Improbable Island Message of the Day (MoTD)
The Cat is dead; long live the CatAdmin CavemanJoe – 2022-11-09 15:03:01 [Permalink]
Improbable Island's official cat Stewart died on Friday evening. We'd been expecting it for a while, because he was born some time in the 90's.
He had maybe 30 seconds of confusion, then I figured what was happening, picked him up and he settled down in my arms and started purring. Took him outside in the unseasonal warm and sat down on a rock with him on my lap and scritched his jaw and ear the way he likes and he just purred into the cup of my hand for a couple minutes, twitched a couple times, and his purr kinda faded out until I could just about feel it on the hand underneath him. It was a couple more minutes until I realised I was feeling my own heartbeat.
It was very gentle; felt like he was falling asleep, except his eyes were open. I took him inside and set him down on the floor and the other three cats gathered around in a wee Cat Wake and looked and sniffed and gave him a goodbye lick. Emily cuddled Nerv while I went out to dig his grave; I buried him next to Leo under the maple tree in a beautiful sunset.
He was an excellent cat and I'm glad I was there to ease him through.
Stewart's successor to the title of Improbable Island Official Cat is Harley, who long-timers may already know from jungle encounters. Harley was born before Improbable Island, and was in our lives before Leo and Stewart were, but there was no Official Cat position until the early 2010's and Harley was passed over for the role because
Long may
~CMJ
