Our cat, Leo, died today. I had four cats when I started this blog, and now the only one left is Leo's sister and litter mate, Annie. Leo lived a good, long life. He would have been 20 years old at the beginning of September.
We got Leo and Annie at a Petsmart adoption day. I wasn't sure we needed two more cats (they wanted them to be adopted together), but I finally agreed to take them. The rest of the family were thrilled. Leo and Wally were still at home and were very excited about the idea of two more cats joining Lucy and Lucky. Lucy and Lucky weren't too happy with the new arrivals but eventually adjusted.
Leo and Annie were around 4 months old when we got them. They had been in foster care since a very young age until they could be fixed. The story we were told was that they were born to a barn cat and the only two surviving from a five-kitten litter. Supposedly, a young child in the family had killed the others.
We used to call Leo our puppy. He adored Ward and followed him wherever he went. When Ward would come home from work, Leo would come from wherever he was and jump up and greet Ward - very much like a dog. Leo was more mellow than his sister and loved to be held. When he was being held, he rewarded you with the biggest purr.
Leo was also laid back and didn't always seem to be the smartest one of the bunch. But he was much brighter than he let on. He was the only one of our cats who figured out how to get over the barrier we installed in the basement to keep the cats out of Theo's workshop. We found him repeatedly on the other side, and we couldn't figure out how he accomplished it. So we would rearrange things and make things higher and tighter, but we would find him on the other side again. Repeatedly. We never once figured out how he did it. Eventually, we gave up and took the barrier down. Luckily, he didn't play with any of Theo's things.
Leo, you will be missed.
I know that this is part of owning a pet. They don't live forever. But this part sucks.
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| Leo is the one standing up. |
