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**Stormmee**

I am sorry, Lee
Mac Cool wrote in message
...
Goodbye to my Friend

Today my friend went to sleep. He has been having troubles these last
few weeks with his heart and today a clot broke loose and paralyzed his
back legs. Deeply saddened that our fight was over I took him to the pet
hospital where he laid gently in my wife's arms with his head resting on
my lap until he fell asleep. So gentle was his passing that I was the
last to realize he was gone, at last he was out of pain. I still agonize
over the decision. In my heart I know I did everything possible to keep
the cat he was, alive. The last few days he was slipping away, not just
his body but his essence, that part of him that made him my friend.
Putting him to sleep was the humane decision, intellectually I know this
and in my heart I felt that he truly would have agreed if he could have
spoken but I could see in his eyes as I lay petting him this morning,
that he was asking for my help. Help me, take the pain away. So I did
the last thing I could do for you my friend, I took away your pain.

Tommy came into our lives when he was about seven months old. My
daughter and I went to a cat adoption fair at Petsmart. Among all the
animals one stood out, a young male kitten hiding under the newspapers
in his cage as he peeked at the strangers surrounding him. Most people
ignored him, who wants a scaredy cat and when a few did stop to look he
would cringe under his flimsy protection from the world. But something
different happened when my daughter approached the cage, for the first
time he crawled out from under his newspaper and brushed against the
cage; his new family had arrived and he didn't have to hide anymore.

We learned that Tommy was rescued from a trailer park where he had been
abandoned, we learned that he had a very difficult kittenhood, that he
had been locked away and nearly starved, that without a mother he had
taught himself how to survive. Tommy would carry the scars from that
time the rest of his life and he would become very upset at any closed
doors in the house, except for the exterior doors, he had no desire to
go out there. Tommy also was careful to never miss a meal and it was a
few years before he became comfortable with an empty food bowl. His fear
of starving showed as he grew to be an enormous thirty-four pound tom
cat. Strangely, he was never graceful even as a kitten. I'll never
forget the time he was sitting on the edge of my desk surveying the
household and for no reason slipped and fell in the trash can. His ego
was bruised more than his body. When we found Tommy at the adoption fair
he had no whiskers, he had been attacked by another cat who had chewed
his whiskers off, perhaps this made him clumsy.

My daughters never really took to Tommy and neither did my wife. To
them, he was the grumpy old cat who would took swipes at their legs as
they walked past, never breaking skin but reminding them who had the
claws. Tommy never liked kids and he didn't like girls in particular,
the younger they were the less he liked them and they were rarely
properly deferential toward his status as king of the house; because to
Tommy you see, it was his house, his rules. Eventually he grew to
challenge me, one day as he lay in my bathroom sink I tried to shoo him
out and he took a swipe at me with his claws. As he recovered from his
quick flight across the room he must have decided that second place was
good enough as from that moment on he became my loyal friend. After his
attempted coup d'état failed Tommy followed me from room to room always
flopping down near my feet. Sometimes he would nearly trip me when he
would silently flop down at my heels as I stood at the kitchen counter.
When I left the house Tommy would lay in the window and watch for my
return. He would always be sitting near the door waiting for me as I
entered. At nighttime he would jump on the bed and flop himself down on
my chest nearly cutting off my air while he lay with his nose inches
from mine, purring and blowing his stinky breath in my face. Careful
though, if I dared breath in his face I would get the look that says,
'this is not how things work' and he would get up and lay at my feet.
Tommy was the softest animal I've ever petted and people loved to touch
him. I used to joke that when he died I would make a rug from his pelt
to throw in the floor and it would be like he never left, just cheaper.
As he lay asleep in my arms today I remembered my jest and would have
maybe smiled but his beautiful fur was ruined where the doctors had
shaved his side, his neck and his paw last week in order to save his
life. The dumb things you think of and it made me that much sadder that
he had suffered yet more indignities for so little gain. People comfort
themselves with thoughts that their loved ones go to heaven and they are
up there, happy and looking down watching over us. I so much wish I
could believe something like that it would ease the emptiness in my
heart, it would relieve the anguish each time I look down expecting to
see my friend and he is not there.

Tommy lived the life he wanted to live. Despite a rough start to life
and beating odds that nearly killed him, he lived happily, eating well,
being my happy loyal friend to the end. I didn't judge him and he didn't
judge me, we were just happy being. I hope my friend that you understand
what I did and that a dignified death was the best I could do. Goodbye.
I miss you.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2...ykittengw1.jpg
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/4...en07001la9.jpg

Tommy
2002 - 5/31/2008

Thank you to the people that offered advice and support.