We had just walked in the door, it was hot, I had worked late. I wasn’t in the mood to pick it up the phone (land line) when it rang. It’s just family that calls that line anyway.
Turns out it was my mother, she had bad news for me. She had to put Angel to sleep today.
I don’t know what year our neighbors got Angel. I believe their daughter brought him home because he’d been hanging around her workplace, and they were generally willing to take in more outdoor cats, they always had 3-4 of them.
My favorite cat they ever had was Brendel. He was a Maine Coon that I got close to, but he was hit by a car. When he died I was hearbroken, it took me weeks to get over. That convinced me never to have an outdoor cat.
Then there was Schroder. He was an orange cat that had quite a lot of spirit. I spent a lot of time with him, and one time he even brought us a dead bird (which horrified me, I hate birds, even dead ones, but you know how cats are, they bring presents, but it’s the thought that counts %D). Schroder was great.
When Angel came on the scene him and Schroder didn’t get along. Angel quickly became a friend of ours, Schroder would still come over too, but more than once we caught them hissing at each other in the yard. After a few months they started fighting in our neighbors house, and then started spraying (they were both neutered). They needed to find another place for Angel to crash at night.
So we took him in. If our landlord asked he was our neighbor’s outdoor cat that visited. He lived with us for a couple years before I moved away. As far as animal-human relations go I was never that close to Angel, we shared a house and a family, but we never warmed up much. I devoted most of my time to my chinchillas.
When I moved out I wasn’t too sad to leave him behind, he was really my mother’s cat, and my sister Annette’s cat.
I saw him a few times after moving out. When I came to visit I always spent some time snuggling.
He was always a fat cat, and developed diabetes when he was about 10 years old, which is not unusual in older obese, cats. My mother was able to get him on a lower fat diet, which made him better for a while, even got to stop taking insulin shots for a while. But I guess over the past few months he hasn’t been doing well, the diabetes struck badly again, and he began losing a lot of weight.
In the message my mother left on the answering machine she said he was down to almost 12 pounds, that’s about half what he normally was. He was so very sick, putting him to sleep was the best thing for him.
Can’t help feeling sad though, he was part of that old life I had with my family.
Rest in peace Angel.