October 4th of this year, Baxter, my long loved cat of 10 years had been put to sleep. It's been 2 months since he passed on, but I still think of him daily. I know,
a lot of people have said/will continue to say "dude, it's only a cat", but they can go fuck themselves. No, I don't hate the people who say that shit, but they don't
understand. My brother brought him home when he was a kitten, probably around 2 or 3 months old back in 2000. Each and every day, he'd follow me to bed, around the house,
hell, he even played fetch. He wasn't your typical cat in any aspect.
Back in 2002 or 2003, Baxter had a near miss with death. He had a bladder infection which caused him to stop unirnating due to crystals that had formed in his bladder. My mom
had brought him to the vetinary clinic, and they performed surgery on him. They claimed it was from the cat food he had been eating, but who really knows for sure. He was the only
one out of 3 that had this issue. The cost of the surgery was around $500 or $600 at the time, and had he been put to sleep then, it wouldn't have bothered me much, I think. The
night before he was brought to the vetinary clinic, he crawled his way across the living room floor, and painfully climbed up the couch and slept on my chest all night.
After his surgery, he went back to his normal self. Climbing up the screen door and sleeping on top of the wooden front door, and playing fetch with his favorite white with blue swirl
rattle ball that he had gotten (probably for Christmas, my mom always treats the cats like they're children). You could throw that ball down the basement stairs, and within minutes you'd
hear the rattling headed back up. Baxter would put the ball in his mouth and carrying it right back to you.
He learned sleep patterns as well. When I worked second shift, he would wait for me downstairs by the door, and would follow me up to my room and sit on my lap as I typed on the
computer. After a few hours, I'd get ready for bed, and he would jump off of my lap and wait for me to get in bed, so he could lay next to me and get comfy.
In 2004, I was getting ready to move to Virginia, and the night before I moved, he ran away. My mom found him 10 days later in a tree that bordered the back yard to the forest behind the
apartment she lived in. Whenever I'd come back to visit, he'd always jump up and make me hold him. When I moved back home, he resumed his habits of following me around and kept up with his
goofy antics.
Baxter also knew his name, and always knew when you were talking to him. You could say "Hey Baxter, how was your day?" and he would meow. He had different tones to his meow too. No, I'm not
crazy, several people had witnessed this. My mom even had some weirdness going on when she would say "go find Mizzzery" or "show us how to use this kitty toy" and he'd do so.
When I moved my room from the basement back to my old room, I had a futon instead of a bed (didn't feel like bringing the bed back upstairs). He would lay next to me, head popping out of the
blanket, until I fell asleep. He would then move over to my computer chair, and wait there until morning. Each morning, he would follow me to the front door as if to say "see ya later homie".
And it continued every day.
Last year, I bought a house and was happy to have him with me (as well as Scooter). The ExWife brought in 2 strays into the house, and Baxter was upset by that. He started to become self kept
and took solace in the window sill, staring out into the world that was a screened window away. When the ExWife and I broke up, the strays were abandoned with me, but he seemed to have accepted
them by then. Still the same routines of him sleeping next to me, walking to the door when I left and came home, all continued. The strays (Mr. Waffles and Princess) had kittens (Mr. Waffles has
been fixed since then), and Baxter secluded himself once again. I told my mom that if she wanted to, she could take him back because he didn't seem happy. Unfortunately, this could've been when the
trouble first started happening.
I hadn't noticed him struggling to go to the bathroom, and he never looked like he was in pain. He never meowed or crawled up to me like he previously did. I went to work that morning of October 4th,
and he followed me like he had done every day, and gave his little goodbye meow. My mom had stopped over that morning and noticed that something wasn't right with him and brought him to the vets.
Baxter never came home. It felt like I had lost my best friend, like I lost a family member. He was family. The other cats knew something wasn't right, and all kept calm and quiet for the week.
Rest in peace Baxter. You've been missed every fucking day.
