R.I.P. Keith The Cat

Sad to report, Keith, the second of my two cats - took his last trip to the Vet’s, the other day.  His ‘brother’ [1.], Dudley met his demise under the wheels of a car a few years ago, but Keith had soldiered on deep into his seventeenth year - remaining affectionate and entertaining until the end.

Thankfully, he’d enjoyed robust health, and an active life for nearly all of that time, and it was only during the last few months that a rapidly expanding list of ailments, and the suspicion of ‘Feline Dementia’ [2.], made his continuing existence untenable.

As I mentioned when Dudley died, I have a pretty soft spot where animals are concerned, and taking Keith in turned out to be one of the harder tasks I’ve faced in recent years.  Objectively, there’s no doubt it was kinder than letting him linger on in pain and misery, not least because he was no longer able to feed or groom himself – but it still felt like some kind of betrayal, nonetheless.

The reality is that animals, could they speak, would probably prove to be far more pragmatic in matters of life and death, than we are. The sense that they appear to live far more in the moment than humans, may also inure them to the mental implications of such existential episodes, I suspect.

In the event, I now realise that those seventeen and a half years of Keith’s small, furry existence, also represent a significant portion of my own – and one in which there have been plenty of difficult times alongside the uplifting ones.  Keith had been on my knee, at my elbow, or curled up at the end of the bed, for much of that time.  In that respect, there’s an inevitable sense of emotional stock-taking wrapped-up in one little cat’s passing, and perhaps a bit more subsequent processing to do than I might have expected.

In passing, I should extend big thanks to my friend Lorel, for being Keith’s primary care giver during the latter portion of his life.  Although I still spent time with him regularly, he lived at her house in Nottingham in recent years - it being a much softer, cat-friendly environment than I could provide.  I know she’ll mourn him as deeply as I do.

Luckily, I have loads of great memories of Keith (and indeed, Dudley).  Mostly, he was just my little mate - and I’ll miss him loads.

[1.]:  Possibly a slight spin put on things by the RSPCA to move two Rescue Centre inmates on at once?  Either way - I have no regrets.

[2.]:  Who knew that was a thing?