Goodbye, Sidney
Sidney enjoying the yard, late June 2009.
He showed up at a coworker's back door on New Year's Day 1995, a half-grown kitten who needed to get out of the Columbus, Ohio chill. The kitty was charming, climbed up on her husband's back while he worked in the garage, greeted the couple with a high-pitched mew whenever they entered the room. But they couldn't keep him, so my boyfriend and I took the cat in, named him Sidney. We had a six-month-old sheltie named Loudon and he and Sidney quickly became buddies.
By January 1996, my boyfriend and I had gotten married and purchased a Queen Anne-style house in a downtown Columbus neighborhood. We'd taken in another foundling kitten, Zoe. By mid-1998, we were living in separate states, scheduled for divorce. I got the cats, he kept the dog.
Yesterday afternoon, after a long illness and slow decline, Sidney collapsed by the water bowl in the kitchen. My husband, son and I rushed him to the vet to be gently nudged into death. It was sad and it still is sad and I don't think I can write much about it.
We will miss our sweet kitten.
Sidney and Loudon, January 1995
Sidney looking at snow ... or at a ghostly cat? January 1995.
Sidney stretch, 2001?