Saturday morning, about 5AM, we were awakened by a yowl from our 14-year old Lynx Point Siamese cat, Frankie. Those who know, know that he was affectionately known as the Lord High Preventer of Work, or LHPoW for short. He’s the cat sitting on my desk in my current author picture on Amazon and at the back of my books. And he spent a lot of time on that desk, “helping” me write.
As it turns out, he had a bad case of congestive heart failure and had thrown a blood clot that cut off circulation to his legs. Though we got him to the emergency vet very quickly (we were there within 30 minutes), there really wasn’t anything they could do for him. They gave him methadone to kill the pain and get him back to a comfort level where they could examine him better, but the conclusion was simply that his time had come, so we authorized euthanasia at around 6AM.
Needless to say, my wife and I are both in shock. Frankie was fine Friday night when we went to bed; he jumped up and lay down on the pillow above my wife’s head as he has done for months. And there was no indication after that of any problem until he started yowling several hours later and woke us up.
Frankie was something of a feral rescue. I won’t say he was entirely feral but his mother was more or less feral and of course daddy cat was a traveling salesman. We got him in 2009, when he was five weeks old, and our older cat, Tiggr (RIP) sort of became a mommy to him. They were great friends until Tiggr passed away in 2015. At any rate we always spoil our cats and Frankie was no exception to that rule. And now he has left a paw-shaped hole in our hearts that will, eventually heal…but there will always be a scar there, just as there is for our other cats, Snoopy and Tiggr.
So the mantle of Lord High Preventer of Work now falls to its fourth holder, our void cat Tux. The LHPoW is dead; long live the LHPoW.
Rest in peace, little buddy. Your remembrance shall be for a blessing.