Oh, Switch! We will miss you.

Tonight we had the regrettable job of burying our beloved Switch. He ranges pretty far from home, and even tho he has been rolled by a truck and survived in the past, something with four wheels was too fast for him this afternoon. I got the call shortly after I got home, before 6 PM. A kind stranger stopped and called the number on his tag. Steve went and brought him home.

It's been less than a year since we lost Persi in the same way. This time it is a little less traumatic. One, I wasn't standing right there when it happened, with a cat that lived long enough to get up and run up the street before expiring on the side of the road. This time I had someone to tell me he was there and was gone - it was a little easier than witnessing it, experiencing the panic of running home for a blanket and calling Steve, who was just moments away coming home from work. But that doesn't make it any less sad.

I will miss Switch keeping me company in the garden. He liked to dig with me, and run up trees, and play scaredy-cat with the hose when I was watering. After Persi was gone, Switch took over guard cat duties, getting into scraps with the nearby ferals. In fact, Switch was healing from a recently amputated tail - the vet had to take the last two inches off, he got it caught in something (or someone did something bad to him) and there was so little attached it wasn't possible to save it.

There are always inherent dangers when allowing your cat(s) outdoors; it actually guarantees a shorter life span by several years if a cat spends anytime outside the home. But Switch was not one who was going to be kept indoors. Persi came to us as an outdoor cat. We saved Switch from an indoor situation. He had been found abandoned in an apartment in east Renton, the tenants were being evicted. It was December 2003 and there was no electricity! He was happy to come home with us. But spring came around and he saw Persi sitting outside in the sun, and I was out working in the garden. He spent two weeks at the back screen door yelling his head off. We finally took him to the vet for all his shots and set him free upon the world. He wouldn't have had it any other way.

It doesn't stop me from trying to make Steve promise that our next cat will stay an indoor cat.

Switch was always a very hungry cat. He never got over being abandoned with inappropriate food, lacking the proper nutrition at a young age. He was grabby, and could reach the edge of the counter and dangle by his claws trying to get something from you. He had an incredible attitude that switched instantly from loving to fighting. Thus his name, which Steve figured out within just hours of his first arrival in our home. He was a punk, a bully, but so adorable and loving when he was in the mood it was impossible to not dote on him and appreciate his positive traits. In fact, since we lost Persi he even started taking over lap duty in the evenings on Steve's lap - the biggest thing Steve missed after Persi was gone.

Switch was twitchy yet he had his routine. After coming in from his morning romp (or any outdoor period), he would hunt me down and run up on my desk, up my arm and onto my shoulder, around my head and down the other side to lay curled up in my arms. It kept me from getting ANYthing done. But it only lasted a minute or two. He had an amazing yummy outdoor kitty smell and he would purr so loudly. And suddenly he would be done and would jump down and go off by himself, or play with Havana or a toy, or terrorize Cheerio.

Switch was so possessive about food that he left a small toy in each of the cat feeders downstairs. It was his way of reserving them for himself and the other cats always had to eat around his toys. You could take them out all day, he would just put them right back in.

Switch spent much of his time staring at the ground at his feet. You would never know from a distance he wasn't a statue or in a trance. You had to be outside and real close by to notice that the ground beneath his feet was actually moving, the mole living beneath the cedar tree tunneling somewhere new. He has spent his entire life trying to catch that mole.

And that's where we have buried him, under the cedar tree, in his favorite spot, forever a sentry against invading mole folk. I knew exactly which cat statue I wanted to mark his grave, and exactly where to find it (barely before closing time). It will be a daily reminder of the joy he brought into our lives. I've placed it on his grave, along with his food dish toys and a candle that will burn all night.

Sharing my grief makes the load lighter. It will help his memory live on, for me and for others.