Goodbye, Misty

As my daughter says, 'He's the boy cat with the girlie name.' Misty came to us via my in-laws when he was a couple of months old. My father-in-law told me it was a girl. I had no reason to look there. The first visit to the vet - boy (and I mean boy!) was I embarrassed. That was at least 13 years ago.

He was built like a mini polar bear. All muscle. He was a great hunter. He was never really accepted by our other cats, who literally shunned him, but he made a friend a couple of years ago when we adopted our dog, Abby. Abby would allow Misty to eat her food before she did and sleep on her flannel blanket every night.

Oh, Misty enjoyed sleeping in all of our beds. He was like Goldilocks. And whatever part of your bed he slept on, he stayed fixed right there no matter how much we moved or twitched our legs and feet. He was kind of aloof, but a big love. If you reached down to pat him, he was your buddy for the rest of the night.

Sadly, our neighbors found him this evening, apparently paralyzed in his lower limbs. We brought him to a 24 hour vet hospital and we learned that he had heart disease and a clot broke loose and he was quickly dying. We made the difficult decision to let him go and not have to suffer any pain.

As I cradled his head in my hands and softly rubbed between his ears, he looked me right in the eyes. I thanked him for being such a loving and loyal member of our family for such a long time. I told him that he was a very good boy and that we would all miss him very much. I was with him when he passed, petting him and just loving him.

Good bye, Misty. We'll never forget you.