We lost our cat Stitch a couple weeks ago. She was 13 years old. She had a fast-growing form of bone cancer, osteosarcoma. We noticed a lump on her side a month or two ago, and by the time we got the X-rays and an oncologist, they gave her just a couple weeks. When we put her down, here at home, the lump had grown into a monstrous bulge on her side, jutting out from her ribs. It was heartbreaking.

I’m not here to talk about cancer though. Stitch was a character, a real personality. Especially over the last three or four years, she’d become my buddy, one of my best friends. I miss her so much.

We got Stitch and her sister, Marley, back in 2012 when they were just a couple months old. When we arrived and met them, and Stitch immediately sunk her tiny claws into my jeans, climbed up my side, and perched on my shoulder, as if to say, “This one’s mine, I claim him. See how high I am, on top of him? I’m the queen of the world!”

We brought them home, and they immediately set about showing us who they were. Marley has always been a bit high strung, but not Stitch. She did whatever she wanted, got into everything she wasn’t supposed to, ate as much food as she could get her paws on, and didn’t care what anyone thought. Right from the beginning, she knew who she was, and made no apologies. If someone had a problem, it was their problem, not hers.

Stitch did everything big. She was big, her fur was big, her appetite was big. When she slept, she snored, loudly. When she sat down in your lap, or jumped up into bed, she made an audible thump, enough to shake the furniture. When she rolled over on her back, she looked like a giant round mass of fluff. Sometimes you could see her legs and her head, sometimes not. She never seemed self aware in the slightest, or if she was, she didn’t care.

One year, Brooke got a birthday card that played the “Happy Birthday” song when it opened, sung entirely in meows. Stitch loved that card. No matter where she was, when we opened it, she’d come running. She’d get right up to it, cock her head, and listen to the invisible cats singing. Sometimes she’d paw at the speaker. We used it to call her home at dusk when she was still outside. We’d walk around the back yard, waving the card up high as it meowed, clinking bowls together and calling “Dinner time! Dinner time!” Eventually we’d see her crawl out from under a bush, or squeeze between slats in the fence, fresh off her latest adventure and ready to eat.

Stitch had the loudest purr of our household, by far. When she got going, you could hear her from across the room. One quiet night, I managed to hear her purring through a wall. Even as a kitten, she was noisy. She’d march over to full-grown Snoopy, flop down on him, turn her motor up to full throttle, and immediately fall asleep. He’d look at her, then at us, bemused at this little creature with the temerity – and the lungs – to drown him out.

She didn’t just have volume, though. She had stamina. The girl seemed to purr all the time. We joked that if you heard her purring, that’s how you knew she was alive. It was true all the way to the end.

The other thing Stitch had as a kitten was stinky farts. She’d often jump up into our laps, roll over onto her belly, start purring, and then we’d catch a whiff of something….awful. Rotten fish. Baby poop. It wasn’t overwhelming, and it didn’t last long, but for such a cute little animal, she was capable of some impressively foul odors.

Not long after we got her, we lost her in the house. We searched high and low, and I eventually found her in our closet. She was lying down on a shelf, eyes glazed, shivering, dangerously warm. I’d never seen her in such a state. We rushed her to the vet, they confirmed that she had a fever, and they immersed her bodily in an ice bath. She was pretty out of it at the time, but still, it was shocking to see.

They didn’t know what caused the fever. We suspect she ate a berry pod from a tree outside that disagreed with her, but we don’t know. We did notice a change in her afterward, though. She didn’t seem quite as sharp, and when she saw something interesting moving around, she’d open her eyes wide and wobble her head back and forth like a Bollywood dancer.

Stitch loved food. Dry food, wet food, human food, small animals, bugs, she ate it all. She was always a big girl, often weighing 17-18 lbs. She was big-boned, and carried it well, but still, vets over the years pushed us to put her on a diet and slim down. We tried, with mixed results.

One technique we tried was an automatic feeder that rationed out her food. She learned the sound it made, and its schedule, and became something of a savant. She’d stand on point, ears cocked, and when she heard its motor start, she’d take off toward it at a full gallop. She knew the sound well enough that it would wake her up out of a sound sleep. She’d practically fall off the couch trying to get to her feet, ready to trample anyone and anything between her and dinner.

She also learned the sound of Gina opening a cat food can in the kitchen and filling her bowl. She knew the difference between cat food cans and other cans, and between her bowl and other dishes and kitchen sounds. We went great lengths trying to feed Marley separately, singing and clanging around and closing doors and wrapping towels around cans as we opened them, but no matter what we did, Stitch would always appear in the doorway, perched at attention, eyes open wide, staring at us politely but firmly.

Stitch’s drive for food made her pre-diabetic and mildly asthmatic for much of her life. She developed a persistent cough, which we initially chalked up to hairballs. We forced an anti-hairball oil down her throat every day for many months, which she hated, and didn’t help at all. We finally asked the vet, who told us no, it wasn’t hairballs, it was asthma. We switched to an inhaler, with a big chamber and funnel on the end, and that did the trick. The cough disappeared.

Stitch loved the outdoors. She didn’t get to go out on her own at first, but when she did, there was no turning back. Our old house’s back yard bordered a number of our neighbors’ yards, and the old fences were no match for a determined cat, so Stitch had the whole area at her disposal, free from cars and coyotes and other dangers. She’d head out the cat door, and a minute later we’d see her three houses away, walking across a fence or stalking a bird or basking in the sun.

