he hadn't gotten outside? The vet even wanted to do a necropsy to find out why he died, but he looked so beautiful and peaceful that it didn't seem right to let them cut him up.
Bandit, my friend, I'm sorry, and I'll miss you.