Grouchy Old Cripple has suffered a real loss --- a treasured cat --- and evokes some really powerful thoughts about my own cats from the past. If you're a pet owner, this one deserves a shout-out at this link in comments.

http://www.grouchyoldcripple.com/archives/009361.html

In the past year, Patches has become a part of life here at the Tbone complex. She's maybe five years old. She showed up on our front porch about a year ago, literally starving and in rather bad shape.

I didn't used to be a cat person, and made fun of cat persons without mercy. Since Patches arrived, I AM a cat person, at least for her sake.

She arrived completely house-trained, litter-box trained, polite and ready to be in the house. But she had fallen on hard times and had some health issues. She was obviously sick and malnourished when we found her meowing on the front porch. When we took her to a local clinic to have her spayed, the folks at the clinic refused to work on her because she had dental problems. We ended up taking her to another vet clinic and $174 later, she was missing 10 teeth (cats only have 30) and a uterus.

Many months later, the most expensive cat (by far, in my life) is still the fair-haired child in our household. She is a daily source of comedy, a sweet bit of love, and a stalwart guardian of the household -- against the neighbor's cat, anyhow. She cowers and cries in the coat closet when thunder rolls in the sky, but she is practically superhuman when a grey squirrel threatens our existence. Recently, she seems to have her sights set on the weird cross-breed squirrel that lives here with the lush grey coat... but a blond tail.

In the year she's been here, she has presented us with exactly two mice. Is one mouse every six months enough? Yeah. I'm happy with that. 

To get to the point, GrouchyOldCripple, God rest your friend. I understand your loss better than I ever thought I would before Patches came along.