On December 31, 2006, our family's senior cat Gus lost an eight month battle with cancer. He was approximately 14 years old.Losing Gus--formally, Augustus H.T. Cat; playfully, the Gussycat--has been a tremendous blow for our family. Gus was always the "young" cat. WT, our first family cat, left her kittenhood behind fairly quickly and settled in to a long tenure as a mature, serious cat. Not so with Gus. He always retained a good part of his kittenish side. Gus remained athletic, active, and frisky long after he reached his mature years.
Gus always seemed indestructible. Making escapes to the outside world, climbing to any available height in the apartment, running from room to room, picking a fight--Gus was always game. Not even jumping through a second story window pane at around 4 in the morning--an astounding event even in memory, let alone as it was that night--could do him harm. He landed in the back yard with only a scratch on his paw. Gus was a Supercat.
Even more astounding than Gus's physical feats was the evolution of his personality. Gus came to us from a feral litter, and for a long time he followed his background. He was extremely skittish at first, prone to running away and crying if you tried to pick him up. Hiding in corners and beneath the bed happened a lot. But over time, Gus grew more comfortable with us and his world; he grew content, became bolder, more likely to come out and greet than hide from a stranger. His relationship with myself, my sister, and especially my mother grew closer and closer as the years went by. It was always amazing to see him leap up into Mom's lap and cuddle with her, to think about how Gus had changed from a scaredy-cat into such a paragon of companionable love. No standoffishness for the Gussycat--he wanted to love and be loved, and he let you know it.
Hearing the news last April, that Gus had cancer, hit me as hard as anything in my life. Yet even then, when I went down to San Diego to see him, Gus still showed remarkable vitality. Surgery and a hard routine of medicine and chemotherapy followed, but Gus remained lively. His recovery originally went so well that his doctor called him a "miracle cat." Unfortunately, a recurrence proved too much for him, and the time for Gus to leave came last New Year's Eve. Even at the end Gus gave us a great gift, leaving while last year remained, so those who love him could move forward into a new year with their sorrow confined to the last. If you could have asked him, it was the sort of thing he probably would have chosen to do.
I miss my Gussycat so much. Every day I think about him, about how much I love him and wish he could still be with us. But I am left with the joy of having been with him when I could. I am proud of how hard he fought to stay with us, right to the end. We still have our Maxi, and there will be more cats to come who will carry on the line started by WT. But I know that in a world of so many wonderful kitties, the Gussycat will always be right there at the top of the list.
Gus
1993-2006
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