Hail and Farewell

Today I buried my buddy. Sinbad. "O Fearsome and Dreadful", "Dreadful and Incorrigible", "Mighty Hunter", "You Jerk!!!", "My Buddy", the list goes on... Calvin THE PAW, of "bathing cats" fame is being supportive in his own inimitable way; breathing heavily(his version of a purr), and eeling his way into my lap. 16 years together. This small black kitten with a stentorian sporano yowl("where have you been all my life!!!") burst out of the bushes and followed us home... "Look, he's got a growth on his stomach." "That's a herniated umbilical". He was an abandoned kitten who refused to take no for an answer, and has been insisting on his vote ever since. He grew, practically overnight, from a scruffy, opinionated black kitten, into a sleek, opinionated black predator, and finally into an opinionated little old guy. The vet who repaired his hernia said he'd probably never be into jumping, as cats use their abdominal muscles, and his were compromised. Someone forgot to tell him that. At 16 he could still make it to the top of a 6 foot fence, and I was convinced he was going to drop over while chasing one of the neighborhood cats. He was a miracle kitty. The herniated umbilical was accompanied by two holes in his heart, and according to the vet, he never should have lived this long. Bless their hearts, vets see lots of miracles. In his heyday, Sinbad tried to teach me to hunt. He was very, very good at it, and would demonstrate at length just how he'd killed whoever it was he'd brought home. Then he'd bring someone home, and drop them at my feet. Usually field mice. Completely unharmed. The mouse would gaze up at me, and freeze. I'd have about two seconds to pounce on it and take it outside. (I might catch them, but I refuse to eat mice.) One night, I heard the usual muffled cat comments by my bed, "he's brought someone home". Groggy with sleep, I turned on the light, and gazed down at the floor, where Sinbad was standing next to his latest guest. "Oh, a female cardinal", "OK." She was PISSED! I reached down, and grabbed the bird, who decided this was simply the last straw. She closed her beak over the web between my thumb and forefinger, and ground it, while making these disgruntled little squawks. Searing, eye-watering pain, and a jolt of adrenaline banished the last of my sleepiness, and I made for the door at a run. I controlled the impulse to fling her, and instead placed her on the porch roof. She, grudgingly, released my hand with one last grinding pinch. 3:30 AM. Hello world, Thank You Sinbad! 16 years with the autocratic little beast, with the piercing sporano yowl(one of his parents must have been a Siamese). He was very vocal, and didn't believe in leaving you in the dark about anything.--and demanding. He was a cat. It was always interesting to watch how the various people in my life got on with Sinbad. The ones who were secure in themselves got on well with him and his quirks, the others? He could make life interesting, and did. I wouln't have traded him for the world. He had a purr that would rattle your eyeballs when he was happy, or I was unhappy, and he liked things his way. Typical cat. Somewhere, even now, I hope a door is swinging wide, and Sinbad, he of the thousand and one titles, is marching through(Cats always make an entrance). The night he died, I dreamed he became a white tiger. How fitting. I, however, will miss my buddy.