nuwayser's Journal: Spats

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Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 04:22:22 -0500
From: Pete Nuwayser
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Subject: Spats
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After eighteen years and almost as many moves around the east coast with
Liz, the twins and me, Spats made his final relocation last night at
around 7pm. He had fought through a bunch of medical problems over the
last year but took a turn for the worse early this week when he stopped
eating, drinking, and most importantly, purring. If there was one
metric for quality of life for Spats, it was that endless, strong purr
of his that seemed to erase all your troubles. On Wednesday Liz and I
decided our little friend had had a good run all these years and that it
was time to say goodbye.

Yesterday afternoon we sat the kids down and told them, and there was
much crying around the living room. Just as he had always done when any
of us were upset, Spats came over to us to offer his friendship---having
no sense of hearing left, he must have been able to smell us in our
emotional state. The kids helped me brush him one last time, and we all
went with him to the cat clinic and were in the room to say our goodbyes
right up to the end. He went very peacefully and is probably chasing
butterflies as I write this.