Malcolm

Malcolm was a kitten rescued from a feral cat feeding site. He came to us after almost a year of being shuffled between three different foster homes. At first he was very scared, and wouldn't come out of my library which I had set up as "his" room. He was afraid of me at first, and went and hid behind a chair whenever I went in his room. I finally lured him out with some canned food and got him comfortable enough to eat right in front of me. He was still very wary of me. I had a comforter on the floor for him, and one day I was in there trying to play with him and I fell asleep on the comforter, and when I woke up he was sleeping right next to me. So I moved a mattress in and started sleeping in there with him. I would wake up every morning with him cuddled up next to me, and from then on Malcolm and I were best buddies.

He soon ventured out of his room and met our older cat Spenser, an orange and white tiger cat, and they got along okay, but were never best friends. Malcolm would sit on my lap whenever I was on the couch and he began sleeping in my bedroom, he would always have to be touching me while we slept. His beautiful golden eyes would greet me every morning, and he wanted to be with me every minute I was home. He was my constant companion. Then Spenser got sick and we didn't expect him to live long. We got a new 16 week old kitten, another black cat like Malcolm. We named him Jackson, and he and Malcolm became good friends. They liked to sleep together on the couch and in their cat trees, and they were always together when I wasn't around. In the evening when I was watching TV, Malcolm would always be there on my lap. He was my soul mate, my best friend, he always made me feel better when I wasn't feeling well. He loved me and I loved him.

When he was seven and we took him to the vet for his annual wellness visit, we got some bad news. Malcolm had the beginnings of kidney failure. I was so sad, I was afraid I was going to lose him, and I needed my Malcolm around. He did well on his kidney diet, and he became even more attached to me if that was possible. We were very close, Malcolm stayed with me all the time. If I was at home, Malcolm was with me. Things went pretty much back to normal, with Malcolm being more attached to me than ever. 

When he was eleven, he suddenly started showing severe symptoms of kidney disease. He didn't want to eat, though I was able to coax him with some of his favorite canned food, and he was drinking a lot. He wanted to cuddle with me all the time. The vet did some blood tests and his kidney function was really bad. They gave us some appetite stimulant and I ordered some phosphorus binders from Amazon. Before I got to use either, he took a turn for the worse, and we rushed him to the emergency vet as it was the weekend.  They gave him a bunch of fluids and did everything they could for him, but his blood tests were the worst they had ever been. It was time to let him go, he was miserable and there was no chance of him recovering at that point. We went in to say goodbye to him, and I held him in my arms as he was euthanized and told him I loved him. He looked at me with love as if to say it was okay, he was ready to go. It was too soon for me, he was only eleven, and I felt like we should have had some more good years together. But I told him it would be okay and he was a good boy and I loved him. He looked at me lovingly. They gave him the shot and it was like he'd just gone to sleep, and then he was gone. I've since gotten another cat who I love a lot, but there will never be another Malcolm, and I still miss him a lot.