I'd wanted a cat my entire life. I was the kid who used to bring home strays and try to convince my allergy-ridden father that we HAD to keep them. We never did, obviously. So when I moved into my own place, I was happy that my roommates were agreeable about getting a pet. Fate stepped in one day when visiting a friend- to his surprise, his cat had just had a kitten. That's right, A kitten. Just one. When I laid eyes on this tiny, light orange kitten who more resembled a baby squirrel, it was love at first sight. About a month later, he was mine, and we named him Oliver, but mostly called him Ollie unless he was being bad (which was often). Over the years he acquired so many other names - Ols, Senor Pantalones, Ollers, Mr. Pants, Tiny Pants, and so on.
He was a holy effing terror for a good year and a half. He got into evvvverything. He would climb the screen doors and was constantly jumping on the kitchen counter looking for crumbs. He would attack at any given moment- forget jiggling your leg or dangling your hand over an armrest. Everything was a toy worth gnawing on to him.
He didn't really mellow out until my now-husband moved in and we brought home Stewie, a tiny, bright orange and white furball. Suddenly he had a friend to terrorize. None of his other bad habits stopped, like the jumping on the counter thing, but he at least calmed down quite a bit and stopped attacking us. He actually turned into a gentle, sweet, snuggly little lap cat.
At his largest, Ollie weighed around 8 pounds. As he grew older, so did his medical conditions. He was diagnosed with IBD and was constantly having accidents around the house. I knew he couldn't help it but that didn't make it any easier when I had to clean up the stinky messes. He lost weight, gained it back, lost it again, until he finally seemed to settle in at around 5-6 pounds. We tried everything to control his problems- he was on a special diet, a probiotic, an antibiotic, a steriod, and monthly B-12 shots. I know that we prolonged his life by keeping him on this routine for so long.
Last week, about a month away from his tenth birthday, I could tell Ollie was starting to give up his fight. He couldn't keep any food down, finally losing his appetite completely over the weekend. He did nothing but sleep or lay in his little loaf-of-bread pose. I had to physically carry him to the bathroom faucet to drink and tried giving him all his favorite foods- chicken, tuna, turkey- and he'd take a bite or two and walk away. All he really wanted to do was snuggle, so I kept him by my side as much as I possibly could.
Yesterday afternoon the vet called with the bad news. There was a mass of some sort causing his organs to shift and stretch out. He wasn't sure if it was a tumor or enlarged liver, but either way it wasn't good. We could do an ultrasound to find out what it was for sure, but the end result was not going to change. Ollie was too frail and sickly to go through any sort of treatments. It was time to let him go.
We got to visit with him for a while before the procedure, and when the vet tech brought him in the room it was the first time I'd heard him purr in days. It broke my heart into a million pieces, but at the same time he knew he was loved. I stayed with him until he went to sleep forever, letting him snuggle in my lap just like he always did.
The house seems so, so strange without him there. I'll miss him following me around, seeing him basking in the sunbeams on the kitchen counter in the morning and the sliding glass door in the evening. I'll miss the light weight of him curled up on my legs at night. I'll miss the sound of his rattley purr when he'd nuzzle his blanket, still so much like a kitten. I'll miss him trying to snuggle in on my lap, even though it's blocked by my lap top. I'll even miss yelling at him to get down from the counter and to get out of the garbage.
You were one in a million, Ollie. You'll be in my heart forever.
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