Sixteen and a half years ago a tiny, mostly black, bundle of fluff was born underneath Peter's bed. Peter found all his brothers and sisters good homes, but no-one wanted the ‘big cat’ so Charlie chose Peter with the condition that he must pretend to be a dog. They lived the bachelor life together then I came along and we became a family. We invaded his space with bunnies, then a dog that was actually a real dog... but he loved them all.
Then along came an unfurry sibling - he loved her more than anything. He head butted her on their first meeting and by the time she'd figured out how to hold her head up she was head butting him back. They had a bond like no other. He was probably the friendliest un-typical-cat-like cat ever – he managed to make a few non-cat people change their minds after meeting him. He never scratched, or hissed, or decided mid-pet that he’d had enough. He could have powered Austin with his purrs alone. He was our purr-bucket.
Last week our dear Charlie passed away. He will be missed so much by us all. We’ll miss his goofy gallops around the house, his constant ‘talking’ and waking to find him asleep on our heads. We’ll miss being tripped up as we attempt to walk from one room to another. We’ll miss watching him and Havi interact without words but both knowing exactly what’s been said. We’ll miss having white clothes covered in black hair and black clothes covered in white hair. We’ll even miss standing in freshly hacked up hairballs first thing in the morning.
Havana says we’ll see you in the rainbows… I believe she’s right.
It's a tough thing for Havi to go through, but she's doing well. He's buried in the garden and she goes out to say hi to him and tell him she loves him. She mentions him every day and asks how long we're going to be sad for... she doesn't like being sad. We tell her to remember the good times - then we laugh over his silliness.
We love you Charlie and you were the best cat ever.
Today I came across this album on Facebook that I'd created and called "True Love" - they really were two peas in a pod.
Charlie Barley McFarley - Dec 10th 1994 - June 20th 2011 ♥♥
