Who will now beg for my last corner of toast?
Who will snore gently between us both at night?
Who will tap my leg to ask if he may jump on my knee?
Who will sense when my heart starts to race and purr slowly to slow it down?
Who will shadow me at the washing line and guard me from dive bombing swallows?
Who will come for walks with me round the garden, always a few paces behind and stop like we are playing statues?
Who will turn up at tea time, ravenous for food, just as we have started to eat?
Who will fall asleep in front of my iMac screen when I'm trying to watch Youtube?
Who will sit on my keyboard and refuse to budge?
Who will play tag with me from the agapanthus?
You were a sweet, gentle soul, needy, sometimes weird.
Wherever loved pets go when they die, I hope you are appreciated there, because you deserve everything and more.
Know that my heart is broken now you are gone.
Ruppin was killed by a vehicle on our country road, sometime on Friday 8th September. We had been visiting friends and spotted him lying in the road just as we were about to turn into our driveway on our return. I suspect he'd been in pursuit of a rabbit and a car had hit him. He was a slight cat, so the driver probably thought he'd hit a rabbit and continued driving.
I jumped out of the car just in case he was still alive, but he was very still with his head thrown back. In the light of the headlights I could see he wasn't breathing. But when I picked him up he was still limp, but not warm. There wasn't a mark on him, just a small amount of blood coming out of one eye. I sobbed all the way down the driveway.
We put him on a cushion inside a basket on the verandah and I covered him with his favourite cardigan of mine. Mango, our large ginger boy was very distressed. In fact he was running close to him on the roadside when we found him. Both cats sniffed his lifeless body. Cumin was upset I could tell.
We buried him on Saturday morning inside a copse on our property, opposite the windows of our study. He is lying wrapped in a warm blanket shroud next to our old boy Otto. As I started to dig his grave, I disturbed a plump rabbit. So the boys will always have "company".
We are both devastated and in shock. In the last 12 months, he had become a bit of a house cat. We were used to him eating his breakfast after sleeping on our bed all night. Habitually he wouldn't re appear until tea time - whatever the weather, he was out in it. He was a loner. But then he started to stay at home after breakfast. He would sleep in my old chair or curl up inside the office curtains. He'd be there all day. So he was showing all of his 11 years. After I had radiation therapy, I was frequently sat in our lazy boy chair dozing. He sat with me all the time, and slept close to me on the bed at night.
The night after he died, I caught my husband standing by the side of our bed crying. He looked at me and pointed to his side of bed "he should be here, this is his place" It was a routine. I always go to bed first and read. Within seconds, Ruppin would jump on the bed and sit just below Simon's pillow and start washing himself. Then he would go to sleep. Every evening, Simon would mumble to him "you have to move now", and would assist him by lifting up the duvet and gently rolling him towards the centre of the bed. Ruppin loved it and never resisted. We would then both go to sleep with an elongated tabby between us like a slug of tobacco.
So now we are four. Two gingers and two old codgers, missing our wide eyed tabby.
Bless you, wherever you are. You will always be missed.
