Goodbye, Little Sweetheart

Press Cat, 1999-2009

Losing a cat is always hard. Losing two relatively young cats within months of each other is…hell.

We always knew Press would never live to be an old cat. He started life as a feral waif who wandered into Steve’s factory and took up residence beneath the company’s giant press (hence his name). When Steve trapped him, he was so covered in oil and dirt that Steve thought he was a gray tabby. Petroleum and cats, needless to say, are not a good mix.

He spent the next four years of life running wild in Steve’s bachelor pad with the tuxedo cat twins, Nick and Nora. When we married, it took Steve five hours and several nasty bites and scratches to stuff Press in a carrier so the gang could move over to my house. In the nearly six years since then—wooed nightly with his favorite, tuna—he calmed down a lot. Every night when I’d lay down on the sofa to watch the Daily Show and Colbert, I’d trail my hand over the side and Press would come on the run. As long as he was sure I wasn’t in a position to grab him, he’d let me pet him until my arm (or leg—he also loved foot pets while I was at the computer) felt like it was ready to drop off. He’d purr and purr and purr. But try to reach for him and he was gone.



Because he was impossible to catch, he rode out Katrina in our house and lived in the flooded shambles for a week before we battled our way back in to rescue him. (Needless to say, he went with us for Gustav.) About five years ago he had a bout of ill health when the vet told us his kidneys were failing and he’d probably only live a few more months. So we always knew that each passing year was a gift.

He went down hill very suddenly. When he sniffed at Sunday night’s tuna and turned away, I knew something was wrong. Our vet told us just how wrong. Having just watched Nick take months to die of kidney failure, we’d already made up our minds we weren’t putting another cat through that.



But God, it hurts.