At a few minutes past 11am today, we put Tucker to rest. He had just turned 19 on May 1st. He was unimaginably old, but up until the last week or so, he seemed comfortable and happy. He was still climbing on top of the television to get in his basket, and climbing up the stairs to visit me in my office when he got lonely.
Tucker had been with Anne since before I was, and he was always undoubtedly _her_ cat. Over a period of years, though, he came to regard me as an adequate substitute if she wasn’t around.
Especially as his health had gradually declined the last couple of years, I spent more and more time taking care of him during the day–feeding him when he was hungry, trying to make up for the attention he no longer got from “Ford”:/2006/02/all-things-must-pass.html, etc.
To say it’s wrenching to not have him around doesn’t do it justice. I know that, in time, the acuteness of the loss will fade. But right now it’s fresh and raw.
