A sad day...

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I wrote this JOURNAL back in March. But I thought I had accidentally deleted it while working on it. I didn't feel like re-writing it so that was, I thought, that. BUT to my surprise I found it today in my STASH section. Apparently it had been automatically saved and I just did not know it. So here it is now. It's a bit sad so be forewarned.

Today was weird.

I had some car problems that kept me from going to work this morning. I got those ironed...at least temporarily. But I ended up with the rest of the day off. When I returned home, my wife asked me if I wanted to take our lovely old cat "Max" to the vet. Max has been loosing weight recently. He has never been a big eater. Just eating what he wanted or needed and has always had a nice trim figure compared to some of our other cats who really love their groceries. Max's spine has started to show and I knew it was not a good sign. I had thought of taking him to the vet but just hadn't gotten around to it. 

Now Max is 19 years old! It's hard to believe we've had him so long.  How Max came to live with us is kind of an interesting story. You see, Max himself decided that he was going to live with my wife and I. We returned form a weekend grocery forage  and as I carried groceries to the front door I hear my wife say:"Who are YOU!" in a voice reserved exclusively for babies and cute animals. I look to see just WHO she is talking to and I see this black and white cat sitting on the porch like he has been waiting for us.  He "meowed" at us and as we opened the door, before we could do anything he ran inside. He immediately trotted down the hall to the bathroom, located the cat litter box, and used it! It was like he had always lived here.  When finished he came back to where we were and again acted like he had always lived there. Well as cute as he was, we already had two cats and we figured he MUST belong to someone in the neighborhood. So I scooped him up and went door to door trying to find his home. Well after knocking on a few doors someone told me he belonged to the women who lived right next door to me. I then knocked on her door,  she answered and then looked a bit surprised to see the cat. She explained to me that he was SORT of her cat. She had taken him in from three teenage girls who lived across the street from me. They had supposedly found him somewhere down in the San Fernando Valley, apparently all on his own. He was more or less full grown and very friendly. The teen sisters loved him and took him back home to the desert, only to have their father refuse to let them keep him.  The teen sisters took him to my next door neighbor and asked if she could take him. She already had another cat and seemed a likely candidate. She agreed and named him "Mr. Perkins". This was the second home he was to find on our street. Unfortunately the OTHER cat of the house did NOT like this new intruder. So my neighbor took to leaving Mr. Perkins outside with food and water. There was a large yard for him to investigate, but apparently Mr. Perkins had higher aspirations.  So he decide that the wife and I might be good people for him to permit to house and feed him.  Since my neighbor could not really give him the home that she would like to, she asked me if I would like to take him.
So with Mr. Perkins still in my arms I returned home and told my wife the tale. We immediately decided to keep him. But my wife was not crazy about the name Mr. Perkins. With a little thought she said that he looked like a "Max". And I then suggested perhaps his full name could be "Mr. Max Perkins", expanding on the name our neighbor had given him.  I did not immediately remember that there was a country western musician who goes by that name. But I doubted he'd take legal action, and that became Max's full name. But we always referred to him as Max. 
Max was sweet, smart, and lovable as he could be. One of the friendliest cats I have ever known. And unintentionally funny of some occasions. He once tried to investigate what was cooking in a sauce pan on the gas range, he singed his chest hairs on the burner and in what surely could only be great surprise, raced through the living room where I was watching TV. All I saw was a flash of black and white whiz through the room, leaving a smoking contrail behind him. I shouted to my wife:"I think Max is on fire...". Well we located him and while he was a bit shook up, he was unharmed, only loosing a little fur to the blue flame. But he was more careful around the stove after that.  Another time he tried to climb inside a plastic grocery bag only to get his head and one leg stuck in one of the carrying handles. Max panicked and did another crazy dash through the living room, up on the plant shelf, down off the plant shelf and a circuit of the kitchen, taking along anything that might happen to latch onto the plastic bag as he went. It was a symphony of clatters and crashes before he finally ended up under the bed where we found him and got the bag off of him. Again, all I saw was a flash of black and white wearing a white cape. My wife and I referred to him as "Super Cat" for a while after that.  There are other cute cat stories that took place over the ensuing nineteen years. Several more cats later, Max was still the king of the brood.  And after our original cat Allegra passed away a few years ago, Max was the oldest by far. Always the smartest and the sweetest.  But as good as the 19 years had been to him, they took their toll.
Recently Max had been loosing weight and being more lazy than usual. We partially attribute this to his age, but we knew he was getting just TOO thin. We talked last week about taking him to the vet the coming weekend. We didn't manage to get around to it on Saturday of Sunday...and maybe we really didn't want to take him for fear of what we might learn. But today's surprise day off made it hard to find an excuse not to take him. So we did. 
Well, the news was not good. Poor Max seemed to be suffering from kidney failure. Loss of weight, low temperature, and at his advanced age(92 in human years)the vet said he was only going to get worse and the best thing was probably to put him down. I had left the house completely prepared for bad news. Or at least I thought I was. The wife and I talked about it. And decided for Max it was probably best. Practical and logical...we agreed and once that die was cast. Well... then...I kind of lost it. Yes Mr. Stoic Manly-Man found tears rolling down his cheeks, and I almost completely lost the power of speech. It hit me very hard.  Over the years I have had to put down a couple of our cats, but none of them effected me like Max did. Max was really special.
We opted to stay with him during his crossing over. It was very hard. Once that first injection took place I knew there was no turning back. It was tearful, but we didn't want it any other way. My wife held Max and she cried almost as much as I did. Finally, good old Max passed away.  We took him home, wrapped him in a piece of fabric and buried him under the tree in the back yard. Max was a great cat and he is already missed. And even NOW a month later, thinking of Max brings tears to my eyes.Max
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unicornia79's avatar
*reaches 4 hand* I'm sorry.