Sweet sweet dreams my gentle one…

Eight or so years ago, almost a year after Trevor, Thor, and I moved here to San Francisco I obtained an email in my in-box at the Gladstone Institute. It was a heartbreaking email, sent institute wide, from a woman that had a dear cat that she was no longer able to keep. She was asking for someone to please adopt her cat by that Friday afternoon, otherwise she was going to have to bring the cat to the San Francisco SPCA. Even though the SF SPCA has a ‘no kill’ policy it was tearing her apart to have to put it up for adoption there. I knew Trevor would kill me if I voluntarily brought a second cat home so I waited until the very end of the day on that Friday before inquiring whether she had yet found a home for her pet. She hadn’t…it was breaking my heart too; so I offered to take the cat into our home till we could find a good home for it. Trevor was not happy when I informed him that we were going to foster this cat, not one bit; he threatened to take it to the SF SPCA that very next morning himself.

That night we introduced Thor to Smokey and Smokey to Thor. I remember a lot of hissing and screaming. We placed a screen door dividing the house in two, one with Thor in it and the other for Smokey. They could easily see each other and smell one-another, and yes argue at each other all night. Trevor was even more determined to send Smokey out for adoption. When Trevor was cleaning the house the next morning, he got fed up with having to constantly move the screen in the process of going from room to room. We finally decided to let them go at it, without interference, and let the best cat win. We thought for sure our boy, Thor, would dominate; he did but it was much more than we expected. We soon discovered that after all of the madness from the night before, they ended up chasing each other; which soon turned into wrestling, and soon followed into sleeping beside each other. In this manner, Smokey had become Thor’s best buddy in less than six hours. Trevor instantly realized that Smokey was a keeper and that he had worked his way immediately into our family. He has loved all of us and we have all loved him.
Today it tears the three of us to pieces to report we have had to say our good-byes to the gentlest soul. It has not been an easy decision to say good bye; we’ve spent days showering him with love, crying, and coaxing him to eat to no avail. Although he was still alert and somewhat ‘active’, as late as today, it was absolutely clear that he was in pain and was not going to get better. Many years ago we had a cat we loved, Trouble, who also had internal tumors. With Trouble we discovered them way too late after he had been in immense pain, dehydrated, and had stopped eating. We swore from that day forward that we would never let a cat live in such pain ever again.
We love our Smokey. We will miss your snoring (the loudest out of the four of us so says Larry); your screaming at us to get up out of bed and feed you; your constant demand for water from the sink or tub and not from the water dish; your wrestling with and chasing after Thor; your sleeping next to and licking each other’s heads; your peering up at us from underneath the flowers in the backyard; your getting everything covered with your fur; your love of brushing; your getting high from catnip and not just eating it like your brother; your playing with string and feathers; your love of string cheese and the finest steak we could buy as well as your new found love of turkey; we will miss your absolute ownership of Clingy Chloe’s carrier when she visited; your big beautiful green eyes alerting us to your skittishness; we will dearly miss your love and our ability to show you ours in return; and lastly we will miss your purring that made everything seem right in the world!
*****

You are and always will be our gentlest of souls!!!
Sweet dreams our love…we will remember you ALWAYS!