Yesterday I had to make the decision to have one of my best friends put to sleep. His name was Romeo.
Romeo showed up on the front porch as a juvenile cat (about a year old) back in 2011 (I can’t believe it’s been that long), and immediately worried me because he had a runny nose. I had never seen that in a cat before, and I knew he needed to be brought in immediately to get checked out. It turned out to be a sinus infection/allergies and he literally mirrored my famous allergies as we were always sick at the same time of year.
He came at a time when we were down to three cats, all three were aging and all three would be dead within next year (feline leukemia for two, sinus infection for the third). He was young and beautiful and charming. So full of life.
We bonded because he needed to be quarantined from the other cats for months due to their leukemia. I’d take breaks between shifts to devote to him. He was so smart. I could put a mouse toy (his “babies”), anywhere in the room (no matter how high or how low), and he’d knock them off whatever they were sitting on and take them and hide them downstairs in the basement (when we move one day, we’ll find them all since they were never found).
Famously, the first week he was out of quarantine, he stole my glasses. I’m not sure what he did with them. The next day, following it up by “making it snow” by spreading potato flakes up and down the hallway (my mom kept them in a plastic bag on the counter, not sure how he knew that). My parents had to buy me new glasses, and the day after the glasses were ready, my old glasses appeared in the basement.
He’d sleep (as in the picture) like he was Superman flying over Metropolis. He’d give you “Eskimo kisses” (rubbing noses) when he’d get scared or didn’t know you. He was so devoted to me that he’d follow me around from the start and wouldn’t let me do anything without his input (so damn stubborn, not sure where he got that from).
He became the elder statesman as cats came and went. As we’d welcome in new strays, he was the first to come in and make them feel at home. He was the apex cat, number one, and ran the house.
He was so mad at me lately because he’s been sick and I wouldn’t let him in with the kittens. He could only watch through the baby gate as I spent time with them, he couldn’t come in and play with them like he wanted to. I was his person, he wanted to be in there with me with the newbies.
But I knew. The sinus infection plagued him his whole life. He shined so brightly from the start that he wasn’t going to be a long timer. I just didn’t expect that we’d have 7 years with him and that’d be it.
Last year, he had a sore on his neck at peak allergy season and lost a lot of weight. This year, it was a lump. We were saving for the surgery and had it scheduled for a week from now. He had stopped eating anything but baby food and lost even more weight. I don’t think the surgery would have saved him (even if we had done it months ago), I think we would have ultimately ended up in the same spot.
In the end, when they stop eating, you have three days. We’ve been through this too many times. He lasted a bit longer than the rest (following him around with a spoon and bowl of food helped), but yesterday no matter how much he ate, he was growing more and more disoriented and in pain. I couldn’t put him through that.
I loved him so much. I woke up this morning and he wasn’t watching over me (lately he was more and more obsessed with watching me sleep). He wasn’t in any of his spots and I knew he was gone and my heart broke again.
Goodbye Romeo. I love you.
– Jim