Goodbye Puss

Three years I was living alone, and I was sitting on my doorstep having a cigarette thinking how nice it would be to have someone to talk to and cuddle. I suddenly heard a miaow, and a big ginger cat come sauntering up to me. He had a friendly look on his face and came right up to me and sat on my lap and started purring. I thought I was dreaming, and whenever I tell this story most people think I´m making it up, but it´s all true.

I gave the cat some milk, and carried on playing with him all day, he disappeared later that night and I thought that was the last I would see him. The next day I went to out to go to the shop and to my surprise I opened the door to a friendly looking ginger cat. He had come back. So I had a play with him again and he came into my little house and had a nose about. Once again, when night came, he went off again.

This carried on for a few days, I asked my neighbours if they knew who he belonged to, but nobody knew. It got to the point where, he had come to stay pretty much full time, only leaving the house to go to the toilet. I put flyers up and posted them around the surrounding neighbourhood, trying to find out who he belonged to, but hadn´t heard anything, so I kept him as a house guest, which he seemed to like quite a lot.

After about 2 weeks I returned home one day to find him sitting on my doorstep looking very sad and sorry for himself. He had blood on his beautiful orange tabby coat and his eyes looked very bad. I wrapped him up in a blanket and took him to the nearest vets and explained everything. The vet said he looked like he had been attacked by another animal, possible a fox or dog, and had a few other problems with him, but since I couldn´t find his owner, he would have to go into a cat home. I couldn´t bear this happening to my feline friend so I said I would pay the vet bills, and that he was going home with me.

Which he did, and I don´t think he minded one bit, he had already established himself there and liked being around me. I needed to give him a name I thought, but he wasn´t mine really, nor did I know his real name, so a la Breakfast at Tiffanys I decided on Puss, it was going to be Cat like in the film, but he did resemble Puss from Shrek, in looks and personality.

The last 3 years have been so much fun with him, after moving again he became the cat on the block and although very independent, he showed me nothing but love and affection, as well as a passion for sausages! I noticed recently he was getting sad, and sleepy and just generally being not himself. I thought at first it might of been the introduction of my puppy Dexy, but after a week I took him to the vet just to make sure.

That´s when I was told he had a tumour, and it needed operating on straight away, I burst into tears and held my cat, held him so close and cried. The vet took him in that day and operated. I sat with Dexy in he waiting room, refusing to go anywhere. After about 30 minutes, the vet came out and from the look on his face I could tell it was bad. The tumour had attached itself to most of his internal organs, and there was no way to help him. He was an old cat, about 14 years old and the vet said it was best to let him go.

I pleaded with the vet to let me have some time with him, and I sat in the kennel area floor, holding my Puss, he was groggy from his op and seemed like he knew it was his time to go. After a while, I lost track of time, the vet came back and asked if we were ready, at which point I agreed. I carried Puss into the room, and the nurses attached a IV to his little paw, I never let him go and held him as he was put to sleep, thinking about all the love he had given me and how he had been there for me. Heavyside layer from Cats kept playing in my head, and I thought how he could be at peace and be reborn as a new kitten.

It´s been a week now since all this happened, and I still cry for him each day, I still have my lovely little Dexy, and my other two cats that live with my mum because I didn´t want to uproot them, but Puss was a special cat to me. I never knew him as a kitten, and he wasn´t really mine, but he found me when I needed someone, he entertained me when I was bored, he stole my dinners, he made home in the bottom of my wardrobe, he loved his green shoe lace, and he was one of the greatest cats I ever had the great fortune to meet, let alone look after.

So goodbye Puss, you meant the world to me and I´ll never forget you x x x