Weevil Remembered

The last couple of months we could see he was getting bonier and more feeble. We were bringing him into the vet's a bit more often and were slowly transitioning him from dry food to wet. Which he liked very much. We had him on medications and even had him at the vet's on Saturday, but the two cancerous tumors in his head were too much for him.

Sunday Carrie and I were taking turns watching him, mostly because he no longer had a good sense of balance, but also to make certain the other pets didn't pester him. He was always seeking out the company of humans, even if we didn't do anything with him, he still liked to be with us.

Around 1996 or so there was a yearling white cat hanging around behind the cotton lab near where Carrie was working. One of her coworkers picked up this lovable kitty and brought him to the vet for shots and stuff. She was going to just let him go. Carrie said we'd try and find a home for him instead. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anybody to take him. The only people interested in getting a cat we could find at that time wanted kittens.

I say unfortunately, but I mean it was unfortunate for the people who turned him down. We ended up being very happy to be "stuck" with him. And why did they want a kitten anyway? Was it because they are so cute and playful? Weevil was that all his life. In fact, I used his love of play to overcome his fear of being covered. He didn't like being inside boxes or anything like that. But after a bit of play therapy, he eagerly climbed into and under things, waiting for us to bring him a bit of play.

It was probably good for him to be stuck with us, not just because we're good parents, but because Carrie and I both have respiratory problems and were very sympathetic to Weevil's. He had a slightly runny eye (sometimes squinting with it to look like Popeye) and sneezed a lot. If only we could have taught him to use kleenex, we would have saved a lot of cleanup time.

Sunday we spent a lot of time with him and started talking about quality of life. He was having trouble even just walking with the tumors throwing off his sense of balance, and he was no longer in control of his bladder. But we discovered Monday morning he spared us making that decision by moving on.


I'll be doing a bit of digging up on the hill behind our house. We miss him already.