A eulogy to Captain. Even if he never could read.

(the night we brought him home)

Yesterday, we made the difficult decision to put Captain down. I took him to the vet in the morning to drop him off for what we thought would be a tooth extraction. The vet called shortly after to say that he had found a mass in Captain's abdomen during a pre-op check and wanted to do an x-ray. He asked if it were possible that Captain had eaten something foreign and I immediately thought of all of Mallory's Squinkies that he has chewed up, swallowed and then later regurgitated. It sounded like this was what we were dealing with...

(hanging out in the fridge in my old apartment)

But the vet then called again to say the x-ray revealed something much larger than a Squinkies, and given how fast it was growing, how it was already starving Captain to death, and how he was also dealing with his thyroid issue plus the heart murmur he's had all his life... there was not much hope, and no time to waste in making a decision. So I slipped out of work early to be with Captain one last time.

(Captain's first Christmas - in the tree at Bruce and Dana's)

Breaking the news to the kids was hard. Mallory cried a little at first but seemed to quickly get over it, whereas Liam started out stoically but then had a big cry at bedtime. As for me, I cried pretty much all day from the time I heard the news, including an hour-long stint at my desk while I tried to figure out what to do (do we bring Captain home for one more night so the kids can say goodbye?

(loving the unpacking on Elizabeth Street)

Ultimately we decided not to, and it was the right call. Captain hated being in the car so forcing another couple of trips on him didn't seem fair. And, he was already on an IV for fluids at the vet's. I thought it was nice that he didn't have to take another jab in the end, just another drug added to his drip.)

(posing in the newly-reno'd kitchen on Elizabeth Street)

Captain was with us for exactly twelve years. We adopted him in November 2000, when he was roughly 10-12 weeks old (he was a stray, so can't say exactly.) I decided to get a cat (with Chad's blessing - this was less than a year before we got married) and we held out for an orange and white tabby. We finally heard there was one available at the vet's office in Wallaceburg, so we drove out one night after work to check him out. There were a brother and a sister in the cage with him, but Captain was the one for us.

(enjoying leftovers from Chad's 30th birthday ice cream cake)

We drove home with him on my lap and the minute we got him into my apartment, he ran and hid under my bed for the rest of the night. But it didn't take long for him to warm up to us and become part of the family.

(helping me study for my business degree - loving the desk lamp)

Captain was with us through our wedding and moving into our first house on Elizabeth Street. He was there as we fixed that house up and gutted the kitchen. He caught the bats that flew down the chimney until we finally figured out where they were coming in and plugged the hole up.

(waiting for baby - right before Liam was born)

He was there, however reluctantly, when Liam was born and then Mallory, and when we bought the lot on Braemar and eventually moved there. He was there through a lot with us. It will be strange not to have him going forward.

(hanging out with Chad)

He was a bad cat in so many ways, knocking over glasses of milk and jumping onto the counters and bolting out the door if we left it ajar too long; but today I would have been happy to shove another pill down his throat or stop him from rummaging in the garbage for scraps from dinner. I suppose we are all doing a little bit better today as it all sinks in. Mallory came home from school with this awesome picture she drew in memorial:

 ...and now she is asking when we can go to the pet store to get a new cat. We were at the store a few weeks ago and she saw a kitten there who looks exactly like Captain, and she wants to get him. And name him Captain. And she is worried that if we put it off any longer, he'll be gone. And then what will we do, because we have a house with a cat door built in, and what if there is no cat to use it?

(as an itty bitty kitty)

We may well get another cat someday, but for right now, I am still too wrapped up in my first Captain. He was a loyal friend and he will be sadly missed for a long time to come.