So Long, Farewell

A few weeks ago, we bid farewell to our cat of 12 years, Colonel Sherman T. Potter.

I adopted Colonel from the Humane Society when he was about a year old. I chose him because he reached through the gate of the kennel and tapped me on the shoulder while I had my back to him. When I took him out of the kennel to "meet" him, he burrowed his head against me. There was no way I could leave the shelter without him. He was mine.

I didn't have any children, and I was experiencing a bout of infertility at the time, so the Colonel quickly became "my living thing." I took him on trips to the cabin. I taught him to play fetch. He slept on my pillow (I didn't encourage this, but I quickly learned that he was a very affectionate and cuddly cat, and I was never going to be able to banish him at night). He followed me around the house and nuzzled my calves every time I went to the bathroom (awkward!)

For a long time, he was my baby. Then I had Nicky, and I wasn't sure how Colonel would respond. I didn't think he'd like sharing the attention, but Colonel and Nicky adored each other.

Colonel was so patient with Nicky, and for the rest of his time with us, he was primarily Nicky's cat. They were best buddies for almost nine years.

Colonel's health hadn't been the greatest over the past two years, and a few weeks ago, he started urinating blood throughout the house, and within a few hours of the first trace of blood in his urine, things went downhill fast. 

 

I fought a huge moral dilemma for 24 hours. I called the Humane Society and asked them a million questions. Finally, I made a decision to have him put to sleep. I felt extremely guilty, and I went back on my choice a few times, but then I called the Humane Society one more time, and that solidified things. Unfortunately, Nicky overheard some of the conversation before I was able to talk to him about it. When I got off the phone, Nicky was hiding downstairs crying. I went and found him, and we had a nice long talk about what was going on with the cat. I told him that we should try and give Colonel the best last day we could.

Nicky went and found Colonel upstairs, and called him to follow. Watching that dang cat following Nicky around the house during his final hours broke my heart!

Nicky spent a lot of time petting the cat. I brushed him and told him what a good cat he'd been (he really was so so good).

When Scotty came home from work, we said our final good-bye to Colonel, and I took the kids for an outing so Scotty could take Colonel in to be put to sleep. Scotty acted so tough about the whole thing, but when he got home, Nicky and Daisy greeted him with sniffles and red eyes. That broke him.

When Scotty took him to the Humane Society and reported Colonel's health situation to them, they told him that Colonel likely would have needed surgery but wouldn't have survived it. That helped ease my guilt a little bit.

It was weird coming home to an empty house. We only lived in our house for about two months before we adopted Colonel, so we've never really been there without him. This is the first time I've been solely responsible for an animal's life. I had pets come and go in my growing years, but when they passed, it was my parents who took care of all the details. It was a huge, new responsibility for Scotty and me.

We're still going through that phase where we forget he's gone. We hear noises and think it's him. We think he's on our bed, and we see things out of the corner of our eyes that turn out to not be the cat. Colonel was an amazing pet - patient with our children and friendly to our guests. He will definitely be missed! 

Bon voyage, Colonel!