from age nine until last august, i had this fantastic cat. he was a big orange tabby, king of the playground, my nightly snuggle buddy, always up for a belly rub. he loved me best and i loved him best back. part of me thought he would live forever because he just had to - what would i do without him? but then he had to start taking medicine every day, then twice a day, then the medicine stopped working and i had to give him shots, and those weren't working, and finally he stopped eating and after i found him asleep in the litterbox twice i had to just say okay. it was awful. it was one of the hardest things i've been through, and everyone who had met marley understood that. he was the best cat ever.
i started walking to work when i moved to my current house, and one of the houses i pass daily has two cats. at first i preferred the black and white one, he was friendlier and would run up if you called to him. the other cat wouldn't leave the porch, and when i tried to get closer he would run away. i'm a sucker for orange cats though, so i eventually befriended him too, using dangly earbuds as cat toy bribery. we bonded, and now he comes running when he hears my bike pull up (the other cat is jealous and bitter and ignores me now). he's sturdy like marley, not one of those floppy flimsy cats, and he does the same headbutt thing when he likes a person. he's not the best cat ever, couldn't be, but he is helping to fill the cat-shaped hole in my life.
