Scooter

Last night Scooter passed on. I don’t think I have paused to mention him, or any of the other 5 cats for more than it takes to shoo one off my desk. Scooter couldn’t hop onto my desk. He couldn’t pounce, he couldn’t join the nightly cat stampede(well, he could, but for him it was a slither), couldn’t use the litter box. When he was just barely out of the super secret kitten stash, two of my kids were having an argument involving the slamming of the bathroom door, and he got caught in the middle. Despite cortisone shots and some working with him, he didn’t fully regain the use of his hind legs. When he got bigger, he used them a little to push as he dragged himself across the floor. Since he couldn’t use the litter box, and I’m not entirely sure he knew he was doing it, we were constantly cleaning up after him. He got bathed almost daily, because he only cleaned the parts he consciously used. In short, he was challenging to care for. My house smelled like a litter box, and I hated it. I kept asking my husband to put him down, to take him to the vet and put him out of his misery. Who was I kidding? He wasn’t miserable, I was.

He more than paid back this attention by being the absolutely sweetest cat around. When hubby and I were at our desks, he would wind himself around our ankles and purr, sometimes switching off between us several times. When the kids were on the floor in the living room he would come up and play with them. When the kids camped out in the living room for the night, he would find room next to the youngest and sleep there. He chased bits of paper and strings more enthusiastically than any of the other cats did. He would even find a way to sit next to you on the couch if no one else was on it. Yeah, and all I could do was complain about how he smelled and worry about the next cat bomb my feet would find.

Last night, hubby came into the room to tell me he had died. The last couple days Scooter had been listless, sleeping a lot, not moving far from the food dish. I think I remember hearing him hacking, but I thought nothing of it. Hubby says he had done it more than once in the past three days. Sounds to me and him that he found a bone and it got stuck. I was sad to hear it, but it wasn’t enough to keep me awake. Now I am sitting here at my work computer, boo hoo-ing over him. As much as he was a pain in the butt to take care of, damn it but he had a great heart. I’m going to miss that cat.