She lost that pastoral cat wonderland when we moved a few years ago, but she adapted admirably. We have a small garden here that she fell in love with. It connects to a few other yards and patios that she explored thoroughly, marking her territory, but she spent most of her outdoor time in the garden. She’d wander up and down the stairs, sniffing the air, feeling the breeze through her fur and the sun on her face. I often sat out there and watched her wander while I worked. She’d jump up in my lap for a bit and purr, or rub my legs in between jaunts through the bushes.

Stitch was a hunter. She caught bugs, mice, lizards, squirrels, and even the occasional bird. One day, Gina managed to look out the window at just the right time to see her leap up high, grab a bird out of the air, and clamp her mouth down on its neck. Gina screamed, ran outside, and yelled at her so loudly that she opened her mouth in shock. The bird flew away, and Stitch was left nonplussed, not entirely sure what happened. I don’t think she ever fully forgave Gina.

youtube.com/embed/bPHDKygWMWo

Stitch was a fighter, too. She wasn’t shy about scratching or biting someone if they pissed her off. She rarely did any real damage, though. It was just part of how she communicated. If you were petting her, and she didn’t want you to, she’d happily nip your hand to say, “No, stop, enough.” Likewise, if you weren’t petting her, and she wanted you to, she’d often swat your hand as if to say, “This hand. Pet. Now!”

Stitch seemed to have no fear. She was always ready to go after intruders, whether they were people, coyotes, hawks, or dogs. She never really developed much fear or respect for us either. If one of our other cats snuck outside when they weren’t supposed to, they’d generally know it, and they’d run and hide or slink back inside as soon as we went after them. Not Stitch. She’d bound outside, tail wagging, make it a few steps, then stop and look around in wide-eyed wonder. When we got to her, she’d look up at us with bright shining eyes that said, “Are you seeing this? Isn’t it great! Let’s go explore!”

One of her favorite places at our old house was the small, fenced-in patio in front. She’d sit at the fence, and when someone with a dog passed by on the sidewalk, the dog would go crazy, barking and pawing and trying desperately to stick their nose through the fence to see who was there. Stitch would snort and hiss, but she’d never back down. We think she liked antagonizing them. The dog owners would always apologize to us, saying they didn’t know what came over their dogs, but we knew Stitch was taunting them. “Look at you, chained to that leash, what a miserable excuse for an animal. Your mother has combat paws! Oh yeah? Come over here and say that!”

Her belligerence wasn’t limited to dogs and people. One night, Gina and I woke up to an alarmingly loud banging noise. THUD! BANG! …bump bump bump THUD BANG! I ran downstairs and turned the lights on, just in time to see a cat fly down the hall at full speed into the sliding glass door. BANG! It was Stitch. A family of four huge raccoons was just outside the door, and she was trying as hard as she could to get them. They were twice her size or more, and her antics hadn’t scared them a bit, but no matter. She was ready to take them all on.

Later in life, Stitch sat in my lap regularly, expecting pets and a warm place to nap. Sometimes I’d be typing, which she sometimes tolerated, but not always. She didn’t like my hands moving while she tried to sleep. After a while, she’d swat them or bite them, then look up at me with self-righteous indignation. The message was clear. “I’m not leaving, this is my lap. If you don’t like it, you leave!”

Even so, she spent a lot of time with me, especially later in life. She’d stretch her legs out, crank her purr up to a steady rumble, and keep me company. She was big enough that I couldn’t always manage to work while she sat on me, so I’d be forced to read instead, or do nothing and look at Gina helplessly while she laughed. Stitch wasn’t the most convenient companion, or good for productivity, but she was my buddy.

When we felt the lump in her side, we hoped for the best, but in the back of our minds, we knew. Lumps tend to be cancer. Lumps that get bigger over time instead of going away…cancer.

Stitch slowed down over her last month or so, but she was still always herself. She wasn’t eating as much, or galloping around the house, or jumping up and down with gusto, but she still made her presence known. She was our big, shameless, larger than life girl.

The day we put her down, I took her around the house to all her favorite spots. Her bed, her blankets, her feeder, especially outside in the garden. She was moving slow, but she climbed the garden stairs, poked her nose into the bushes, chewed on some leaves, sniffed the air, and felt the wind in her fur. She was home.

We plan to scatter her ashes here, in the garden. She’ll always be home.

Stitch is survived by her sister, Marley, who’s kept us company and consoled us. We eventually got a couple new two-month-old kittens, too, who are rambunctious and full of life.

Even so, it’s hard to believe Stitch is really gone. Mornings are the hardest. I’m usually the first one awake in the house, and I’m often up for an hour or more before anyone else. I usually work out, next to the garden, and Stitch was always up and around with me, underfoot, purring her diesel motor purr, begging to go outside, jumping up into my lap as I tried to lift weights.

Nowadays, every morning, I’m alone. The house has other people and cats in it, but the mornings are empty. Downstairs, everything is silent and still and wrong. When she was alive, Stitch filled the space with her presence, her big yawns, her belly full of fur, and her purring. Always, her purring.

We’ll always remember you, girl. You were such a character. You had a good life, we loved you and you loved us, you’ll always be part of our family. We know you’re not in pain any more. We’ll see you on the other side.