Pet owners know how it feels to lose someone to whom you grow attached immediately.
That means, oh, just about every American living today gets it. We’ve all owned pets, yes? Most of them become members of the family. And you get that, too, I’m certain.
Well, friends, a member of our family died tonight. His name was Socks. He was a 12-plus-year-old alley cat. He came into our lives, along with his sister Mittens, in June 2002. We went to the SPCA one Saturday afternoon to select one cat but then came home with two.
We fell in love with them immediately.
What’s more, they fell in love with us at precisely the same time.
Pets do that kind of thing, you know.
It’s hard to single out what made Socks so special.
I’ll start with his temperament.Ā He was quite territorial and didn’t like neighbor cats traipsing onto his turf. He was unafraid to shoo them away and he did so with gusto.
I wrote about a particular episode.
https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/01/15/cat-does-well-even-without-claws/
Still, Socks wasn’tĀ like your normal cat. He acted more like a dog. He’d follow us around the house. He’d beg for food. He’d climb on our laps, fall asleep purring and then he’d snore. It was a barely perceptible snore, but it was a snore nonetheless.
Socks developed a particular attachment to my wife. I joked to her directly and told friends — usually in my wife’s presence — that she hasn’t enjoyed a good night’s sleepĀ since Socks joined our family. He’d snuggle up to her, usually around her face. He’d occasionally drape himself across her neck while she was sleeping, all the while purring so loudly you could hear him across the room.
Well, that’s about all there is to say.
This blog usually is a forum for my rants and my occasional updates on personal matters. I just wanted to share briefly a loss that pet owners understand all too well.
It’s going to take some time to get over this one.
Oh man, we’re going to miss the big, gentle brute.